Kom el-Dikka
๐ Location: Central Alexandria, 5 min walk from Misr Station ย ยท ย ๐บ Period: 2nd โ 7th centuries AD ย ยท ย ๐๏ธ Tickets: ~120 EGP foreign adults
Kom el-Dikka ("the Mound of Rubble") is the only major piece of Roman Alexandria you can wander through in the middle of the city. Excavated by a Polish-Egyptian mission since the 1960s, it has produced an extraordinary cross-section of late-antique urban life: a small Roman amphitheatre (the only one ever found in Egypt), bath complex, residential Villa of the Birds with a magnificent floor mosaic, workshops, cisterns โ and most remarkably, a row of lecture halls that have been identified as part of the late-Roman University of Alexandria, where Hypatia and other philosophers may have taught.
The amphitheatre has thirteen tiers of white-marble seats arranged in a semicircle and could hold around 800 spectators โ the venue was probably used for music and lectures rather than gladiator games. Behind it the Villa of the Birds is now under a protective shelter and its 5th-century AD mosaic floor โ twenty-two species of bird arranged in panels โ is one of the most charming late-Roman mosaics in the Mediterranean.
Highlights
- Roman amphitheatre โ the only one in Egypt
- Villa of the Birds โ 5th-century AD bird mosaic
- Row of lecture halls of the late-antique university
- Roman baths and cisterns
- Walking distance from the train station, the Library and the Graeco-Roman quarter
Visiting
- Opening hours: 9 am โ 5 pm
- Tickets: ~120 EGP foreign adults; Villa of the Birds is a separate small ticket
- Best time: any time; central Alexandria is bearable year-round
- Nearby: Alexandria archaeological sites, Graeco-Roman Museum, Alexandria National Museum