The necropolis consists of a series of Alexandrian tombs of the Pharaonic funeral cult with Hellenistic and early Imperial Roman influences. A circular staircase leads down into tombs that were tunneled into the bedrock during the age of the Antonine emperors (2nd century AD). The facility was in use from the 2nd century AD to the 4th century. A necropolis (plural: necropolises or necropoleis) is a cemetery or burying-place, literally a city of the dead. Apart from the occasional application of the word to modern cemeteries outside large towns, the term is chiefly used of burial grounds near the sites of the centers of ancient civilizations. ...
Below it, however, are haunting reminders of a culture that existed 1,900 years ago: the Catacombs of KomelShoqafa, "Mound of Shards." Carved out of solid rock, three levels burrow into the ground near the sites of the ancient stadium, and the long- vanished temple to Serapis, a Greek and Egyptian god.
Only in 1900 was KomelShoqafa rediscovered after centuries - by a donkey that fell through a hole in the ground and into its access well.
In the late second century, when Komel Shaqafa was an active burial site, bodies were lowered by rope down the well formed by the spiraling stairs.
In the middle of Alexandra is an unassuming stone building, almost covered in grass -- beneath which is the huge underground necropolis of the Catacomb of Shouqafa.
These catacombs were originally a private crypt, but were later extended with more roman burials.
These catacombs are called Shouqafa, Shoukkafa, es-Shoqafa -- a number of different anglicized spellings, depending on which book you are reading.
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