Description : Taposiris Magna is a city established by Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus between 280 and 270 BCE. The name means "great tomb of Osiris", which Plutarch identifies with an Egyptian temple in the city. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC and established his city (called Alexandro and then Alexandria), the city of Taposiris Magna became a center for religious festival of Khoiak. In 1798 after Napoleon landed in Egypt, he conducted a survey of the architecture of the city of Alexandria and Taposiris Magna. After the Ottoman Empire took occupation of the city in 1801, Governor Mohammed Ali of the Khedivate of Egypt decided to rebuild the modern city of Alexandria atop the ruins of the old city. In the twentieth century, excavations of the site were started under the Italian imperial governor, Evaristo Breccia. Calisthenis states that Alexander the Great visited the city on his way to Siwa Oasis, which gives credence to the theory that there must have been a town here in the Hellenistic period.
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