Egypt’s Alexandria was one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, but because of the uneven preservation and excavation of its monuments, scholars have been reluctant to undertake a comprehensive study of its architecture. Judith McKenzie’s The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt: 300 BC to AD 700 is a great step in rectifying this, arguing that Alexandria’s importance as a center of architectural innovation cannot be overlooked. McKenzie credits the ancient city’s artisans with a wide variety of architectural and decorative innovations, leading to the creation of an Alexandrian style which spread throughout the Mediterranean and Near East and affected the development of monumental architecture for over a millennium.

Rather than be daunted, as others have, by the poor preservation of ancient Alexandria, McKenzie makes the most of alternative sources to reconstruct the city’s phases. She includes various ancient texts—Arab histories and travelogues, and the usual Greek and Roman authors—as well as pictorial representations of monuments from wall-paintings, mosaics, coins, and various small finds. Most importantly, she has assembled mountains of fragmental architecture, including capitals, columns, pieces of architraves, and other surviving blocks. Many of these pieces were previously unpublished or overlooked by scholars, buried in museum storage or littering the open-air archaeological parks of Alexandria. Reassembling information on these pieces must have been a Herculean task, and McKenzie goes far beyond merely cataloguing the beautiful details: she traces subtle shifts in their style over time and uses them as evidence of the development of the Alexandrian architectural style.

McKenzie endeavors “to provide the overview of a handbook on [Alexandria’s] architecture, while also functioning as a reference book” (1), and here she is extremely successful: her writing is clear and accessible, and well-organized by historical period into four major sections, each with an introductory summary. She also provides useful aids such as chronologies, an extensive glossary, and excellent diagrams of architectural components that are well-labeled with the technical terms for many parts and features. The book is beautifully illustrated with hundreds of photographs of extant structures and surviving architectural fragments, as well as examples of ancient paintings and mosaics. Excavation plans from the archaeological sites help clarify the current state of the evidence, and artistic reconstructions of lost monuments give a sense of the city’s architectural grandeur.

The book begins (in part 1) with an overview of the city’s long history, from Ptolemaic times through the Arab Conquest and beyond. The difficulty in studying the site becomes immediately clear: successive phases of occupation have buried earlier structures, and the modern city prevents systematic excavation of the ancient site. However, archaeological investigations throughout the centuries have recorded a great deal of evidence: the Napoleonic Expedition documented monumental remains of the ancient city before they were razed or buried under the modernizing plan of Muhammad Ali’s reign (1805–1849). Excavations provide detailed information on various portions of the city, for example at the site of Kom el-Dikka, where the ongoing Polish-run mission is recording several centuries of occupation. The French underwater explorations are particularly fascinating and influential; as much of the ancient city may now be submerged, efforts to map sunken blocks and statues may reveal important information about lost quarters of the city along the ancient shoreline. Compiling the data from various projects, McKenzie is able to present a partial reconstruction of the city’s ancient layout, with a surprisingly high correlation between the original Ptolemaic plan and the modern topography and street grid.

In part 2, McKenzie discusses the appearance of the Ptolemaic city. The early Ptolemies designed Alexandria into a worthy capital, not only of Egypt but of a large Eastern Mediterranean empire, and so their city was fittingly multicultural in appearance. While funding the construction of many Hellenistic buildings, they also relocated several older Egyptian-style monuments to their new capital in an effort to show continuity with the Pharaonic traditions. The intermixing of two architectural traditions led to inventive new forms, and Alexandria may have been the birthplace of the vaulted entablatures and broken pediments later seen throughout the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Decorative experimentation was also characteristic of the age: the highly ornate Corinthian order of Greek architecture provided fruitful ground, and McKenzie examines variations in the large corpus of examples from Alexandria. She argues convincingly that Alexandria was a major center for the early development of the Corinthian order, and that one of the most widespread types of Corinthian capital, found throughout the Mediterranean world, is in fact a locally developed Alexandrian type.

In part 3, McKenzie examines the Roman Period. Given the lack of archaeological data for this era, McKenzie expands her study beyond Alexandria and includes Roman-era sites throughout Egypt. She discusses cities founded by the Romans (notably the city of Antinoopolis, founded by the Emperor Hadrian) as well as Pharaonic settlements (such as Edfu and Dendara) which in the Roman period saw continued construction on Egyptian temples alongside new Hellenistic structures. The coexistence of architectural traditions in these cities seems similar to contemporary Alexandria, and although many other scholars argue for a strong cultural division between greater Egypt and the much more Hellenized capital, McKenzie asserts that there “was no difference between the classical architectural style of Alexandria and that of the rest of Egypt in the Roman period” (xi). This is a difficult argument to make given the lack of evidence from Alexandria itself, and McKenzie is unfortunately vague about the localized style and features of provincial buildings; she admits that they vary from more classical types, but provides no specific examples or details. This is understandable given the vast amount of evidence she must cover, but has the unfortunate result of leaving one doubting the appropriateness of using provincial sites as evidence of Alexandria’s lost architecture.

McKenzie also discusses pictorial representations of architecture, especially the wall-paintings preserved in some early Alexandrian tombs, with stylistic derivations attested from as far as Roman Italy and beyond. The so-called Second Pompeian Style depicts a variety of architecture which is highly characteristic of Alexandrian types, and often has direct allusions to Egypt with the depiction of gods and native animals. This indicates an ancient awareness of Alexandria as an important and fashionable center for architectural design, and these depictions may have been one of the major ways through which the Alexandrian style was transmitted beyond Egypt itself.

The book concludes (in part 4) with a lengthy discussion of the Late Antique period. While most Alexandrian structures of the era were dismantled long ago, many fragments were reused in structures that are still extant—particularly in Cairene mosques of the early Arab period. Analysis of decorative features shows a surprising coexistence of religious traditions, apparently with the same workshops producing art for both religious communities. McKenzie provides well-illustrated examples of the intermixing of pagan and Christian figural depiction on columns, architraves, and semi-dome apses from many early Christian churches. Several well-preserved early churches outside of Alexandria are also discussed, giving a more complete sense of the structure and decorative schemes other ecclesiastical buildings may have had. Examples of multi-aisled naves and elaborately niched apses are attested, and the full range of types from complex to simple structures is attested, again likely reflective of the situation in Alexandria itself. McKenzie concludes that these styles were disseminated through Alexandria to the Eastern Empire, influencing church and mosque design as far as Damascus and Constantinople.

McKenzie closes her book with a few brief discussions of later textual sources that indicate a lasting legacy of Alexandrian architecture. Chapter 12 presents a very interesting review of the mathematic and structural expertise available in ancient Alexandria, showing the city as a real center of architectural education, thereby strengthening claims that it must have been the center from which information as well as style was created, refined, and disseminated. Likewise, the tradition of pictorial representation continued to develop in Alexandria; in chapter 14, McKenzie gives several examples of paintings and mosaics, along with manuscript illustrations that portray the Alexandrian style lasting well into the twelfth century. These final chapters are perhaps not as fully integrated into the structure of the book as they might be, but they are welcome additions that provide interesting details and enrich McKenzie’s arguments.

Spanning a millennium of architectural history, McKenzie’s theories are plausible and exciting, and the large corpus of evidence she has assembled is impressive. Not only does it unite historical and archaeological evidence, but it demonstrates the vast amount of architectural remains so often overlooked. However, there are some instances where McKenzie’s arguments could be strengthened by the inclusion of more detail and a more critical use of source material. Perhaps most significant is McKenzie’s attitude toward regionalism within Egypt; as the dataset often seems insufficient with regards to Alexandria itself, McKenzie is never quite convincing that Alexandrian architecture is representative of the whole of Egypt, or vice versa. However, there can be little doubt as to the worth of McKenzie’s study. Thoughtfully written and accessible, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt is an ideal textbook for university students studying ancient architecture, and also a valuable reference for more advanced scholars who will surely find the book to be a source of inspiration and information for their own studies.