Alexander the Great

In 332 B.C., the ever-ambitious Alexander the Great, fresh from his triumphs in the Levant, swept into Egypt like a storm with sunshine at its centre. Egypt, weary under Persian rule, did not resist him. Quite the opposite; he was welcomed as a liberator. To the Egyptians, Alexander was not merely a foreign conqueror, but a potential restorer of ma’at, the divine balance. He, in turn, was clever enough to step into that role with both reverence and strategy.

Upon his arrival, Alexander made offerings at the great temple of Ptah in Memphis, aligning himself with native religious traditions. But perhaps most famously, he made a fateful journey across the desert to the Oracle of Amun at Siwa Oasis. There, in the hush of the Libyan sands, the priests are said to have greeted him as the son of Amun, Egypt’s highest god. Whether this was due to divine revelation or diplomatic theatre, the story endured and Alexander embraced it. From that moment on, he was not merely king, but a god-son in the eyes of many.

He founded the city of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, not just a city, but a living symbol of fusion between Greek intellect and Egyptian antiquity. Though he left Egypt shortly after, never to return, the mark he made was indelible. Alexandria would become a beacon of learning, trade, and culture for centuries to come.

Alexander’s time in Egypt was brief, yet profound. He respected its gods, adopted its imagery, and ensured his place in its sacred landscape. When he died in 323 B.C., his body was eventually brought to Egypt, and interred (most likely in Alexandria) where he was venerated as a pharaoh and a legend alike.

In this way, Egypt was not merely a chapter in Alexander’s conquests; it was a crown jewel, both mystical and majestic, that helped shape the legacy of one of history’s most extraordinary men.

Tomb of Alexander

Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 B.C. Some ancient sources suggest he had expressed a wish to be buried at the Temple of Amun at Siwa Oasis in Egypt, the very place where, years earlier, he had been hailed as the divine son of the god Amun. The desert oracle had conferred upon him a celestial legitimacy that neither Persia nor Macedon could offer, and burial there would have sealed his divine identity for eternity.

But fate and politics intervened. His body never reached the sacred sands of Siwa. Instead, one of his most trusted generals, Ptolemy I, seized the funeral cortege. Initially interred at Memphis, Alexander was later moved to Alexandria, the radiant coastal city he had founded, where a grand tomb was built, likely called the Soma or Sema. Within this shrine, his embalmed body, reportedly encased in gold and glass, became an object of veneration for centuries.

Roman emperors paid their respects at the tomb. Julius Caesar wept before it; Augustus placed offerings; Caligula allegedly took Alexander’s armour for himself. It was a site of pilgrimage and power, for in death, as in life, Alexander straddled the divine and the imperial. Famously in entertainment, Cleopatra VII herself is depicted visiting the grave too. However, historical record does not shout her presence, but it hums with possibility. Cleopatra VII, herself a Ptolemy and direct inheritor of Alexander’s legacy, would have held the tomb in the highest regard. It would have been both politically shrewd and deeply symbolic for her to pay homage to the founder of her dynasty; the man who made Hellenistic Egypt possible. While we cannot say with certainty that she stood before the glass coffin, it is far from a fairytale. It is, rather, a plausible and potent piece of her connection to the past.

Today, the tomb’s location remains one of the great unsolved riddles of archaeology. Lost beneath layers of sand, sea, and centuries of Alexandrian transformation, it has eluded discovery despite countless searches and whispered claims. Yet its legend persists, half history, half dream. The body of the man who once ruled from the Ionian Sea to the Indus River still lies somewhere in Egyptian soil, his resting place veiled in the very mystery that always followed him.