The ruins (see above) lie round Fort Tewfikieh which is seen to the left as the train runs into the station. They were once of interest, but have been almost entirely destroyed by the military authorities, who use the limestone blocks for road making, and allow treasure hunting to go on. The remains are not easy to find, as the area is pitted with excavations. Consult map.
(a) About 50 yds. from the gateway of the fort, in a hollow to the left of the road, are two huge Fragments of a granite temple. Here were found the busts of Rameses II in the Museum (Room 7) and the colossi of the same King and his daughter (Museum, Court). Date of statues:—B.C. 1300.
(b) Further to the left, round the Fort, is the site of the Temple of Serapis, the most famous building on the peninsula, and celebrated throughout the antique world. It was dedicated by Ptolemy III Euergetes (p. [15]) and his wife Berenice. A few years later (B.C. 238) their baby daughter died, and the priests met here in conclave to make her a goddess, and incidentally to endorse some reforms in the Calendar that the King, who had a scientific mind, was pressing. The pronouncement has been preserved in the “Decree of Canopus,” now one of the chief documents for Ptolemaic history. As for miracles, the temple even outstripped the original Temple of Serapis at Alexandria: invalids who slept here even by proxy discovered next day that they were well. It was also the abode of magic and licentiousness according to its enemies, and of philosophy according to its friends. Christianity attacked it. Just before its destruction (A.D. 289) Antoninus, an able pagan reactionary, settled here, and tried to revive the cult. “Often he told his disciples that after his time there would be no temple, and that the great and venerable sanctuary would remain only as an unmeaning mass of ruins, forgotten by all.” (Eunapius, life of Edesius). Antoninus was right.
In ancient time the Temple probably stood on the highest ground, but with the general rising of level the site is now in a deep depression and must be hunted for patiently. An oblong space has been cleared and some columns and capitals from the excavations have been ranged round it, but it is impossible to reconstruct the original plan, and much has yet to be unearthed. Indeed it is not quite certain that this is the right temple; an inscription has been discovered dedicating it not to Serapis but to Osiris—with whom however Serapis was often identified. The columns are of granite or of stucco-coated limestone. Beneath the broken tin shelter was once a pretty mosaic. The finest object is a stupendous fluted column of red granite that lies in a pit close by; no use for it has yet occurred to the military authorities. To the south and east of the Temple were the houses of the priests, showing fine cemented passages; these have been destroyed.
The canal by which revellers and worshippers approached this shrine ran to the south, through the low land by the railway; its course is uncertain; its exit was either into the (vanished) Nile, or into Aboukir Bay.
(c) The Upper Baths. These lie about 100 yds. nearer the sea, on the slope just above the corner of the great bay that stretches to Montazah (p. [175]). When excavated a few years ago they were almost perfect. The swimming bath—lined with the hard pink cement that indicates Ptolemaic or Roman work—had at the top a double step for the bathers. All round its sides were inserted large earthenware pots, their mouths level with the surface. Of this unique building a small fragment now survives. The brick central cistern and the hot baths can also still be traced.
(d). The Lower Baths and Broken Colossus.—Continuing to round Fort Tewfikieh we reach the coast and follow it N.E. Awash with the sea are the foundations of some large baths, showing the entrance channels which were probably closed with sluices, also some grooves of unknown use. On the shore above are the hot baths of the same establishment, retaining traces of pink cement. In the surf to the left lie blocks of granite: closely inspected, they resolve into fragments of a Colossus (Rameses II?) and a sphinx.
(e). Catacombs.—Fifty yards on, at a point about half-way between the coast and the fort are a couple of catacombs, lying each of them in a hollow. One has a subterranean room, the other a sarcophagus slide. Traces of tombs and tunnels all over the area and along the low cliff by the shore.
This completes our survey of Canopus, once so enchanting a spot. Of its ancient delights only the air and the sea remain.