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Hawass has sometimes made other slips, as noted by Hanslune some time ago on another forum.
In The Valley of the Golden Mummies (2000), American University in Cairo: 196, Hawass writes the following:
In fact, Hawass was more probably thinking of the following passage from Strabo (64/63 BC–c. AD 24), which mentions both Alexandria and Rhacotis (Hawass’ “Raqote”):
In The Valley of the Golden Mummies (2000), American University in Cairo: 196, Hawass writes the following:
Clearly, the dates of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) and Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 BC) don’t tally.Quote
Herodotus relates that Alexander then went to the island of Pharos and chose the site of an ancient settlement called Raqote as the place for a new city to be built in the Greek style as the center of Greek and Egyptian culture – what is now the city of Alexandria.
In fact, Hawass was more probably thinking of the following passage from Strabo (64/63 BC–c. AD 24), which mentions both Alexandria and Rhacotis (Hawass’ “Raqote”):
It's an easy mistake to make, especially if the author was under pressure and in a hurry. But this particular author represents himself as an authority on ancient Egypt: so surely this was the sort of slip that should have been checked before the work was published, or at least acknowledged and corrected afterwards.Quote
Since Alexandria and its neighbourhood constitute the largest and most important part of this subject, I shall begin with them. The sea-coast, then, from Pelusium, as one sails towards the west, as far as the Canobic mouth, is about one thousand three hundred stadia — the "base" of the Delta, as I have called it; and thence to the island Pharos … Now the earlier kings of the [p29] Aegyptians, being content with what they had and not wanting foreign imports at all, and being prejudiced against all who sailed the seas, and particularly against the Greeks (for owing to scarcity of land of their own the Greeks were ravagers and coveters of that of others), set a guard over this region and ordered it to keep away any who should approach; and they gave them as a place of abode Rhacotis, as it is called, which is now that part of the city of the Alexandrians which lies above the ship-houses, but was at that time a village; and they gave over the parts round about the village to herdsmen, who likewise were able to prevent the approach of outsiders. But when Alexander visited the place and saw the advantages of the site, he resolved to fortify the city on the harbour. (Strabo, Book XVII, 6)
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