Situated on a small hill, probably on the site of ancient Rhakotis, near the Kom el-Shuqâfa cemetery, this monolithic column hewn out of the Aswan granite and erected by the emperor Diocletian in 297 CE, constitutes a rare example in the Greco-Roman world of a column hewn out of a single block of granite. Topped by a huge Corinthian capital, also in granite, the column stands 22 metres high and until the 7th century was topped by an equestrian statue of Diocletian.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand reads Colonne de Pompei / à Alexandrie, Egypte / 1869 [Pompey’s Column at Alexandria, Egypt / 1869].

Photographer unidentified.

Many of the cartes-de-visite on this page bear inscriptions in the same nineteenth-century hand and are dated 1869. It seems likely that were all originally acquired at the same time and from the same stockist.