The enigmatic enfilade was discovered in recent months under the Hellenistic temple of Taposiris Magna, at Borg Al Arab, near Alexandria.
On the outskirts of the underground network dug under the sanctuary, a previously unrecorded worked tunnel has been identified, searched and cleaned, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on November 3.
1.3 kilometers long and partially flooded, the structure may be an ancient aqueduct built during the time of Greek rule of ancient Egypt.
Once is not custom, the find is not the work of a Western or Egyptian archaeological mission, but Dominican.
"The Taposiris Magna tunnel is an exceptionally important engineering work
," archaeologist Kathleen Martinez of the Catholic University of Santo Domingo said in a statement, presenting this 1,305-meter-long gallery. , buried up to 20 meters under Taposiris Magna and covered in places with a solid raftered vault as well as various inscriptions.
Mustafa Waziri, secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Archaeology, also hailed the discovery of this
"miraculous"
work .
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A unit of researchers from Alexandria specialized in underwater archeology intervened in support of the Dominican mission to excavate the part of the underground submerged in the waters of the Mediterranean.
Among the quantity of archaeological material exhumed from the site during the last excavation campaign, the various teams notably discovered two small sculpted heads as well as objects stamped with the name and image of Queen Cleopatra and Alexander the Great. , the first and last Macedonian masters of Egypt.
In the underwater section of the site, limestone blocks and amphoras have been identified, hidden under a layer of silt.
The Cleopatra Hypothesis
According to the images transmitted by archaeologists, access to the tunnel was from at least eight wells, located north of the Taposiris Magna worship complex.
Associated with a necropolis, the temple had been built and dedicated to the god of the dead Osiris, at the beginning of the reign of Ptolemy II, Hellenistic sovereign and builder of the 3rd century BC.
AD, to whom Egypt owes, among other things, the completion of the lighthouse of Alexandria.
The gallery seemed to trace a line from the Mediterranean to Lake Maréotis, which is much less extensive today than in antiquity.
Its outlet seems to be still unknown.
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“No specific structure or tomb has yet been discovered
,” said Kathleen Martinez, cutting short rumors about the possible identification of the tomb of Cleopatra – an archaeological Arlesian whose media researcher has sworn to unravel the mystery one day. .
But that's only a postponement.
'This is just the start of a huge underwater research project that will still require a lot of work,'
she added.
The investigation carried out by his team for fifteen years in Taposiris Magna, between sand and sea, is no longer close to a campaign.
As remarkable as it is, the tunnel discovered near Alexandria is not unique.
Archaeologists have compared it with a similar structure located on the Greek island of Samos, the construction of which is attributed to Eupalinos of Megara, an engineer from the mid-6th century BC.
1036 meters long, this old tunnel excavated in the 1970s would also be an underground aqueduct coupled with a sacred demonstration of ancient civil engineering.
Minus the hypothetical tomb of Cleopatra.