Alexander the Great’s tomb has been missing for centuries. Over 140 official attempts have been made to locate it. All have failed. But one rogue historian thinks he’s finally found it. He claims everyone's been looking in the wrong place…🧵

This artwork (slightly colorized) by Antoine Helbert shows a religious procession through the Mese, the main street in Constantinople. It also shows the Arch of Theodosius. It looks like he correctly based his depiction of the monument on the fragments which remain today! (1/4)

The Graeco-Roman Museum of Alexandria! 📸 me

“And you will age in the same neighborhoods; and you will grow gray in these same houses. Always you will arrive in this city.” – C.P. Cavafy, “The City”. A poem about Alexandria 🇪🇬

“His poems dealing with the history of Alexandria and the Hellenistic realm have the poignancy of intimate self-scrutiny. Likewise his intimate works of homoerotic love display, for all their autobiographical nature, the detachment of a historian.” – Joseph Brodsky on Cavafy

I often had him in mind when I walked the streets. He was so very present. It was just simply that his chair was empty, so to speak. — Lawrence Durrell, honouring C.P. Cavafy Cavafy's Flat Rue Lepsius, Alexandria

In these dark rooms where I live out empty days, I circle back and forth trying to find the windows.

A beautiful depiction of the facade of Boukoleon palace, which was at one time one of the greatest palaces in Constantinople!

The bliss of Cairo and Alexandria after four years of the Blitz. . . . The bliss of of grand young Englishmen queueing up humbly in the hall at Shepheard's while one picked one's fancy and paid the rest back for years of cold arrogance. — Diana Menuhin, recalling wartime Egypt

Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Emperor of the Romans, was “quick to perceive his duty, and quicker still to do it.” He was “a splendid worker, who chose to do and to suffer everything for his fatherland and for his subjects.” -Kritoboulos (1410-1470)

لحظات في يوم ممطر ، اللبان ، الإسكندرية. ❤️ متعه التمشيه وقت الشتاء في الشوارع القديمة

The coins of the Heraclian dynasty, Heraclius, Constans II, Constantine IV, and Justinian II

The Golden Gate of Constantinople, from my visit to Istanbul in June

C. P. Cavafy, translated by Rae Dalven

The Lighthouse of Alexandria - Salvador Dali, 1954

I sit and gaze like this for a long time, recovering through art from the effort of creating it.

“One melancholy day in September.” – C.P. Cavafy, “Manuel Komnenos”, translated by Evan Jones (Ευριπίδης Ιωάννου) #poetry #cavafy