In the ancient times, the remote desert settlement of the Siwa people in the Oasis, was particularly disconnected to the outside World. The fossilized marine shells and like forms found further South from the ancient place suggests that the desert used to be an ocean.
The Oasis is located in the middle of the harsh terrain of the desert and is surrounded by endless of perfectly flat and featureless desert land in which easily anyone can be lost. There is no natural landmarks or points of reference in the desert land, and, in the ancient times, they used the flight of specific birds to get there. Now, in recent times, a point of reference was made, marking exactly half way in the desert before reaching the Oasis, with an isolated roadside cafeteria with its own mosque. The road then dips and descends into the Oasis.
Siwa's settlement with its own specific language was known in ancient Egypt as the Land of Palms, and home for countless centuries to the legendary Oracle of Ammon.
The temple is set on a cliff, at the edge of a rock hill. The floor plan of it reveals a hidden passage and a chamber in which it would have been possible for a person or entity to conceal itself. Whatever was said or happened to Alexander the Great here, he took it with him to his grave 8 years later. Extensive works have been undertaken to prevent, or at least postpone, its toppling.
From the temple, a lush expanse of Palms make the more substantial Siwa Shali fortress be overlooked. The fortress itself is on height about 4 km away from the temple making it looks like 2 Islands on a green sea. The location provides the necessary impact rather than the scale of the unimpressive physical layout of the temple, enclosed by the remains of the ancient Siwa town, which, like the fortress has crumbled over time. The village was abandoned in early 20th century, after prolonged rainfall caused the mud-mortared structures, built from broken bits of the ancient temple, to collapse. In the modern Siwa town the fortress towers above its center, around its base is the town square and market with its grocers, butchers, eateries and coffee shops; also there is a busy trade in handicrafts and furniture.
It is here where that the distinction between Siwan culture and that of Cairo and the Nile Valley is at its most striking view. In a ruinous state, the old town still looks attractive even though the evidence on a large scale of inexorable time have changed it. Whatever it once was, it has been eroded both by weather and by the shifting sands of human needs and aspiration. Much of its fallen structures done by the forces of nature, especially the palm wood beams that held the buildings together have been recycled by the today Siwans for the building of new homes elsewhere. In Siwa language, differences between what was and what is, between private and public is very complex and sometimes looks very contradictory.
The Siwa Shali fortress, at the hub of the Oasis, was the fortified home of the Siwan families in the ancient times, and its people only slept within its fortified walls. The ancient remains of the town still crumble there. Just a few miles South of the town, are the home of parallel dunes, a sea of sand, some of them as high as 50 meters.
Outside the fortified walls, and inside the date palm gardens, lived the Zaggalah. They were men employed by wealthy Siwans to tend the gardens, and it was not permitted to them to marry before the age of 40. They constitute a separate social class in Siwan society, and for the Zaggalah, who would rarely was able to see a woman, homosexuality was commonplace. Even formal marriages between man and boy were accepted. King Fu'Ad of Egypt pronounced the custom forbidden in 1928, when he visited the Oasis, but the practice has continued in secrecy.
The traditional Siwa people has its own way of life and its custom is very particular according to its purpose in the affairs of their world. Women has their face covered and men are not able to see them uncovered in their everyday life. Married women rarely leave their home, except to visit relatives, but never go alone. Women wrap themselves in traditional Tarfottet, a blue embroidered garment made in the Nile Valley exclusively for the Women of the Oasis, that covers them head to foot. Siwan women have long been famed for all their public modesty, and for the finery of their garment and jewelry, the display of which is confined to private time and space.
The Oasis was visited by Alexander the Great and Ptolomy, his right hand as chief of his army, to seek legitimacy as holder of the power to make him ruler of the whole World and Ptolemy as the one in charge of the designing plan for the transmission of such power to the future generations. They bathed themselves in the deep and hot pool of water of the Oasis, surrounded by a strange garden of dates.
The Spring is circular and hemmed in by a low wall and surrounded on all sides by date palms. From time to time bubbles rise through the clear water from its depths giving an impression that the Spring boils at that specific time that usually is during the night. The warm temperature is constant, but feels different to a cold hand at midnight than to a hot hand in the afternoon. Where the pool of hot water makes a clearing in the groves, the sky forms a starlit canopy.
The name of the Spring varied since it was open to the World and it is also known as Ayn al-Hammam,
the Spring of Bath, but it is referred more often these days as Cleopatra's Bath.
The Siwan's language is only comprehended by its particular inhabitants and not known by the neighboring people, as it occurs with its closest neighbors, the inhabitants of Marsah, on the side of the Libyan border.
In our time, the deep pool of water of the Oasis, home of the date gardens surrounding the place, is already more connected to the outside World, thanks to the completion of the asphalt road that reach the place, done in the mid-eighties. This is Ammon territory and its temple erected in its honor is just steps away from the pool of water, and beyond that is the Oracle itself, perched on the Hill of Aghurmi.
The Siwans of today have internet connections, and mobile phones, making it very accessible and easy to welcome any traveler who wants to visit the place. The fact that the place now has plans to accommodate commercial flights at a nearby airport will also make it easy for travelers who do not want to experience the long hours of traveling by ground transportation, in the very near future.
From the ancient town where the ancient Siwans used to live, there is another Spring, the Spring of Juba (Ayn al-Gubah). Also, close to it, is Bir Wahed where there are hot and cold Springs. A run-off water from the hot Spring is used to irrigate a small garden. The garden bring birds so its singing can be heard around because its sound is trapped by the dunes on all sides. These type of birds were the ones who guided Alexander the great and his companion to the Oasis in the middle of the desert.
From the crest of a dune at the sun setting time the deep desert can be contemplated as nothing but dunes interspersed with rocky crags from the Qattara Depression to the Sudan. Al close quarters the sand is as beguiling as it is in the distance. Patterns are all around as a result of wind and time. Some of them were not there a day before but today they are and will be vanished tomorrow. Other patterns seems to take longer, looking undisturbed, with no probability of taking a shape, even though the World outside them change quickly.
Travelers get to the Oasis for New Year celebrations in which a gathering is concentrated there. Fires are lit and goats are roasted over the fires on spits. A circle of Siwans then plays drums and pipes and one of them dances around the circle. Even though the coming of the New Year means nothing to them they invite the visitors to perform whatever they feel to do along with their music. Some of the travelers fall in love with the deep sound of the notes played by the musicians and its instruments and get possessed by it and start dancing around the fire suggestively without control. This behavior is judged inappropriate by conservative travelers who have a different perspective about the nature of the place and are not moved to fall and get possessed by the sound of the notes. The music is very percussive with a distinctive and repetitive pattern targeting the subconscious of the visitor. The only light in the area comes from the fires used to roast the goats making it looks like a kind of ritual.
A kind of sensory deprivation of having being separated from the supposedly safe and familiar vertical way of modern city life environments is somehow felt in the emotions of the ground travelers who spend 9 hours of traveling in flat and straight road surrounded by desert land.
The image of the new town built in the middle of the desert by the Shiva people of today around the ruins, particularly on the margins at the foot of the hill where the old town used to be make the visitor think about what is the meaning of life. The new houses of today have been built from the wood of the old and beautiful palm tree garden that existed long ago, and some of them now serve as a lodging place to accommodate travelers of the today world, after having a very long trip across the desert land.
From Cairo to Marsah Matruh on Egypt's Mediterranean Coast, the traveling by ground transportation is 5 hours across the flat land, and from there 4 hours more South West into the Sahara Desert.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Sunday, February 12, 2017
WHO WAS PTOLEMY I SOTER.
Ptolemy I Soter (305-283/2 BC) served with Alexander from his first campaigns, and played a principal part in the later campaigns in Afghanistan and India.
Ptolemy I participated in the Battle of Issus (Nov. 33BC), the 2nd great battle of Alexander's conquest of Asia, that occurred in Southern Anatolia, between the Hellenic League led by Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid Empire, led by Darius III.
During Alexander's campaign to conquer the Persian Empire, Ptolemy was the one who accompanied him during his journey to the Oracle in the Siwa Oasis, in Egypt, supposedly by following birds across the desert. The Oracle confirmed him as both a divine personage and the legitimate Pharaoh of Egypt and he was proclaimed a son of Zeus.
The earliest evidence of the place in connection with ancient Egypt is in the 26th Dynasty, when a large cemetery with elaborated tomb monuments was established (necropolis) there. During Ptolemaic period its ancient Egyptian name was "Field of Trees." Greek settlers of Cyrene, the oldest and most important of the 5 Greek cities in the region and later a Roman city, made the connection with the Oracle as mediums around 7th BC and the Oracle temple of Zeus (Amun, Ammon) took the image of a "ram." According to the historian Herodotus, the "Fountain of the Sun" was placed there which ran coldest in the noontide heat. Iarbas, a mythological king of Libya, was also considered a son of Ammon.
The Siwa Oasis, is a deep depression that reaches below sea level, to about -19m. To the West the Jaghbub Oasis lies in a similar depression and to the East the large Katara Depression. Siwa is between the Katara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Western Desert, near East of the Libyan border and 560km/348mi from Cairo. The Oasis is about 80km/50mi in length and 20km/12mi wide, and it is one of the most isolated settlements, with 23,000 people, mostly Berbers who developed a unique culture and a distinct language called Siwi. It is a branch of an Afro-Asiatic language of North Africa, and now spoken by large populations in Algeria and Morocco, and by smaller populations in Libya, Tunisia, Northern Mali, Wester and Northern Niger, Northern Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. The region is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers from at least 10,000 BC. Its fame lies primarily in its ancient role as the home to the Oracle. The solitary Oracle was a place considered to provide to its representatives or mediums, by using a form of divination, a wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future.
Ptolemy had his first independent command during the campaign against the rebel Bessus, also known as Arta'Xerxes V, a prominent Persian Strap of Bactria in Persia, and later self-proclaimed King of Kings of Persia. He killed his predecesor and relative, Darius III, after the Persian army had been defeated by Alexander the Great. After hours of intense and fierce fighting, Arta'Xerxes survived the battle and remained with Darius, his king, whose routed army eluded Alexander's forces and spent the Winter in Ecbatana literally meaning "the place of gathering, an ancient city in Media, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Medes. The next year Darius attempted to flee to Bactria in the East. Arta'Xerxes, conspiring with fellow satraps, deposed Darius and put him in golden chains. He may have intended to surrender the deposed king to the Macedonians and obtain a political gain through it, but Alexander ordered his forces to continue to pursue the Persians. The panicked conspirators stabbed Darius and left him dying in a cart yo be found by a Macedonian soldier. Arta'Xerxes immediately proclaimed himself King of Kings of Persia, but since most of the Persian Empire had already been conquered, he was not regarded as that. Ptolemy captured Arta'Xerxes and handed him over to Alexander for execution. He was executed in 329 BC.
During Alexander's campaign in the Indian subcontinent Ptolemy was in command of the advance guard at the siege of Aornos (meaning 'fortified place'), the ancient Greek name for the site of Alexander's last siege at a mountain site located in modern Pakistan. The rocky mountain had a flat summit well supplied with natural springs and wide enough to grow crops. Neighboring tribesmen who surrender to Alexander offered to lead him to the best point of access. Then the Battle of Hydaspes was fought by Alexander in 326 BC against King Porus of the Paurava kingdom on the banks of the River Hydaspes (now Jhelum) in the Punjab near Bhera. Alexander decision to cross the monsoon-swollen River despite close Indian surveillance, in order to catch Porus' army in the flank. Monsoon is defined as a seasonal reversed wind accompanied by changes in precipitation with the heating of land and sea.
The Battle historically opened up India to Greek political and cultural influences which continued to have a profound impact in the following centuries.
When Alexander died in 323 BC, Ptolemy is said to have instigated the resettlement of the empire made at Babylon. Through the Partition of Babylon, he was appointed satrap of Egypt. In 321BC, Perdicass, the imperial regent, attempted to invade Egypt only to fall at the hands of his own men. He was murdered in his tent by two of his subordinates. Ptolemy was consistent in his policy of securing a power base, while never succumbing to the temptation of risking all to succeed Alexander. His first goal was to hold Egypt securely, and his second was to secure control in the outlying areas: Cyrenaica and Cyprus, as well as Syria, including the province of Judea. Ptolemy seems to have mingled as little as possible in the rivalries between Asia Minor and Greece; he lost what he held in Greece, but re-conquered Cyprus in 295/294. Cyrene, after a series of rebellions, was finally subjugated about 300 BC and placed under his stepson Magas.
In 289, Ptolemy made his son by Berenice -Ptolemy II Philadelphus- his co-regent. His eldest legitimate son, Ptolemy Keraunos, whose mother Eurydice, daughter of Antipater, had been repudiated, fled to the court of Lysimachus. Ptolemy also has a consort, Thais, a famous Greek hetaera (a member of a class of highly cultured courtesans), famous for instigating the burning of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid empire, as a retribution for Arta'Xerxes' burning of the old Temple of Athena on the Acropolis in Athens (the site on the extant Parthenon). She is said to have been very witty and entertaining. She bored Ptolemy three children. She also was one of Alexander's companions in his conquest of the ancient World.
Ptolemy I Soter died in winter 283 BC at the age of 84. Shrewd and cautious, he had a compact and well-ordered realm to show at the end of 40 years of war. His reputation attached the floating soldier- class of Macedonians and other Greeks to his service. He was a ready patron of letters, founding the Great Library of Alexandria.
Ptolemy I participated in the Battle of Issus (Nov. 33BC), the 2nd great battle of Alexander's conquest of Asia, that occurred in Southern Anatolia, between the Hellenic League led by Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid Empire, led by Darius III.
During Alexander's campaign to conquer the Persian Empire, Ptolemy was the one who accompanied him during his journey to the Oracle in the Siwa Oasis, in Egypt, supposedly by following birds across the desert. The Oracle confirmed him as both a divine personage and the legitimate Pharaoh of Egypt and he was proclaimed a son of Zeus.
The earliest evidence of the place in connection with ancient Egypt is in the 26th Dynasty, when a large cemetery with elaborated tomb monuments was established (necropolis) there. During Ptolemaic period its ancient Egyptian name was "Field of Trees." Greek settlers of Cyrene, the oldest and most important of the 5 Greek cities in the region and later a Roman city, made the connection with the Oracle as mediums around 7th BC and the Oracle temple of Zeus (Amun, Ammon) took the image of a "ram." According to the historian Herodotus, the "Fountain of the Sun" was placed there which ran coldest in the noontide heat. Iarbas, a mythological king of Libya, was also considered a son of Ammon.
The Siwa Oasis, is a deep depression that reaches below sea level, to about -19m. To the West the Jaghbub Oasis lies in a similar depression and to the East the large Katara Depression. Siwa is between the Katara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Western Desert, near East of the Libyan border and 560km/348mi from Cairo. The Oasis is about 80km/50mi in length and 20km/12mi wide, and it is one of the most isolated settlements, with 23,000 people, mostly Berbers who developed a unique culture and a distinct language called Siwi. It is a branch of an Afro-Asiatic language of North Africa, and now spoken by large populations in Algeria and Morocco, and by smaller populations in Libya, Tunisia, Northern Mali, Wester and Northern Niger, Northern Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. The region is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers from at least 10,000 BC. Its fame lies primarily in its ancient role as the home to the Oracle. The solitary Oracle was a place considered to provide to its representatives or mediums, by using a form of divination, a wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future.
Ptolemy had his first independent command during the campaign against the rebel Bessus, also known as Arta'Xerxes V, a prominent Persian Strap of Bactria in Persia, and later self-proclaimed King of Kings of Persia. He killed his predecesor and relative, Darius III, after the Persian army had been defeated by Alexander the Great. After hours of intense and fierce fighting, Arta'Xerxes survived the battle and remained with Darius, his king, whose routed army eluded Alexander's forces and spent the Winter in Ecbatana literally meaning "the place of gathering, an ancient city in Media, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Medes. The next year Darius attempted to flee to Bactria in the East. Arta'Xerxes, conspiring with fellow satraps, deposed Darius and put him in golden chains. He may have intended to surrender the deposed king to the Macedonians and obtain a political gain through it, but Alexander ordered his forces to continue to pursue the Persians. The panicked conspirators stabbed Darius and left him dying in a cart yo be found by a Macedonian soldier. Arta'Xerxes immediately proclaimed himself King of Kings of Persia, but since most of the Persian Empire had already been conquered, he was not regarded as that. Ptolemy captured Arta'Xerxes and handed him over to Alexander for execution. He was executed in 329 BC.
During Alexander's campaign in the Indian subcontinent Ptolemy was in command of the advance guard at the siege of Aornos (meaning 'fortified place'), the ancient Greek name for the site of Alexander's last siege at a mountain site located in modern Pakistan. The rocky mountain had a flat summit well supplied with natural springs and wide enough to grow crops. Neighboring tribesmen who surrender to Alexander offered to lead him to the best point of access. Then the Battle of Hydaspes was fought by Alexander in 326 BC against King Porus of the Paurava kingdom on the banks of the River Hydaspes (now Jhelum) in the Punjab near Bhera. Alexander decision to cross the monsoon-swollen River despite close Indian surveillance, in order to catch Porus' army in the flank. Monsoon is defined as a seasonal reversed wind accompanied by changes in precipitation with the heating of land and sea.
The Battle historically opened up India to Greek political and cultural influences which continued to have a profound impact in the following centuries.
When Alexander died in 323 BC, Ptolemy is said to have instigated the resettlement of the empire made at Babylon. Through the Partition of Babylon, he was appointed satrap of Egypt. In 321BC, Perdicass, the imperial regent, attempted to invade Egypt only to fall at the hands of his own men. He was murdered in his tent by two of his subordinates. Ptolemy was consistent in his policy of securing a power base, while never succumbing to the temptation of risking all to succeed Alexander. His first goal was to hold Egypt securely, and his second was to secure control in the outlying areas: Cyrenaica and Cyprus, as well as Syria, including the province of Judea. Ptolemy seems to have mingled as little as possible in the rivalries between Asia Minor and Greece; he lost what he held in Greece, but re-conquered Cyprus in 295/294. Cyrene, after a series of rebellions, was finally subjugated about 300 BC and placed under his stepson Magas.
In 289, Ptolemy made his son by Berenice -Ptolemy II Philadelphus- his co-regent. His eldest legitimate son, Ptolemy Keraunos, whose mother Eurydice, daughter of Antipater, had been repudiated, fled to the court of Lysimachus. Ptolemy also has a consort, Thais, a famous Greek hetaera (a member of a class of highly cultured courtesans), famous for instigating the burning of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid empire, as a retribution for Arta'Xerxes' burning of the old Temple of Athena on the Acropolis in Athens (the site on the extant Parthenon). She is said to have been very witty and entertaining. She bored Ptolemy three children. She also was one of Alexander's companions in his conquest of the ancient World.
Ptolemy I Soter died in winter 283 BC at the age of 84. Shrewd and cautious, he had a compact and well-ordered realm to show at the end of 40 years of war. His reputation attached the floating soldier- class of Macedonians and other Greeks to his service. He was a ready patron of letters, founding the Great Library of Alexandria.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
THE CULT OF SERAPIS.
The cult of Serapis was the one of ancient Egyptian religion that have survived the longest into the Greek and Roman periods.
The name Serapis is a combination of Osiris and Apis. He is actually the deceased Apis, a fertility god from Memphis in the shape of a bull, who had become immortal as Serapis, hence the connection with the Egyptian god of the Underworld, Osiris. The god was already being worshiped as god of the Underworld in Memphis (2nd BC), so he was not a new deity, but his cult was.
Serapis as reincarnation of the fertility god Apis, is a fertility god himself as well. This is clearly shown by the corn measure the deity wears on his head. Furthermore Osiris is a cereal god as well, and god of the underworld. Like the Greek god of the underworld Hades he is accompanied by a 3-headed dog. This dog has a strong resemblance to the Greek Cerberus, but usually a snake is twined around his body and he bears the head of a dog, a wolf, and a lion. As a revived god, Serapis is also a healing god with a reputation at least equal to that of the Greek Asclepius. His healing power is symbolized by the snake. As god of the sea he replaced the Greek Poseidon as well. Because the Greeks were not interested in the traditional Egyptian's animal gods, so Serapis was made in human form, but his traditional name was preserved. Being worship as a fertility and underworld god, he became a medicine god, patron of the sailors and his followers even regarded him as the new chief god instead of Zeus. At his temple. the Serapeum in Alexandria, he was represented as a robed and bearded figure, with a three headed dog at his right hand, and a scepter in his left hand. In this role he was a sun god, and a god of fertility and healing.
Ptolemy chose Serapis as the god to be worship by the Greeks as well as the Egyptians, and Serapis's jurisdiction extended as well and became the most popular god of the new Hellenistic capital Alexandria. Although the deity was Egyptian, his cult itself was purely Greek-Hellenistic, spreading to the entire Greek-Roman World, and his mystery cults became a threat to the traditional Roman religion. Emperors Augustus and Tiberius banned the cult but nevertheless it became increasingly more popular and reached their peak in the 3rd century CE.
The universal Serapis was therefore the right god for the Gnostic movement in Egypt. This philosophic-religious movement in the first centuries CE was a combination of Eastern religious ideas from Syria, Persia and Judaism, and Greek philosophical elements from Plato and Neo-Platonism, from Pythagoras and Neo-Pythagoreanism and from Stoicism. Gnostics believed knowledge was the only way to salvation. To them religion was thinking about the questions of life and studying secret texts, although important mystical aspects were involved as well. Furthermore they considered everything as a struggle between god and evil. There were several different fractions however, namely Jewish, Christian, and pagan Gnostics. Because they believed the World was created by the Highest God, the pagan Gnostics needed a deity superior to all the others.
In the Egyptian city of Alexandria, the most important intellectual centre in the Mediterranean and an important Gnostic centre, Serapis was an obvious choice. Serapis became the object of a mystery cult with similarities to other mystery religions as Christianity and the Mithras cult, which were both strongly influenced by Gnostic movement.
.
The name Serapis is a combination of Osiris and Apis. He is actually the deceased Apis, a fertility god from Memphis in the shape of a bull, who had become immortal as Serapis, hence the connection with the Egyptian god of the Underworld, Osiris. The god was already being worshiped as god of the Underworld in Memphis (2nd BC), so he was not a new deity, but his cult was.
Serapis as reincarnation of the fertility god Apis, is a fertility god himself as well. This is clearly shown by the corn measure the deity wears on his head. Furthermore Osiris is a cereal god as well, and god of the underworld. Like the Greek god of the underworld Hades he is accompanied by a 3-headed dog. This dog has a strong resemblance to the Greek Cerberus, but usually a snake is twined around his body and he bears the head of a dog, a wolf, and a lion. As a revived god, Serapis is also a healing god with a reputation at least equal to that of the Greek Asclepius. His healing power is symbolized by the snake. As god of the sea he replaced the Greek Poseidon as well. Because the Greeks were not interested in the traditional Egyptian's animal gods, so Serapis was made in human form, but his traditional name was preserved. Being worship as a fertility and underworld god, he became a medicine god, patron of the sailors and his followers even regarded him as the new chief god instead of Zeus. At his temple. the Serapeum in Alexandria, he was represented as a robed and bearded figure, with a three headed dog at his right hand, and a scepter in his left hand. In this role he was a sun god, and a god of fertility and healing.
Ptolemy chose Serapis as the god to be worship by the Greeks as well as the Egyptians, and Serapis's jurisdiction extended as well and became the most popular god of the new Hellenistic capital Alexandria. Although the deity was Egyptian, his cult itself was purely Greek-Hellenistic, spreading to the entire Greek-Roman World, and his mystery cults became a threat to the traditional Roman religion. Emperors Augustus and Tiberius banned the cult but nevertheless it became increasingly more popular and reached their peak in the 3rd century CE.
The universal Serapis was therefore the right god for the Gnostic movement in Egypt. This philosophic-religious movement in the first centuries CE was a combination of Eastern religious ideas from Syria, Persia and Judaism, and Greek philosophical elements from Plato and Neo-Platonism, from Pythagoras and Neo-Pythagoreanism and from Stoicism. Gnostics believed knowledge was the only way to salvation. To them religion was thinking about the questions of life and studying secret texts, although important mystical aspects were involved as well. Furthermore they considered everything as a struggle between god and evil. There were several different fractions however, namely Jewish, Christian, and pagan Gnostics. Because they believed the World was created by the Highest God, the pagan Gnostics needed a deity superior to all the others.
In the Egyptian city of Alexandria, the most important intellectual centre in the Mediterranean and an important Gnostic centre, Serapis was an obvious choice. Serapis became the object of a mystery cult with similarities to other mystery religions as Christianity and the Mithras cult, which were both strongly influenced by Gnostic movement.
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