Study: Alexandria City Design Followed the Sun

Leave it to Alexander to bring the Aten into it.

The Egyptian metropolis of Alexandria was built so that the main road aligned with the rising Sun on Alexander's birthday, according to a study out of Italy. The study, which was reported in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, quoted computer simulation data that reinforced the idea that the Canopic Road, the city's main east-west road, was so oriented on July 20, the day of Alexander's birth.

Using sophisticated equipment and calculations, a team led by Milan archaeoastronomer Giulio Magli found that in the fourth century B.C., the Sun rose less than half a degree off the direction of the road. (Alexander was born in 356 B.C., and he founded Alexandria in 331 B.C.) The study also found that a second star, Regulus, would have risen in the same part of the sky at about the same time on that date. Incorporating Regulus, known as the "King's Star," would have been a nice touch for Alexander and his city planners.

Using the Sun as an architectural tool would have been nothing new to the Egyptians, who often cited Ra (or, in Akhenaten's terms, the Aten) as inspiration for all manner of things, including rulers and their grand buildings. That Alexander chose to do so would have been entirely in keeping with his status as the new pharaoh of Egypt.