ARCHAEOACOUSTICS: The Archaeology of Sound 153 | Page The Pharos of Alexandria As a Total Work of Art and a Soundscape Mairi Gkikaki and Esthir Lemi MAIRI GKIKAKI, Dr., Greek Ministry of Culture, studied History and Classical Archaeology at the Universities of Athens, Berlin and Heidelberg. Email: mairi.gkikaki@gmail.com ESTHIR LEMI, Dr., School of Music, Theatre and Dance, University of Michigan, studied musicology at the Department of Music Studies, School of Philosophy, University of Athens. Email: lemi@esthir.info ABSTRACT: In this paper we are going to exam the Pharos as a Total Work of Art, connected with the soundscape and landscape of Alexandria. Viewing the Pharos through the prism of the contemporary history of art and music, we analyze the characteristics that render it a masterpiece. As a soundscape the Pharos is connected to the environment and the perception of the people who lived in the area in a refined era. In this sense this artwork connects ancient and contemporary thought as well as Oriental and Euro- pean sensory flair. KEYWORDS: Soundscape, Total Work of Art, Hellenistic Alexandria, Pharos, Tritons, Blackbird, Ancient Greek and Roman Technology. The Site he Lighthouse (The Pharos) of Alexan- dria, one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, marked the entrance to the city port of Alexandria. The Pharos was constructed in the early 3rd century BC, at the time when the Ptolemaic dynasty had reached the zenith of its power and was soon to become the landmark of Alexandria 1 . Even before the astounding construction there was, of course, the legendary site, that was sung by Homer as the home of the ever- changing god Proteus. Alexander the Great, who used to sleep with the Odyssey and the Abbreviations FD: Fouilles de Delphes (1909-2010). IG: Inscriptiones Graecae (1873-2013). PP: W. PEREMANS, E. VAN’T DACK, Proso- pographia Ptolemaica I-IX, Studia hellenistica (1952-1981). ThesCRA: Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum I-VIII (2004-2012) Iliad under his pillow, was eager to build an eponymous and unmistakably Greek city on the Nile Delta. The architect had already taken the necessary measurements when the young king dreamt of an old grey-haired man that pointed out the island of Pharos to him. Alexander exclaimed that Homer was, besides other things, the greatest architect and he immediately gave orders to lay down the plan for the lighthouse on this spot (Plut. Al. 26.5-8). The site was indeed favorable in the sense that the island lay, far enough off the coast of the Canobic mouth of the Nile Delta to . 1 A. BERNARD, Alexandrie la Grande (1966), p. 110-111; P. CLAYTON – M. PRICE, α ετ αατα τ αα σ (greek transl. 1994), p. 188; P. VITTI, “Η αρχιτεκτονική του φάρου της Αλεξάνδρειας”, in S. DROUGOU (ed), ετα Φα. τ  α τ Ι τσ, (Athens 2009), p. 302-303. This was first supposed by M. van Berchem in the 19th cen- tury. T