In 1994, a team of French archaeologists dived into the water of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour and discovered some remains of the lighthouse on the sea floor.

[4] In 2016, the Ministry of State of Antiquities in Egypt had plans to turn submerged ruins of ancient Alexandria, including those of the Pharos, into an underwater museum.

Alexandria and Pharos were later connected by a mole[6] spanning more than 1,200 metres (0.75 miles), which was called the Heptastadion ("seven stadia"—a stadion was a Greek unit of length measuring approximately 180 m).

Today's city development between the present Grand Square and the modern Ras el-Tin quarter is built on the silt which gradually widened and obliterated this mole.

The building was finished during the reign of his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and took twelve years to complete at a total cost of 800 talents of silver.

[9] In his encyclopedic manuscript Geographica, Strabo, who visited Alexandria in the late first century BC, reported that Sostratus of Cnidus had a dedication to the "Saviour Gods" inscribed in metal letters on the lighthouse.

[11][12] The blocks of sandstone and limestone used in the construction of the lighthouse have been scientifically analysed to discover where they originated, with mineralogical and chemical analysis pointing to the Wadi Hammamat quarries, in the desert to the east of Alexandria.

[15] Geographer Al-Idrisi visited the lighthouse in 1154 and noted openings in the walls throughout the rectangular shaft with lead used as a filling agent in between the masonry blocks at the base.

[17] The fullest description of the lighthouse comes from Arab traveller Abou Haggag Youssef Ibn Mohammed el-Balawi el-Andaloussi, who visited Alexandria in 1166.

[16] Later accounts of the lighthouse after the destruction by the 1303 Crete earthquake include Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan scholar and explorer, who passed through Alexandria in 1326 and 1349.

[20] The stubby remnant disappeared in 1480, when the sultan of Egypt, Qaitbay, built a medieval fort on the larger platform of the lighthouse site using the fallen stone.

[24] A team of French archaeologists led by Jean-Yves Empereur re-discovered the physical remains of the lighthouse in late 1994 on the floor of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour.

Empereur's most significant findings consisted of blocks of granite 49–60 tonnes in mass often broken into multiple pieces, 30 sphinxes, 5 obelisks and columns with carvings dating back to Ramses II (1279–1213 BC).

Satellite and sonar imaging has revealed the additional remains of wharves, houses and temples[26] which had all fallen into the Mediterranean as a result of earthquakes and other natural disasters.

[28]Legend has it that the people of the island of Pharos were wreckers; hence, Ptolemy I Soter had the lighthouse built to help guide ships into port at night.

He knew, as actually happened, that in a very short time the letters would fall away with the plaster and there would be revealed: 'Sostratus of Cnidos, the son of Dexiphanes, to the Divine Saviours, for the sake of them that sail at sea.'