Downtown DistrictAlexandria Governorate
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AntiquitiesRoman Theatre at Kom El Dikka

AntiquitiesAncient Alexandria

Roman Theatre at Kom El Dikka

Marble seating, bird mosaics and lecture halls bring the daily and intellectual life of ancient Alexandria into view at Kom El Dikka.

Ancient Alexandria
Roman era, most likely 4th century — uncovered in 1964
Opening hours
Daily 9:00 – 17:00
Tickets
Separate Egyptian and foreign tariffs; student discount with a valid card
Administrative section
El Attarin
Open in maps(External link)Its place in time

Image credits

What sets it apart

Thirteen horseshoe rows of marble seats, the portico’s marble and granite columns raised above them, and the bird mosaic of the Villa of the Birds.

9 documented memories

Its place in time

Ancient Alexandria · 331 BC – 7th century AD

The city of Alexander, the Ptolemies and then Rome: its streets laid on a grid crossed by the Canopic Way, and at Kom El Dikka Rome left the only Roman theatre (odeon) uncovered in Egypt.

  1. Fouad Street — the Canopic Way331 BC — the Canopic Way
  2. Roman Theatre at Kom El DikkaRoman era, most likely 4th century — uncovered in 1964
  3. Shallalat GardensOn the line of the 9th-century wall, under Ibn Tulun
  4. Remains of the Alexandria City Wall9th century — under Ibn Tulun
  5. Misr Railway StationThe railway from the 1850s — present building 1927
  6. Mahatet El Raml & Saad Zaghloul SquareFrom 1863 — the Ramleh line’s terminus
  7. The Alexandria Tram1863
  8. Eliyahu Hanavi SynagogueRebuilt in the 19th century — foundation plaque dated 1881
  9. Graeco-Roman Museum1892
  10. The Statue of Nubar PashaUnveiled in 1904, according to a museum record
  11. The Windsor Palace Hotel1906, by the hotel’s own account
  12. Cavafy MuseumCavafy’s home from 1907 to 1933
  13. The Lycée Al-Horreya1909–1910 — the Shatby building from 1913
  14. Sayed Darwish Theatre — Alexandria Opera House1921 — the Mohamed Ali Theatre
  15. Alexandria National MuseumLate-1920s palace — museum since 2003
  16. The Cecil Hotel1929
  17. Museum of Fine Arts1954
  18. Bibliotheca Alexandrina2002
  • Ancient Alexandria331 BC – 7th century AD
  • The Islamic centuries7th century – 1805
  • The Mohamed Ali revival1805 – 1860
  • The cosmopolitan city1860 – 1950
  • Contemporary Alexandria1950 – today
A corner of Fouad Street shaded by a vast banyan tree
Before it in timeFouad Street — the Canopic Way331 BC — the Canopic Way
The greenery of the Shallalat Gardens and the remains of the Islamic wall
After it in timeShallalat GardensOn the line of the 9th-century wall, under Ibn Tulun

Highlights

  • 1Villa of the Birds mosaics
  • 2The Roman baths
  • 3Byzantine lecture halls
  • 4Thirteen tiers of marble seating

The story

  1. In autumn 1960 a Polish team led by Professor Kazimierz Michałowski began a salvage dig at Kom El Dikka, where a municipal administration building was planned in place of a ruined Napoleonic fort. In 1964, as machines drove the foundations for a new theatre, part of an ancient arch appeared: it was a Roman theatre, and the building work was stopped at once. Thirteen rows of marble seats were cleared, in the shape of a horseshoe.

  2. Strictly, the building is an odeon — a hall for music and poetry — built most likely in the 4th century AD beside the imperial baths and rebuilt in the 6th. It sits within the wider Kom El Dikka site, one of the most significant archaeological areas embedded in Alexandria’s urban fabric, which also holds Roman baths, the Villa of the Birds with its fine mosaic floors, and the lecture halls of a teaching complex built in the late 5th and 6th centuries.

  3. From marble tiers to mosaic floors, the site offers a way to read the life of the ancient city: learning, bathing and gathering within one urban setting.

  • The Kom El Dikka site from above: the amphitheatre, its columns and the remains of the Roman baths
    The Kom El Dikka site from above: the amphitheatre, its columns and the remains of the Roman baths

Memories of the place

Every memory is taken from a published, documented source.

  1. 1st–3rd centuries AD

    The Villa of the Birds is one of the site’s early-Roman houses. It is named after a mosaic of birds, one of the few figurative mosaics from Roman Alexandria to survive to the present day.

  2. AD 272 and 298

    The quarter of rich houses was left in ruins by the bloody pacifications of the Roman emperors Aurelian (AD 272) and then Diocletian (AD 298).

  3. 4th century AD

    The odeon — a hall for music and poetry that people came to call the “Roman theatre” — was built most likely in the 4th century AD, together with the neighbouring baths. In the 6th century it was completely rebuilt, given a dome and turned into a lecture hall.

  4. Late 5th–6th century AD

    The lecture halls were built between the late 5th and the first half of the 6th century AD. Their excavator estimates that together they could have held some 500–600 students, and infers that they were a municipal school of rhetoric, law, philosophy and, above all, medicine.

  5. Autumn 1960

    With a municipal administration building planned in place of the ruined fort, the Egyptians asked Professor Kazimierz Michałowski, then a visiting professor at the University of Alexandria, to investigate the site. His Polish team began work in autumn 1960.

  6. 1964

    The municipality decided to build a new theatre on empty ground just south of the excavation trenches. When heavy machines began driving in the foundation piles, part of a great arch appeared: it was an ancient Roman theatre, and the authorities stopped the building work at once.

  7. 1981–2003

    The lecture halls came to light in stages: three small halls in 1981–1983, three more in 1986–1987, and further halls from 2003 under Grzegorz Majcherek.

  8. 26 May 2004

    The Associated Press announced worldwide that Polish archaeologists had unearthed lecture halls believed to be the first traces ever found of ancient Alexandria’s university.

  9. 1 April 2017

    The Kom El Dikka archaeological park opened to visitors, including the restored theatre portico.

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