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Alexander the Great in hieroglyphs: a Macedonian king in a cartouche
25 October 2026
In hieroglyphs Alexander's name is spelled out sound by sound: ꜣ-l-k-s-i-n-d-r-s, Aleksandros, the Greek form of his name, inside a cartouche. A vulture, a lion, a basket, a door bolt, a reed leaf, water, a hand, a mouth and a second door bolt carry it.
Alexander took Egypt from the Persians in 332 BC and the Egyptian priests wrote him as a pharaoh, with a throne name, a Horus name and offerings to the gods. His names survive on temple walls at Luxor and Karnak and in the oasis of Bahariya.
A foreign name needed alphabet signs
Egyptian had no l, so scribes used the lying lion (E23) for it. That sign became the usual l in foreign names, and you will find it in Ptolemy and Cleopatra as well. The Egyptian vulture (G1) stands for the opening a. The basket with a handle (V31) is k and the door bolt (O34) is s.
The reed leaf (M17) and the water ripple (N35) give in, the hand (D46) d, the mouth (D21) r, and a second door bolt ends the name with s. Alaksandros, said much as a Greek would say it. Spellings vary from wall to wall. Scribes writing a new foreign name had no fixed form to copy.
His throne name was chosen of Ra and beloved of Amun
The second cartouche holds stp-n-rꜥ mry-imn, Setepenre Meryamun, "chosen of Ra, beloved of Amun". Both phrases were old. Ramesses II had used "chosen of Ra" in his throne name a thousand years earlier. The adze (U21) writes stp, "chosen", and the hoe (U7) writes mr, "beloved".
He also had a Horus name, mk-kmt, "protector of Egypt". Like all a pharaoh's names, these were composed by priests. Alexander himself probably never saw most of the walls that carry them.
Siwa and Alexandria made his Egyptian year
Egypt had been ruled by Persia, on and off, for nearly two centuries, and Greek writers say the Egyptians welcomed Alexander in 332 BC. He was treated as pharaoh at Memphis, the old capital. Early in 331 BC he founded Alexandria on the coast and travelled across the desert to the oracle of Amun at the Siwa oasis.
What the oracle told him was kept secret, but Greek writers say the priest greeted him as son of Amun. Coins struck after his death show him with the ram's horns of Amun. He left Egypt in the spring of 331 BC and never came back alive. He died in Babylon in 323 BC, and his body was later brought to a tomb in Alexandria.
Alexander offers to Amun inside Luxor Temple
Deep inside Luxor Temple, in the rooms Amenhotep III built, stands a small shrine for the boat of Amun, rebuilt in Alexander's name. On its walls he wears the crowns of a pharaoh and makes offerings to Amun, in the same poses earlier kings had taken. His cartouches stand above him. Look for the lion in the name.
The scenes say nothing of Greece. He is simply the king doing what a king must for the god. He may never have travelled as far south as Thebes.
Karnak and Bahariya kept his names too
At Karnak, in the festival hall of Thutmose III, the decoration of rooms dedicated to the king and to Amun was redone in Alexander's reign, and his cartouches stand on the doorway of a sanctuary there. In the Bahariya oasis, in the Western Desert, a temple carries his Horus name and the rest of his full titles.
After his death his half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus and his son Alexander IV were written as pharaohs in the same way, and then Ptolemy, one of his generals, made himself king in 305 BC. His family ruled Egypt for three centuries, until Cleopatra.
Questions
Was Alexander the Great a pharaoh?
In Egyptian texts, yes. Temple walls give him a throne name, a Horus name and offering scenes like any other king. He was crowned, or at least recognised, at Memphis in 332 BC.
Where is Alexander the Great buried?
His body was taken to Egypt and placed in a tomb at Alexandria, which visitors could still see in Roman times. Where that tomb stood is unknown today.
Why is there a lion in Alexander's cartouche?
The lying lion writes the sound l, which Egyptian lacked. Scribes used it for the l of Greek names, as in Ptolemaios and Kleopatra.
Glossary
- alphabet sign
- A hieroglyph that stands for one consonant, such as the horned viper for f. Egyptian has about 25 of them, used beside signs for two or three sounds.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- hieroglyphs
- The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
- Horus name
- The oldest of a king's names, written in a serekh under the Horus falcon. It names the king as the god Horus on earth.
- pharaoh
- The king of Egypt. The word comes from per-aa, "great house", a name for the palace that came to mean the king himself in the New Kingdom.
- priest
- A servant of a god in a temple, who washed, dressed and fed the god's statue each day. A high priest led the staff of a great temple.
- scribe
- A person trained to read and write, who kept accounts, wrote letters and copied texts. Few Egyptians could write, and scribes were well respected.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- throne name
- The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Luxor Temple site
- Karnak Temple site
Sources
More to read
- Ptolemy V in hieroglyphs: the boy king of the Rosetta Stone Ptolemy V in hieroglyphics: the cartouche on the Rosetta Stone read sign by sign, his Egyptian throne name, and the boy king's crowning at Memphis.
- Taharqa in hieroglyphs: the Kushite pharaoh's name and where it stands Taharqa's name in hieroglyphics, read sign by sign: the Kushite king of Egypt, his column at Karnak, his shrine in Oxford and his pyramid at Nuri.
- Merneptah in hieroglyphs: the king whose stela names Israel Merneptah's name in hieroglyphics, read sign by sign: beloved of Ptah, thirteenth son of Ramesses II, and the stela in Cairo that first names Israel.