Archaeologists Uncover 1,600-Year-Old Byzantine City With Churches and Mills in Egypt

Archaeologists have unearthed a remarkably preserved 1,600-year-old city beneath Egypt's Western Desert, revealing a sprawling Byzantine-era settlement at the Dakhla Oasis. The site includes a basilica church, watchtowers, and bustling streets that offer a rare glimpse into everyday life during the fourth century.

Excavations uncovered homes featuring vaulted roofs, bread ovens, kitchens, and stone mills. These structures, along with two watchtowers and a heavily fortified building, demonstrate the careful planning of the settlement. The city's layout features broad north-south streets intersected by east-west roads to form public squares, with the central basilica overlooking a main thoroughfare.

The discovery provides one of the clearest records yet of life in Egypt's remote oases during the Byzantine Empire. Mahmoud Massoud, Director General of Dakhla Antiquities and head of the excavation mission, noted that the settlement contains all the architectural components of a fully functioning community.

Artifacts recovered from the site reflect domestic life and economic activity. The team found domestic pottery, bottles for storing oils and perfumes, oil lamps, and stone implements used for grinding grain. Diaa Zahran, head of the Islamic, Coptic and Jewish Antiquities Sector, highlighted a significant find: nearly 200 inscribed ostraca, or pottery fragments used as writing material. These fragments bear texts in both Coptic and Greek, recording commercial transactions, correspondence, and other details of daily life.

The settlement is located in Egypt's western province of New Valley and sits on UNESCO's Tentative List, a step toward inclusion on the World Heritage List. This discovery represents one of two major archaeological announcements by Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

In a separate excavation at Marina el-Alamein, approximately 60 miles west of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, archaeologists uncovered 18 ancient tombs. Among the finds was a massive 8-foot-long granite sarcophagus containing human remains. The team also recovered a damaged plaster sphinx and several bodies buried with thin gold foils placed in their mouths. This funerary practice, known as the "golden tongue," was believed by ancient Greeks and Romans to enable the dead to speak in the afterlife.

Bronze coins bearing the portraits of Byzantine emperors and gold coins from the reign of Roman Emperor Constantius II, who ruled between AD 337 and AD 361, were also recovered.

Although Egypt is best known for its pharaohs and pyramids, the nation served as one of the richest provinces of the Byzantine Empire for more than 250 years, from the late fourth to the mid-seventh century AD. During this period, Christianity became the dominant religion, towns expanded, and Roman traditions, Christian beliefs, and Egyptian culture overlapped.

Earlier this year, researchers revealed how the Great Pyramid withstood earthquakes for 4,600 years, having experienced tremors with magnitudes up to 6.8 since its construction.

Seismic events of this magnitude can inflict substantial structural damage on modern buildings located within 155 miles (250km) of the epicenter. In stark contrast, the Great Pyramid, constructed for Pharaoh Khufu of ancient Egypt, has remained free from significant internal or external deterioration despite its proximity to such hazards.

In May, experts determined the reasons for this resilience, attributing the structure's survival to the sophisticated engineering methods employed by ancient builders. These techniques included constructing the monument directly upon hard limestone bedrock, utilizing a symmetrical pyramid shape, maintaining a rigid overall design, and incorporating pressure-relieving cavities above the King's Chamber.