Talk:Lighthouse of Alexandria

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Contents 1 Comment 1 2 Foundations of The Lighthouse have now been discovered 3 Removed link 4 Pharos=lighthouse 5 Erased repeated part 6 Height 7 New photos 8 Revert as at 06:38, 17 May 2007 9 Greek 10 History 11 "An ancient laser"!? 12 Dates

[edit] Comment 1

Shouldn't the Pharos paragraph be moved to a Pharos entry ? Or else, remove the link from lighthouse to (nonexistent) Pharos ?

The caption for the small, medieval looking painting is exactly the same as that of the more modern engraving attributed to Martin Hemmskerck.

What "more modern" engraving are you referring to? --Centauri 23:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

What was their civilizations like? What was the people's reaction to the lighthouse?

Age 9999? Eh? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.130.190.187 (talk) 07:00, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foundations of The Lighthouse have now been discovered

Could someone please edit the article to include information that recently the foundations of the ancient lighthouse of Pharos in Alexandria were found by a team of French Archeologists.

Here are 2 links to the story:

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=54882

http://en.rian.ru/world/20051107/42010229.html

[edit] Removed link

I have removed a link to Hvar from the first paragraph of this article. The lighthouse of Alexandria was certainly never located off the Dalmatian coast. I have also removed the inaccurate statement that the lighthouse was called "Pharos" after the island--pharos is simply Greek for lighthouse. Chick Bowen 18:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I have read several books on the subject and happen to know that Pharos was the name of the island back when Alexandria of Egypt was being planned by Alexander the Great. It kept the name when Ptolemy I ruled and decreed that the lighthouse would be built. So if the island was Pharos before pharos(the lighthouse) was decreed, where did the name come from? 76.125.106.236 (talk) 01:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pharos=lighthouse

I just wanted to say that the Swedish word for lighthouse is "fyr" wich most likely come from Pharos, so it isn´t just romance languages that has Pharos as the word for lighthouse. Maybe someone should add that.

[edit] Erased repeated part

This part: "The total height of the building was around 117 m, which is the same as a 40 story building and the tower was made up of three stages: a lower square with a central core, a middle octagonal section, and at the top, a circular section. At its apex was positioned a mirror which reflected sunlight during the day, a fire was lit at night.. On the roof there was a large statue of Poseidon." was repeted in both the location and existance sections. It made more sense to keep it only in the Existance section.

Karim Rathle

[edit] Height

I changed the statement "it was the tallest manmade structure on Earth" to "it was among the tallest manmade structures on Earth." The Great Pyramid of Giza was believed to originally have stood 146.5m tall and currently stands 138.75m. Either of these numbers exceed the estimates of 117 to 134m given in the article. It is possible that these estimates are too low and the Lighthouse was indeed the tallest manmade structure. However, this statement cannot be verified, so it does not belong in Wikipedia. DHimmelspach 15:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it was the tallest structure on earth, until the Eiffel Tower. I saw this on a history channel documentary. however if you can't find a source i guess you can leave the statement. (Aweedwhacker (talk) 05:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC))

[edit] New photos

In 2005 I was in Changsha, China, and saw a pretty faithful reconstruction of the Lighthouse of Alexandria in a so-called Window of the World cultural park. The photo is available here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lighthouse_of_Alexandria_in_Changsha.jpg

I was wondering if this could be useful. I have one more relevant photo, but my friends appear in it so I have to ask them first if they agree to their images being released to the public:)

Dawidbernard 21:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I've just added the photo. Looks good to me. Dawidbernard 19:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revert as at 06:38, 17 May 2007

Reverted the page (03:47, 17 May 2007) to the previous sample (01:01, 17 May 2007) due to vandalism. 125.238.41.126 06:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Greek

The greek is wrong. The definite article in nominative singular is not"o". Transliterated, it is "ho". Could someone put in the aspirated mark - wikipedia doesn't have it in its greek alphabet.

[edit] History

The Chinese account is a mess. First, the citation is incomplete, so it is not very convenient. Second, a measurement of 200 feet is quoted, and then there is a description of Chinese units of measure. I don't think the Chinese measured in feet at that time, and the number of Chinese units is not in the quote, so that portion needs some help. I'm sure the book is related to: {{{title}}}. ISBN 0521419999. 

[edit] "An ancient laser"!?

"However, relatively recent research shows that it was, even at that time, possible to burn ships with focused light, basically, an ancient laser." I'm not a physicist, but a laser isn't simply focused light, is it, it's light with the waveforms sychronised? So therefore the Pharos clearly couldn't be used as a laser. Maybe "death ray" would be more appropriate. Somebody who knows more physics should check and delete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.19.20 (talk) 17:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dates

"was a tower built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC)" - Britannica has "it was finished during the reign of Soter's son Ptolemy II of Egypt in about 280 BC" anyone know of sources to verify?