RSS Feed
January 22nd, 2015 
David Schulberg 
One of the objects discovered during illegal excavations. Image credit: Ahram online
Illegal excavations seem to be increasing lately in Egypt, but thanks to them several important discoveries have been made. Now, during another set of illegal excavations carried out by tomb raiders underneath a residential house in Alexandria, a Graeco-Roman necropolis has been found. Alexandria is the second largest city and the second largest metropolitan area in Egypt after Greater Cairo by size and population.
Alexandria was founded around a small Ancient Egyptian town c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great. It became an important center of the Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Hellenistic and Roman & Byzantine Egypt for almost 1000 years until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641.
According to the website Ahram Online, the minister of antiquities told that the necropolis, in the Gebel Mahran area, includes a collection of tombs called Likoli, which have holes engraved in a rock-hewn wall.
Several object were unearthed as tomb raiders were illegally digging under a residential house, finding 20 clay lamps, 18 glass bottles and a large number of clay pots and other objects of important historical value.
This discovery is important as archaeologists believe it will give further insight into the production of pottery during that period.
The ministry of antiquities is planning several archaeological missions to the site where excavations will continue in the hope to unearth more material that will allow archaeologists and scholars to better understand how people lived and worked in this period.
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ancient-code/feednow/~3/IBIqBoTo5BI/
Views: 0
Posted in 
