Stone blocks from the Lighthouse of Alexandria recovered from seafloor | Hacker News Reader

Stone blocks from the Lighthouse of Alexandria recovered from seafloor

archaeologymag.com

130 pointsgnabgib32 comments

One place I would love to visit is the Tower of Hercules which was built in the first century and based on the original plans of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hercules

We changed the URL from https://greekreporter.com/2025/07/01/lighthouse-alexandria-g... to an article that it appears to have been cribbed from, although it's not entirely clear.

It was the tallest building in the world? And it survived till the 1300s?? Wild.

This seems like an odd error for the article to make. The great pyramid in Giza is nearly 50% taller, was built nearly 2500 years earlier, and still stands today.

A pyramid stretches the limits of what it means to be a "building" though. I don't know that it's a crazy thing to ignore it.

Why does it “stretch the limits of what it means to be a building?” As far as I understand, the Giza pyramid was built block by block like any other building. Both building probably didn’t many people going to the office every day in them, although the lighthouse probably had some light keepers enjoying a better view than folks keeping the triangle gods happy.

It's about what you define as "free standing" i.e. self supporting, which at least means no wire anchors, but arguably also means no pyramids because they are a sort of refined mound, no ziggurats, no cheating by excavating around mountains and putting a cap on it

The aquaducts and viae were built block by block too, but they're, I hope we agree, clearly not buildings. In my mind at least, the pyramids are too close to not having an inside relative to how big the outside is -- like how you wouldn't call a mine or a tunnel a building either.

Words are fuzzy concepts meant to convey ideas. Etymologically, I imagine the pyramids are "buildings" in that they're things that are built, like you're describing, but in my internal idea of what a building is, pyramids are too close to just being a carefully shaped mountain. There's also the issue of the fact that they weren't designed for _any_ living person to stay or visit, pushing it closer to a "monument" or "memorial" or something than a "building" in my mind.

Interestingly, if there were more internal space or if they were actively used by people (at any point in history) instead of just being left to the dead in the sands of time then it'd be a lot less clear-cut for me.

I'm not totally sure how other people use that word, but a (obviously biased) survey of the top 10 people I knew would care and respond quickly unanimously called the pyramids of giza "not buildings," the most common alternative description being a "monument."

Kufu's pyramid was actively used. It's the only likely reason for the design of it's portcullis, which doesn't defend as well against entry as previous designs, and is equipped for repeated opening. Plenty of information on the topic here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItAQSrlG9WQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Qe7xDf_ks

Your reasoning is well taken and haven recently read Hofstadter's "Surfaces and Essences" the idea of what is a thing and what is not is fascinating.

Some of the criteria are questionable to me. For example, some monuments or memorials are still buildings, such as a mausoleum. Would your survey respondents deny a mausoleum is a building?

I could also ask myself, would I consider the Statue of Liberty a building? It is in active use; it has some usable interior volume; it is free-standing above the surface. And yet I hesitate to call it a building more than I hesitate to agree a lighthouse is a building.

Without exploring etymology, what strikes me as interesting here is that buildings are generally structures in which we live or work. Mausoleums and pyramids are interesting in this regard because they are the opposite: they are places for the dead. Perhaps it is this use rather than the actual form that is cause for debate in the description of building, given that a building can take so many forms even in our agreed definition of the term.

Wikipedia on Pharos says “height estimated at between 115 and 145 meters (384 – 469 ft)”

At the upper bound, it was (almost) taller than the great pyramid (146m originally).

This being to mind the open source game 0AD (https://play0ad.com).

I could be misremembering but I’m pretty sure the lighthouse is one of the wonders you can build in the game.

  Check it out if you’ve never given it a go. Built by a tonne of volunteers who aim for historically accurate soldiers and buildings in this Age of Empires like RTS game.

Seems like there's a gulf between the artist's computer rendering and the mosaic.

i dare say archaeologists have multiple depictions of the lighthouse, considering how famous it was.

It wasn't a rendering by an artist, it's just an autogenerated Midjourney image.

Are you talking about the 3D rendering in the article? The source is linked, and it was uploaded to Wikimedia in 2013.

Edit: Oh! I see, the article URL was changed after you made your comment and before I made mine.

Was the point of light houses to attract trade?

To help ships navigate. Being 100 meters tall it would be visible from quite a distance off shore, something like 36km or 22 miles, before land itself could be seen.

> The Lighthouse, or Pharos of Alexandria... stood more than 100 meters tall above the island of Pharos, guiding ships safely through Alexandria’s treacherous coastal waters

Note that making navigation safer would also benefit trade. Given the choice of landing in a port that was difficult to find and one that had such a lighthouse as a guide...

It's only a 1 bit signal that says "don't come here" isn't it? I've seen claims that lighthouse helps ships somehow navigate difficult waves and I'm always curious how exactly one high lamp do that. Saying that it "guides" is a bit of an overstatement isn't it? Like saying that a road sign saying "dangerous hole here" guides riders navigate the road.

A lighthouse is in a known location and has a known height. It allows you to identify your present location with great accuracy - the horizontal angle gives direction and the vertical angle gives distance.

If you know your location you can do a much better job of avoiding known hazards.

Thanks! I didn't think about that dimension. The information resolution still feels a bit too low for my liking (I thought it'd help a ship zigzag with precision), but I guess it's much much better than none.

I just realized that if there's 3 of them, it'd constitute an ancient GPS isn't it. Or even only two?

Motor powered ships don't zig zag. Sail powered ships need to tack and gybe to go directly upwind and downwind, but TBH in busy harbours with navigation hazards and a lot of commercial traffic most would furl the sails and use the motor for safety.

You might be interested in "lead marks" which are two signs visible from a distance. They "lead" ships by providing a straight path through difficult passages when the two signs line up. Very simple and effective.

Note that modern lighthouse lights either rotate or blink, the flash frequency is unique and marked on charts to further help identify location at night.

Lighthouses fulfill roughly the same purpose as hazard signs on freeways — everyone makes more money when ordered goods actually arrive. Rocks on the sea are more dangerous than falling rocks on the roads.

Monument lighthouses have an extra purpose: they project power and wealth. Merchants know this place is Important. Like modern day monuments, whether people need a giant expensive building/statue/obelisk to learn this or it’s just a vanity project for the ruler is a matter of opinion. People aren’t really all that different over the last 2000 years.

[stub for offtopicness]

[original URL was https://greekreporter.com/2025/07/01/lighthouse-alexandria-g... - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44598029]

> Interpretation of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Credit: Midjounrey / Open Domain / Free Use

In addition to not paying artists for interpretations, they also apparently do not pay editors to proofread.

A human artist rendering would not have changed how anyone consumes this article. In fact it may even be less realistic given how artists are not experts in every field and more often than not take wide liberties (see dinosaurs)

I think they're commenting on "Midjounrey"

If you care, you can hire an artist and a subject matter expert to collaborate and produce accurate (to current scientific knowledge) renderings.

Or even an artist who has prior experience creating accurate renderings from archeological data.

If you care.

Using Midjourney to visualize a historical structure like this is not just lazy, it's very misleading.

Especially when there are actual digital recreations, available for free use under Creative Commons, based on historical information and modern surveys: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PHAROS2013-3000x2250...

I dont understand your comment

Your comment implies that (some) article images are somehow the result of LLMs. I don't think that is the case at all based on the articles' source attributions.

Check the original article link posted above

Reply on news.ycombinator.com