> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://theegyptfiles.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Lighthouse of Alexandria: 22 giant blocks raised to build a digital twin - URL: https://theegyptfiles.com/lighthouse-of-alexandria-22-blocks-digital-twin/ - Published: 2026-10-22T11:01:24.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-22T11:01:24.000Z - Description: In 2025 a team lifted 22 of the Lighthouse of Alexandria's largest blocks from the harbour seabed. The aim, the project says, is a scientific digital twin of the lost tower. - Author: J E Cowie - Tags: News The Lighthouse of Alexandria did not vanish into legend. According to the Centre d'Études Alexandrines (CEAlex), the French research centre in Alexandria that runs the Pharos Project, it stayed in operation for almost 16 centuries. Its light went out "on the morning of 8 August 1303, after significant damage caused by a tsunami that also destroyed about a third of the city." Now a French-led team is trying to answer a question that has gone unanswered for seven centuries: what exactly did it look like, inside and out? ![Map showing where Lighthouse of Alexandria is](https://theegyptfiles.com/content/images/2026/10/map_lighthouse-of-alexandria.jpg) Lighthouse of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt ## What happened to the tower CEAlex says the lighthouse was not restored after 1303\. It later served as a quarry, and its dislodged masonry sank into the Mediterranean. Earth.com reports that Sultan Qaitbay used the remaining stone to build a fortress on the same spot in 1477, and that the Qaitbay Citadel still stands there. ![The Qaitbay Citadel in Alexandria, seen from the harbour](https://theegyptfiles.com/content/images/2026/10/shot2_the-qaitbay-citadel-in-alexandria-seen-f.jpg) The Qaitbay Citadel at Alexandria, built in 1477 on the lighthouse's site. La Fondation Dassault Systèmes, which supports the project, says 4,896 stone blocks have been catalogued at depths of 4 to 9 metres, across about 2 hectares. It describes the site as now considered the world's largest site of submerged architecture, a claim that is the project's own. ## Lifting the biggest pieces In 2025 the excavation team lifted 22 of the lighthouse's largest stone blocks out of the water. The Foundation says they include monumental door lintels and jambs weighing 70 to 80 tons, the threshold and large base slabs. They also include parts of what it calls a previously unknown monument: a pylon with an Egyptian-style door, built in the Hellenistic period. Another Foundation page describes it as an Egyptian-style pylon incorporating a Greek technique. The work is led by archaeologist and architect Isabelle Hairy of France's CNRS, under the authority of Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. GEDEON Programmes, a French documentary producer, funded the barge and crane. The aim was not to put anything back up. The plan, as the Foundation set it out in June 2025, was to study and scan the blocks and add them to a collection of over 100 blocks already digitised underwater over the past decade. After photogrammetric processing, volunteer engineers from the Foundation would virtually reposition each block and use simulations to test hypotheses about how the lighthouse was built and how it collapsed. ## A model built from a tenth of the evidence The digital twin has a gap to fill. The Foundation says the underwater site represents only 10% of the original structure. So the team has also gathered ancient depictions and descriptions, from the late fourth century BCE to the early 15th century CE. These include coins, terracotta lamps, mosaics, decorated glass and medieval Arabic-language texts. CEAlex says this work on the ancient sources had not been updated since a series of studies published in 1909 by Hermann Thiersch. The Foundation says a "validated image" of the structure is taking shape. Its features include: - a rising causeway on 16 arches - a monumental entrance gate 13 metres high - a complex in three distinct volumes - 67 rooms across 9 levels, reached by a ramp wide enough for two horsemen to pass The tower stood approximately 100 metres tall, and the Foundation says it withstood 18 earthquakes. The model is being used to test its structural strength against earthquake stresses. Earth.com adds a caution that is worth keeping in view: the model's accuracy will depend on how far the fragments and the texts agree. A digital twin of a building whose underwater remains represent only about a tenth of the original structure is a reasoned best answer. That is still a real step beyond a drawing, and it is open to testing, which is exactly what the team says it is doing. CEAlex says that, for the first time since Ibn Battuta's visit in 1325, the Pharos can once again be "visited" in a virtual world. ## A separate find: a ring with the lighthouse on it A different excavation has also turned up a lighthouse image. Live Qurious reported on 7 October 2026 that an excavation led by the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology, working with Egypt's General Department of Underwater Archaeology, recovered a [bronze seal ring](https://theegyptfiles.com/alexandria-lighthouse-bronze-signet-ring-antirhodos/) engraved with an image of the Pharos. It came from Antirhodos in Alexandria's Eastern Harbor. The team there is led by Frank Goddio. That excavation is run by a different team from the CEAlex-led Pharos Project. ## The documentary GEDEON Programmes filmed the 2025 mission for a 90-minute documentary directed by Laurence Thiriat. The Foundation says it will air on 5 November 2026 in France 5's "Science grand format" series. ## Sources CEAlex (n.d.) 'The Pharos Project', Centre d'Études Alexandrines, available at: [https://pharos.cealex.org/the-pharos-project/](https://pharos.cealex.org/the-pharos-project/?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 22 October 2026). La Fondation Dassault Systèmes (2025) 'The Gates of the Alexandria Lighthouse Emerge from the Sea!', La Fondation Dassault Systèmes, 25 June 2025, available at: [https://www.lafondation3ds.org/news/gates-alexandria-lighthouse-emerge-sea/](https://www.lafondation3ds.org/news/gates-alexandria-lighthouse-emerge-sea/?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 22 October 2026). La Fondation Dassault Systèmes (2026) 'The Lighthouse of Alexandria: The Secrets of the 7th Wonder of the Ancient World Revealed Through Digital Twins', La Fondation Dassault Systèmes, 12 October 2026, available at: [https://www.lafondation3ds.org/projects/lighthouse-alexandria-revealed-through-digital-twins/](https://www.lafondation3ds.org/projects/lighthouse-alexandria-revealed-through-digital-twins/?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 22 October 2026). Live Qurious (Arvind) (2026) 'Pharos Lighthouse Image Found on Ancient Bronze Ring', Live Qurious, 7 October 2026, available at: [https://livequrious.com/pharos-lighthouse-image-found-on-ancient-bronze-ring/](https://livequrious.com/pharos-lighthouse-image-found-on-ancient-bronze-ring/?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 22 October 2026). Putol, R. (2026) 'After 1,600 years beneath the sea, the Lighthouse of Alexandria is being raised block by block', Earth.com, 25 September 2026, available at: [https://www.earth.com/science/after-1600-years-beneath-the-sea-the-lighthouse-of-alexandria-is-being-raised-block-by-block/](https://www.earth.com/science/after-1600-years-beneath-the-sea-the-lighthouse-of-alexandria-is-being-raised-block-by-block/?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (Accessed: 22 October 2026). ## Picture credits - Top picture: An 18th-century engraving of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, made long after the tower was lost. Image: Engraving: Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Entwurf einer historischen Architektur (1721), public domain ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pharos%5FAlexandria%5F%28Fischer%5Fvon%5FErlach%29.jpg?ref=theegyptfiles.com)) - The Qaitbay Citadel at Alexandria, built in 1477 on the lighthouse's site. Photo: Ziad osman, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/?ref=theegyptfiles.com) ([Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citadel%5Fof%5FQaitbay%5Falexandria1.jpg?ref=theegyptfiles.com)) - Map: drawn from [Natural Earth](https://www.naturalearthdata.com/?ref=theegyptfiles.com) (public domain) and [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43244?ref=theegyptfiles.com).