Hellenistic Alexandria: Celebrating 24 Centuries – Papers presented at the conference held on December 13–15 2017 at Acropolis Museum, Athens

Hellenistic Alexandria: Celebrating 24 Centuries' presents the proceedings of a conference held at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, on December 13–15, 2017, and includes high-level dialogues and philosophical discussions between international experts on Hellenistic Alexandria. The goal was to celebrate the 24 centuries which have elapsed since its foundation and the beginning of the Library and the Museum of Alexandria. The conference was divided into two parts, to include in the first part archaeology, history, philosophy, literature, art, culture and legal issues and in the second part science, medicine, technology and environment. A total of 28 original and peer-reviewed articles point to the importance of the brilliantly-original ideas that emerged during the Hellenistic age and the curious modernity of the whole atmosphere of the time. The range of presented topics covers a variety of new data on the foundation of Alexandria to comparison between Ptolemaic Alexandria and Ptolemaic Greece through philosophy, culture and drama to the forgotten revolution of science, medicine and the prevailing climatological and geophysical conditions throughout the Hellenistic Period. The conference and its proceedings were co-sponsored by the Μarianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation, the Acropolis Museum, the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies at Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences. The Publication also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies, a joint collaboration between the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Vardinoyannis Foundation and the University of Alexandria. Scholars from around the world follow the Center’s programme in various specialisations, ranging from historyliterature- art, to archaeology and architecture-philosophy, and science.

Table of Contents

Opening of Hellenistic Alexandria Conference

Wednesday 13 December 2017

Address by Mrs Marianna V. Vardinoyannis

Address by the Honorable Dr Mostafa El Feki

Address by Professor Ashraf Farrag

Address by Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis

Why Hellenistic Alexandria?

Address by Professor Christos Zerefos

Address by His Beatitude Theodoros II

Address by H.E. Prokopios Pavlopoulos

Part 1: Archaeology, History, Philosophy, Literature, Art, Cultural Heritage and Legal Issues

New data concerning the foundation of Alexandria – by Jean-Yves Empereur

The navy of Ptolemaic Alexandria – by Emad Khalil

Twenty years of underwater archaeological and geophysical surveys in Alexandria by the Greek Mission (1998-2017) – by Harry E. Tzalas

Macedonian elements in Alexandria – by Angeliki Kottaridi

The early Greek presence in Alexandria – by M. Abd El–Maksoud, A. Abd El–Fattah and M. Seif El–Din

Italian archaeology in Alexandria – by Mohamed Kenawi and Giorgia Marchiori

‘Crumbs from the Table’— archaeological remains of Hellenistic Alexandria – by Grzegorz Majcherek

Believing in afterlife in Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria. A study of some funerary paintings – by Anne-Marie Guimier-Sorbets

Graeco-Egyptian elements in Alexandrian architectural mouldings – by Mona Haggag

Alexandria in the ‘Corpus of Ptolemaic inscriptions’ – by Kyriakos Savvopoulos

From Macedonia to Ptolemaic Alexandria: the cult of Dionysos Pseudanor – by Emmanuel Voutiras

Hellenistic drama and Alexandrian culture – by Georgia Xanthaki-Karamanou

The Alexandrian cradle of philological science – by Theodore D. Papanghelis

Egyptian and Egyptiote literature as a bridge between two cultures – by Shaker Moussa

From Alexandria to Venice: Remembrances of Alexandria in the cultural treasures of Venice – by Chryssa Maltezou

The destruction of libraries in the course of history and the international law on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict – by Artemis Papathanassiou

Is the possession of the Parthenon Marbles lawful according to the contemporary English law? – by Christos Mylonopoulos