Dominican mission discovers 1,305-meter Greco-Roman ancient rock-cut tunnel in Alexandria
A Greco-Roman tunnel measuring 1,305 meters in length was discovered beneath Tapuziris Magna, an Ancient Egyptian city, by an Egyptian-Dominican archaeological mission from the University of Santo Domingo.
The tunnel was carved into the rock and is 1,305 m long, 2 meters high and 13 meters underground, according to a statement released on Thursday by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The team, led by archaeologist Kathleen Martinez, found the heads of two Ptolemaic-era alabaster statues near the temple, one of which was likely a sphinx representation.
Dr. Kathleen Martins, head of the mission, explained that initial studies indicate that the architectural design of the uncovered tunnel is very similar to the Yubilinus tunnel project in Greece, but is longer, describing it as an engineering miracle.
She added by saying that several pottery pots and ceramic jars, as well as a rectangular block of limestone, were discovered beneath the mud and sand during the excavations and archaeological survey of the tunnel.
The mission is attempting to uncover a portion of the Temple of Taposiris Magna’s foundations that have been revealed by numerous pieces of archaeological evidence.
According to scientific sources, at least 23 earthquakes struck the Egyptian coast between 320 AD and 1303 AD, causing a portion of the temple of Taposiris Magna to collapse and sink beneath the waves.
North View of Taposiris Magna Osiris Temple.
It is worth noting that the Egyptian- Dominican mission was able to find many important artefacts inside the temple during previous excavation seasons, including coins bearing the images and names of Queen Cleopatra IIV and Alexander the Great, as well as several headless statues and statues of the goddess Isis, as well as various inscriptions and busts of various shapes and sizes.
The mission also discovered a network of tunnels stretching from King Marriott Lake to the Mediterranean, 16 burials inside rock-cut tombs commonly used in the Greek and Roman periods, and several mummies highlighting the features of the mummification process during the Greek and Roman periods.
Giant 66-Million-Year-Old Marine Reptile Found in Morocco
Researchers in Morocco have discovered a huge new mosasaur fossil called Thalassotitan aatrox that fills the super-hunter niche. With huge jaws and teeth like those of killer whales, the Thalassotitan preyed on other marine reptiles, plesiosaurs, sea turtles, and other mosasaurs.
It is known that at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago, sea monsters really existed. While dinosaurs grew up on land, the seas were dominated by mosasaurs, giant marine reptiles.
A researcher with a mosasaur fossil.
Mosasaurs weren’t dinosaurs, they were huge marine reptiles that grew up to 12 meters long. They are known as distant relatives of modern iguanas and monitor lizards.
Mosasaurs looked like a Komodo dragons, with fins instead of legs and a shark-like tail fin. Mosasaurs became larger and more specialized during the last 25 million years of the Cretaceous, taking up niches once populated by marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs.
Some have evolved to eat tiny prey such as fish and squid. Others ate ammonites and oysters. The newly discovered mosasaur, named Thalassotitan atrox, evolved to prey on all other marine reptiles.
The remains of the new species were excavated in Morocco, about an hour from Casablanca. Here, towards the end of the Cretaceous, the Atlantic had flooded northern Africa.
The nutrient-rich waters rising from the depths feed the plankton. They feed the small fish, they feed the bigger fish. These large fish preyed upon mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. These marine reptiles become food for the giant, carnivorous Thalassotitan.
Thalassotitan had a gigantic 1.4-metre-long skull, reaching nearly 9 meters in length, the size of a killer whale. While most mosasaurs had long jaws and fine teeth for catching fish, Thalassotitan had short, broad, and large, conical teeth like an orca. These allowed it to catch and shred large prey.
These adaptations suggest that Thalassotitan was a super predator that stood at the top of the food chain. The giant mosasaur occupied the same ecological niche as modern-day killer whales and great white sharks.
Thalassotitan’s teeth were often broken and worn, but eating fish does not cause this type of tooth wear. Thus, the giant mosasaur appears to have attacked other marine reptiles, breaking its teeth while biting and smashing their bones. Some teeth were so badly damaged that they were crushed almost to the root.
Size comparison of Thalassotitan atrox.
Possible remains of Thalassotitan’s victims have been discovered. Fossils from the same deposits bear acid-induced damage. Among these, strangely damaged fossils were found large predatory fish, a sea turtle, a half-metre-long plesiosaur head, and the jaws and skulls of at least three different mosasaur species. They must have been digested in Thalassotitan’s stomach before spitting out his bones.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Nick Longrich says, “This is circumstantial evidence. It is unlikely that we can say with certainty which animal species ate all these other mosasaurs. However, we have the bones of marine reptiles killed and eaten by a large predators. And in the same place, we find Thalassotitan, a species that fits the profile of the killer – a mosasaur specialized for preying on other marine reptiles. This is probably not a coincidence.”
Thalassotitan poses a threat to everything in the oceans, including other Thalassotitans. The huge mosasaurs have wounds inflicted in fierce combat with other mosasaurs. Other mosasaurs bore similar injuries, but these wounds were extremely common on Thalassotitan, suggesting frequent, intense fights over feeding grounds or mates.
Dr. Nick Longrich says, “The Thalassotitan is known to be an incredible, frightening animal.” Imagine a mix of killer whale, T. rex, great white shark and Komodo Dragon.”
Distribution map of Thalassotitan.
The newly discovered mosasaur lived in the last million years of the Age of Dinosaurs, a contemporary of animals like T. rex and Triceratops. Recent discoveries of mosasaurs in Morocco show that mosasaurs were not in decline before the asteroid impact that triggered the Cretaceous mass extinction.
Professor Nour-Eddine Jalil, one of the authors of the article, from the Paris Museum of Natural History, said: “The phosphate fossils from Morocco provide a unique example of paleobiodiversity at the end of the Cretaceous.” They describe how life was rich and diverse just before the end of the ‘dinosaur age’, when animals had to specialize in order to gain a foothold in their ecosystems. Thalassotitan completes the picture by taking on the role of mega-hunter at the top of the food chain.”
Longrich said, “There is still much to be done. Morocco has one of the most diverse marine fauna known from the Cretaceous. We are beginning to understand the diversity and biology of mosasaurs today.”
Shrine With Never-Before-Seen Ritual Discovered In Egyptian Temple
Archaeologists have discovered a shrine in a temple in Egypt that describes a ritual never seen before. It comes from the religious complex of the ancient seaport of Berenike, a city that dates back to the third century BCE.
Stele of the Falcon God and the Head, scale is 30 centimetres (K. Braulińska; drawing by O.E. Kaper).
The complex itself is a lot more modern having been built over 700 years later, during the decline and final century of the Western Roman Empire.
The newly found place of worship has been named the “Falcon Shrine” by researchers due to the material found that suggests a ritual function associated with a falcon cult, and dates from the fourth to sixth centuries CE.
During this time, the city was partially occupied by the Blemmyes, a nomadic group of people from the Nubian region who had spread to many other areas of Egypt’s Eastern desert.
This finding gives new insight into the religious practices of the Blemmyes and how they merged them with the Egyptian belief system. The most incredible find, giving the shrine its name, was the discovery of 15 falcons – most of them headless – buried within the temple.
The burial of mummified falcons has been found in other temples but usually only one on its own. Finding multiple birds together with eggs is a unique discovery.
A complete skeleton of an adult peregrine falcon was found in the southeastern corner of the inner room of the complex.
“The material findings are particularly remarkable and include offerings such as harpoons, cube-shaped statues, and a stele with indications related to religious activities,” Professor Joan Oller Guzmán, the Sikait Project research team director said in a statement.
Among the material findings, the stele is particularly intriguing. The stele is believed to depict a procession of gods and bears an inscription that reads: “It is improper to boil a head in here.”
A prohibition such as this in a religious temple has not been seen before in Berenike and implies that performing that ritual in the temple was a profane activity. It was likely performed elsewhere.
According to Professor Oller, “all of these elements point to intense ritual activities combining Egyptian traditions with contributions from the Blemmyes, sustained by a theological base possibly related to the worshipping of the god Khonsu.
The discoveries expand our knowledge of these semi-nomad people, the Blemmyes, living in the Eastern desert during the decline of the Roman Empire.”
The team’s working hypothesis is that this shrine is older and had a different use before the Blemmyes arrived and repurposed it for their religious ceremonies.
As Egyptian religious ceremonies continued to take place at the same time in Berenike, it is possible that these semi-nomadic people included Egyptian traditions in their practices, adding new rituals.
Shrine discovered with rituals never seen to take place before in an Egyptian temple
Researchers from the Sikait Project, directed by UAB Professor Joan Oller Guzmán, recently published new findings from the excavations of the Berenike site, a Greco-Roman seaport in the Egyptian Eastern desert. The study results, published in the American Journal of Archaeology, describe the excavation of a religious complex from the Late Roman Period (between the fourth and sixth centuries) with unprecedented discoveries linked to the presence of the Blemmyes, a nomadic people.
The Sikait Project research team, directed by Professor Joan Oller Guzmán from the Department of Antiquity and Middle Age Studies at the UAB, with financial support from the Fundación PALARQ and the necessary permits from the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, recently published in the American Journal of Archeology the results obtained from the January 2019 excavation season at the ancient seaport of Berenike, located in Egypt’s Eastern desert.
The paper describes the archaeological dig of a religious complex from the Late Roman Period (4th to 6th centuries CE) named the “Falcon Shrine” by researchers and located within the Northern Complex, one of the most important buildings of the city of Berenike at that time.
Research team. From left to right: Delia Eguiluz Maestro, Joan Oller Guzmán, David Fernández Abella and Vanesa Trevín Pita.
The site, which was excavated by the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology and the University of Delaware, was a Red Sea harbour founded by Ptolomy II Philadelphus (3rd century BCE) and continued to operate into the Roman and Byzantine periods when it was turned into the main point of entrance for commerce coming from Cape Horn, Arabia and India.
Within this chronological period, one of the phases yielding the newest discoveries was the one corresponding to the Late Roman Period, from the fourth to sixth centuries CE, a period in which the city seemed to be partially occupied and controlled by the Blemmyes, a nomadic group of people from the Nubian region who at that moment were expanding their domains throughout the greater part of Egypt’s Eastern desert.
In this sense, the Northern Complex is fundamental in providing clear evidence of a link with the Blemmyes people, thanks to the discovery of inscriptions to some of their kings or the aforementioned Falcon Shrine.
Researchers were able to identify a small traditional Egyptian temple, which after the 4th century was adapted by the Blemmyes to their own belief system.
“The material findings are particularly remarkable and include offerings such as harpoons, cube-shaped statues, and a stele with indications related to religious activities, which was chosen for the cover of the journal’s current issue”, highlights UAB researcher Joan Oller.
The most remarkable consecrated element found was the arrangement of up to 15 falcons within the shrine, most of them headless.
Although burials of falcons for religious purposes had already been observed in the Nile Valley, as had the worshipping of individual birds of this species, this is the first time researchers discovered falcons buried within a temple, and accompanied by eggs, something completely unprecedented. In other sites, researchers had found mummified headless falcons, but always only individual specimens, never in groups as in the case of Berenike.
The stele contains a curious inscription, reading: “It is improper to boil a head in here”, which far from being a dedication or sign of gratitude as normally corresponds to an inscription, is a message forbidding all those who enter from boiling the heads of the animals inside the temple, considered to be a profane activity.
According to Joan Oller, “all of these elements point to intense ritual activities combining Egyptian traditions with contributions from the Blemmyes, sustained by a theological base possibly related to the worshipping of the god Khonsu”. He goes on to say, “The discoveries expand our knowledge of these semi-nomad people, the Blemmyes, living in the Eastern desert during the decline of the Roman Empire”.
In Egypt, Two Greco-Roman Mummies Found Discarded in Sewers
Polluted water is a problem for millions of Egyptians and for the country’s archaeological treasures
If there’s any indication that the underbelly of Egypt is still teeming with priceless cultural relics, it’s the fact that a number of said relics have ended up in the country’s sewage system.
Police have found several ancient sarcophagi floating down a sewage canal in Egypt, likely ditched by people digging illegally in the area.
The mummies were originally housed in tombs located in a small village near the city of Minya, about 245 km south of Cairo on the western bank of the Nile River.
They’re now with the national Ministry of Antiquities, and based on the way the mummies were wrapped up, they’ve been dated to the Greco-Roman era, which ended around 1,600 years ago. While they were covered in many thick layers of linen, few bodily parts remain inside.
“The sarcophagi the police found the mummies in were … floating in sewage, and their conditions were so bad that they had disintegrated, according to the report of the ministry,” Nada Deyaa’ reports for Daily News Egypt.
“They had drawings of women with several colours clearly outlining and showing their faces on their top covers.”
Ministry officials suspect that the mummies ended up in the sewer because people digging illegally in the area accidentally uncovered the tombs.
Due to the severe government restrictions on digging activity, they panicked, and ditched the evidence in the sewage canals, “despite realising their cultural value”, says Deyaa’.
“The robbers may have resorted to dumping these sarcophagi in the irrigation canal when they felt that authorities were closing in on them, or perhaps when they were approaching a security checkpoint,” Head of the Antiquities Sector at the ministry, Youssef Khalifa, said in a public statement.
Despite restoration efforts not faring so great, Youssef Khalifa said the mummies and their sarcophagi will be placed in Minya’s Hermopolis Museum for public viewing.
Hoard of Islamic era gold and silver coins found behind Egyptian temple
Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered a nearly 1,000-year-old cache of gold and silver coins behind a temple in Esna, a city located along the Nile River.
Archaeologists uncovered both gold and silver coins at the temple site in Esna, Egypt.
The hoard, which was discovered by a team of researchers from Egypt’s Supreme Council for Archaeology, includes coins minted throughout different parts of the Islamic era, which began in A.D. 610, when Muhammad received his first revelation, and lasted until approximately the 13th century(opens in new tab).
Notable coins found during the excavation, which began last year, include 286 silver coins of kings and kingdoms from that era, as well as a variety of gold coins, a coin from Armenia that was minted during King Leo II’s reign in the 13th century, and bronze and brass coins from the Ottoman Empire.
Also found among the “hidden treasure” were dirhams (silver coins used across several Arab states, including today’s United Arab Emirates) minted by a variety of kings and sultans.
In addition, researchers unearthed molds and weights that were used during the minting process, according to a translated statement.
Archaeologists(opens in new tab) aren’t sure why the hoard of coins was abandoned at the temple site and hope further analyses of the cache will provide clues to the coins’ history, according to the statement.
To the south of the causeway of King Unas in Saqqara necropolis, the archaeological mission of the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, headed by Ola El-Aguizy, stumbled upon the sarcophagus of Ptahemwia from the reign of King Ramses II, whose tomb was discovered last year in Saqqara.
Mostafa Waziry, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Ptahemwia holds several titles, including the royal scribe, the great overseer of the cattle in the temple of Ramses II, the head of the treasury, and the one responsible for the offerings of all gods of Lower and Upper Egypt.
Waziri said the entrance to the shaft of the tomb at the centre of the peristyle court measured 2.2 X 2.1 m. The subterranean burial chamber opened on the west side of the shaft at the depth of 7 m.
It led to a square room measuring 4.2 X 4.5 m, leading to two other rooms on the western and the southern sides.
These two rooms were completely empty. In the main room, he added, a cut in the floor on the north side was noticed, leading to stairs that led to the burial chamber proper which measured 4.6 X 3.7 m.
El-Aguizy explained that the sarcophagus was uncovered on the west side of the burial chamber. It was directed south-north with an anthropoid lid showing the facial features of the deceased with crossed arms on the chest holding the Djed symbol of the deity Osiris and the Tyet symbol of the goddess Isis.
The sarcophagus is decorated with the usual inscriptions found on New Kingdom sarcophagi, with the bearded head of the owner, the sky-goddess Nut seated on the chest extending her wings.
Engraved on the lid and body of the sarcophagus is the name of Ptahemwia and his titles, representations of the four sons of Horus, and the prayers accompanying them all around the body of the sarcophagus.
“The lid of the sarcophagus was broken diagonally, and the missing part was found in the corner of the chamber. It has been restored to its original position. The sarcophagus was empty except for some residue of tar from the mummification on the bottom of the sarcophagus,” El-Aguizy pointed out.
Beads show that European trade in the African interior used Indigenous routes
Tiny glass beads discovered in mountain caves about 25 miles from the shores of Lake Malawi in eastern-central Africa provide evidence that European trade in the continent’s hinterland was built on Indigenous trade routes from the coast to the interior that had existed for centuries, according to a study co-authored by Yale anthropologist Jessica Thompson.
Two of 29 glass beads were discovered at archaeological sites in Malawi. An analysis showed that all but one were made in Europe. Many of the beads, like the tiny one on the right, were less than 2 millimetres in diameter.
The beads also are artefacts from a period in the 19th century when heightened European political and economic interest in the region influenced trade between Indian Ocean merchants and communities in the African interior, Thompson said.
The study, published in the journal African Archaeological Review, is based on a collection of 29 glass beads excavated at three sites in the Kasitu Valley in northern Malawi, more than 400 miles from the eastern coast, from 2016 to 2019.
An analysis of the beads’ elemental composition showed that all but one of them were manufactured in Europe using glass recipes that were in fashion around the mid-19th century. The exception had a composition typical of glass beads produced in South Asia from the 15th to the 17th century.
The beads’ provenance indicates that people in the region were either directly or indirectly trading with Europeans before the latter group had established a presence in what is now Malawi during the second half of the 19th century.
This commerce was most likely associated with heightened trade in commodities such as gum copal — a resin used in the varnish industry — and ivory that was prized in Europe and North America.
It also likely involved the capture and transport of enslaved people, who were taken in chains to spice plantations in Zanzibar and other Indian Ocean islands, Thompson said.
“It’s a dark story,” said Thompson, assistant professor of anthropology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the paper’s senior author. “Indian Ocean traders had access to European goods, like these little beads, that they could exchange for things in high demand in distant places — a story of exploitation deep into Africa that continues today. And in the mid-1800s, there was still a slave trade across eastern Africa that would persist for several more decades.”
Thompson is a paleoanthropologist whose research typically concerns much older human groups. But as she was working with colleagues at sites in Malawi searching for Stone Age artefacts, glass beads began showing up in their 1-millimetre sieves. (All but one of the beads have a diameter of less than 5 millimetres. The smallest were less than 2 millimetres in diameter.)
“Some were so tiny that we didn’t know that we were looking at beads when we first found them,” she said. “They just look like little brightly coloured specks.”
Thompson and her other co-authors teamed with Laure Dussubieux, a senior research scientist at the Field Museum in Chicago, who analyzed the beads’ composition using a technique called laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Essentially, the beads were zapped with a high-energy laser to determine their elemental makeup without damaging them, Thompson said.
It was the first time this technique was applied to glass beads excavated in Malawi, where thousands of glass beads have been discovered at dozens of sites since 1966.
The researchers used the beads’ chemical compositions to identify their origins. For example, five red-on-white beads in the study contained high concentrations of arsenic, which was used in European recipes during the 19th century to make glass opaque. These beads likely were produced in Venice, which was the centre of 19th-century Europe’s bead-making industry, according to the study. They were manufactured around the time the Scottish missionary David Livingstone was creating maps of the African interior and encouraging people in Britain to take a greater interest in eastern-central Africa. (The British eventually established governance in Malawi, which became an independent country in 1964).
A single bead yielded from one of the sites was the only example in the collection with a non-European origin. Its composition is consistent with beads produced in Chaul, a former town on the Maharashtra coast of India, from the 15th to the 17th century, meaning it likely arrived in the eastern African interior hundreds of years before the European beads, the researchers concluded.
Two cowrie shells, which were abundant in the Indian Ocean and used as currency and jewellery, were discovered at a fourth site that bore no glass beads. Radiocarbon dating determined that the shells were between 1341 and 1150 years old, which suggests that the glass beads of European and Indian origin arrived at inland communities via long-established trade networks, Thompson said.
“This tells you that people were already trading through very complex routes from the Indian Ocean, over mountains and around lakes to inland communities at least 1,000 years before Europeans began documenting their experiences in the region,” she said. “Newcomers to Africa were exploiting trade routes created through long-term Indigenous interactions.”
“It’s not simply a story of Europeans arriving and distributing their goods to people in the African interior,” she added. “The people living there had been trading for centuries for Indian Ocean goods, via established and productive pathways. Our work shows how archaeology and artefacts can reveal important information that would stay hidden if you only relied on written accounts.”
Menno Welling of Amsterdam University of the Arts and Potiphar Kaliba of Malawi’s Department of Museums and Monuments are co-authors of the study.
