Alexandria of Egypt and the Archaeoastronomy

Alexandria of Egypt was founded by Alexander the Great. The layout of the town was based on a grid of streets, crossing at right angle. The main street was the Dromos, also known as Canopic Road. Here we consider this road and the astronomical orientations of it, as given by literature. Solar orientations had been considered by Martin Erdmann in 1883, in the framework of a theory proposed by Heinrich Nissen in 1869. Nissen, defined by Clive Ruggles as one of first modern archaeoastronomers, answered proposing an orientation according to the rising of Canopus and Regulus, the heart of the Lion. More recently, the orientation of the Canopic Road was linked to the sunrise on Alexander's birthday. However, in this case, chronology becomes relevant for the conversion from a lunisolar calendar to the proleptic Julian calendar. Actually, it is impossible to give the precise date of Alexander's birthday.