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Ever since the third century B.C.E., when the Ptolemaic dynasty erected a monumental lighthouse on the Alexandrian coast, people have been fiddling with combinations of fire, mirrors, and lenses, in the hope of producing a stronger beacon.—Dorothy Wickenden, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2023 Hair-raising accounts of a similar sea monster were recorded by Alexandrian scribes as early as the second century A.D.; these accounts spread through Europe and Asia in Arabic, Coptic, Latin and Old English translations.—Nina Goldman, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 June 2023