Wonders of the World

While on the treadmill Tuesday evening I watched a NOVA about a search for the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The program was interesting enough, showing how things progressed by exploring and mapping an underwater area, searching more within it, and finding ruins that were interesting if perhaps not the original things sought. Some of these were brought up to land from the sea floor, to much celebration of everyone, not just the researchers.

One thing that was mentioned was that many Egyptian structures used stone from earlier structures as each new ruler wanted to put his own mark on things seemingly without too much regard for whoever came before. That got me to wondering what someone from ancient Alexandria would make of the researchers and the effort to bring ancient artifacts to light. What such a person would think is unknowable but does make for interesting speculation.

Would there be pride, that something of that age or era was still of interest all these centuries later? Would there be amusement at that, since they tended to change things around, so what's all the fuss about? Would there be astonishment that modern folks bothered at all with things so far past in what would surely seem an age of miracles?

There I was, an ordinary person, not a ruler or noble of any sort, exercising because my daily routine for living lets me easily consume more calories than I need to burn to work and stay alive. I was watching this show, which was recorded, on TV. The station had a feed from a geosynchronous satellite. The divers had tanks of compressed air and regulators that let them spend much time underwater. The boats were power driven, with no sail in sight and no sail needed. Position measurements were recorded with GPS, then maps made with computers. Some work (ashore) could be done at night with electric lighting - and electrical power is simply assumed, almost everywhere. At night the city was bright with lights. Some people likely arrived by jet airplane from far across the globe. They likely slept in hotels with air conditioning. Probably none have encountered diseases that once plagued mankind. Likely a few had some serious ailment or injury in their lives that had been treated with ease. And all this was perfectly normal, routine, even boring. The amazing things were the getting of government permission to do the dives, the discovery of lost artifacts, and their being shown on land.

I have to wonder, what would the ancient Alexandrian think of it all?