Ancient Beacons

The History of Lighthouses

Course 8 · Chapter 2 · Ancient Beacons

The first lights at sea were fires on headlands, and the first great lighthouse was built by a Hellenistic king on an island at the mouth of an Egyptian harbour. This chapter follows the story from the Pharos of Alexandria to the Roman lights of the Channel, the long gap of the Middle Ages, when lights were kept by monks, ports and private owners, and the first coal-fired beacons of Scotland. It shows how little is certain about the earliest lights. Names, dates and measurements are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

The Pharos of Alexandria

The building

The Pharos stood on a small island at the entrance to the harbour of Alexandria in Egypt. It was built in the early 3rd century BC under the first Ptolemies, and the architect is named in sources as Sostratus of Cnidus (check). It was counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The size

Ancient and medieval writers give heights that vary widely, and modern estimates are often between about 100 and 140 metres (check). It had a square base, an octagonal middle stage and a round top, according to descriptions by Arab travellers (check).

The light

A fire burned at the top by night, and writers mention a mirror or reflective surface, though the details of how the light worked are uncertain (check). By day it served as a landmark on a flat and featureless coast.

What happened to it The Pharos stood for many centuries, was damaged by earthquakes between the 4th and 14th centuries, and finally collapsed (check). In the 15th century its remains were used for a fort, and in the 1990s divers and archaeologists found large blocks in the harbour that may belong to it (check). The word pharos became the word for lighthouse in several languages, a measure of its fame. Our knowledge of it comes largely from descriptions and coins, not from the building, so its details are open to question.

Roman Lights

Tower (check each)	Note
Tower of Hercules, A Coruña (Spain)	A Roman tower of the 1st or 2nd century AD on a headland in north-west Spain. Restored in the 18th century, it is often described as the oldest lighthouse still in use, and is a World Heritage Site (check).
Dover pharos	The remains of a Roman tower stand in the grounds of Dover Castle, beside a Saxon church. It was part of a pair of lights on the cliffs on either side of the harbour (check).
Boulogne	A Roman tower on the French side of the Channel, which collapsed in the 17th century (check).
Ostia and other ports	The Roman port of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, had a tower with a light, shown on mosaics and coins (check).

The Roman Empire built lights as part of a system of ports and sea trade. After its collapse in the west, many of these lights fell into disuse, and for centuries lights were fewer and more local.

The Middle Ages

Monks and hermits. Some lights were kept by religious houses and hermits, who lit fires or lamps as acts of charity, sometimes paid for by gifts from sailors (check).
Ports and towns. Italian cities such as Genoa built towers for trade. The tower of Genoa, rebuilt in the 16th century, is still in use (check).
Local control. In England the Guild of the Holy Trinity at Deptford, which received a royal charter from Henry VIII in 1514, became Trinity House and later the main lighthouse authority for England and Wales (check).
Private lights. From the 17th century private individuals were granted the right to build lights and to charge ships a toll, which led to disputes about fairness and profit (check).

Scotland: the Isle of May

Item (check each)	Note
Location	The Isle of May lies in the Firth of Forth, off the Fife coast, an important point on the sea routes to Edinburgh's port of Leith.
The beacon	In 1636 a beacon burning coal was set up on the island under a patent granted to a group of private investors, among the first aids of its kind in Scotland (check).
The method	An open fire on top of a tower burned coal, which had to be carried to the island and kept burning all night. In bad weather the wind scattered sparks and ash, and the fire was fed by hand.
The cost	Ships passing paid a toll, and the keepers and owners had a continuing struggle to collect it (check).
The replacement	The old beacon was replaced by a lighthouse designed by Robert Stevenson, lit in 1816 (check). It is part of the Stevenson story (Chapter 4).

Coal fires were bright but smoky, used much fuel and needed constant attention. Lights fed by oil lamps with reflectors would soon replace them (Chapter 5).

A British comparison An Edinburgh reader can visit the Firth of Forth and see the Isle of May from the Fife shore, and boats run to the island in summer (check). The Roman tower at Dover is the oldest lighthouse structure in Britain, though not in use (check). England's Trinity House and Scotland's Northern Lighthouse Board followed different paths: the English system grew from a guild, and the Scottish one from an Act of Parliament in the 1780s (Chapter 4, check).

Check the details The Pharos is known through writers who never measured it and through damaged remains, and its height, its mirror and its builder are all open to question. Roman towers have been rebuilt, so what we see may be mostly later work. Check every date and measurement against archaeological sources and museum guides.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Test the claim "The Pharos of Alexandria was the tallest building of its age" with the six questions (Chapter 1).

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Compare a coal-fired beacon, such as the early Isle of May light, with a modern electric light: what problems did the keepers of the first face?

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Draw up a timeline from the Pharos to the Isle of May of 1816, with at least eight entries, and mark the ones you would want to check.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Ancient: the Pharos of Alexandria; Roman towers at A Coruña and Dover (check)
Medieval: monks, ports, Trinity House (1514, check)
Scotland: the Isle of May coal beacon of 1636; the Stevenson tower of 1816 (check)
Method: separate the building from the descriptions of it