Cairo — Archaeologists say they’ve found proof of an historical, long-submerged Mediterranean port that was linked to the Taposiris Magna Temple close to Egypt’s northern coastal metropolis of Alexandria. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities introduced the invention final week, increasing on what’s recognized concerning the temple advanced about 30 miles west of Alexandria that dates to the Ptolemaic interval, greater than 2,000 years in the past.
The Egyptian-Dominican archaeological mission, led by Dr. Kathleen Martinez from the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Ureña, together with Dr. Robert Ballard, who positioned the Titanic shipwreck in 1985, has been conducting geological and archaeological surveys of the coastal space surrounding the temple.
Working in collaboration with Dr. Larry Mayer, from the College of New Hampshire, and the Egyptian Navy Hydrographic Division (ENHD) and the Egyptian Division of Underwater Antiquities, it was this workforce that uncovered the proof of an historical submerged port.
Dr. Kathleen Martinez
Martinez advised CBS Information that after mapping the seabed with state-of-the-art sonar applied sciences, after which utilizing software program to simulate pre-submersion circumstances, the workforce revealed a submerged historical shoreline about 2.5 miles from the current coast, together with a website with an outdated internal harbor that will have been protected by coral reefs.
Their analysis additionally revealed an extension of a tunnel linking the temple, the stays of that are about half of a mile from the present shoreline, to the outdated port. The tunnel prolonged to an space generally known as “Salam 5,” the place divers discovered basalt base fragments just like these from statues contained in the sanctuary.
The workforce additionally discovered a number of stone and steel anchors of varied styles and sizes scattered close to the reef, together with quite a few damaged amphorae that had been recovered from contained in the sunken harbor, all courting to the Ptolemaic interval.
Martinez advised CBS Information that, together with the invention of seven shafts linked to an underground passage close to the sanctuary of Taposiris Magna, linked with different subsurface constructions and a few up to date buildings in entrance of the sanctuary, the findings “strongly point out that Taposiris Magna functioned as an lively maritime zone with at the very least an internal harbor in antiquity.”
“The event of peripheral harbors, in direction of the decongestion of the central one in Alexandria, can be a matter of necessity. Taposiris Magna can be a part of the community of peripheral harbor cities, offering entry to Egypt from the west, and helping within the distribution of Egyptian merchandise throughout the Mediterranean,” she stated.
Dr. Kathleen Martinez 
As no historical texts check with a harbor at Taposiris Magna, the outcomes of the analysis symbolize a big contribution of recent information, throwing open a completely new chapter within the historical past of the location, Martinez stated.
The hunt for Cleopatra’s tomb
However whereas discovering the port is vital, she’s on the lookout for one thing else. Like many different archaeologists, Martinez desires to search out the tomb of Egypt’s final queen, Cleopatra VII, who dominated from about 51 B.C. – 30 B.C.
Whereas a lot of her contemporaries within the area have lengthy centered their hunt for Cleopatra’s tomb among the many ruins of Alexandria’s Royal Quarters, Martinez has skilled her sights for the final 20 years on Taposiris Magna.
“I devoted 10 years earlier to that to learning Cleopatra’s life and loss of life,” stated Martinez.
The traditional queen allied herself with Roman normal Mark Antony after Julius Caesar’s loss of life, to collectively face Caesar’s inheritor Octavian (or Octavius).
After they had been defeated on the Battle of Actium, they fled to Egypt. Octavius pursued them, and in 30 B.C. they each dedicated suicide individually, however they’re believed by many historians to have been buried collectively in Alexandria.
Martinez, nonetheless, believes the tomb is definitely in Taposiris Magna, about 30 miles additional southwest down Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. She considers it “the proper ultimate resting place for Queen Cleopatra.”
When she began the undertaking, Martinez offered her speculation to Egyptian officers.
“In fact, they did not consider me,” she advised CBS Information.
She stated she predicted they’d discover a necropolis on the website, seemingly from the time of Cleopatra.
“We did,” she advised CBS Information. “We’ve got already found and excavated 21 catacombs. We’ve got a projection that at the very least we’ve got 20 or 25 extra… We’ve got greater than 600 human stays and greater than 30 mummies… And we’ll uncover the tomb [of Cleopatra].”
Courtesy of Dr. Kathleen Martinez 
There are archeologists who disagree with Martinez and stand by the idea that Cleopatra’s tomb is within the Royal Quarters, within the heart of historical Alexandria. However she’s unmoved.
“It is not there, as a result of the Romans hated Queen Cleopatra. And so they wished desperately to take her to Rome and parade her,” Martinez advised CBS Information. “Octavius would have completed something to deliver Cleopatra to Rome and parade her in chains, and perhaps give her probably the most horrible loss of life that the Romans may inflict.”
“However Cleopatra did not need to go to Rome, and he or she tried to discover a option to escape from that future and he or she wished to remain in Egypt.”
Martinez stated the brand new Roman emperor may have taken her alive, or introduced her stays to Rome, so she wanted to safe a location the place her stays couldn’t be simply found, which she believes would have made the Royal Quarters a impossible alternative.
Taposiris Magna was constructed as a temple devoted to the goddess Isis, and Cleopatra, Martinez stated, “offered herself all the time, as the brand new Isis.”
She defined that the situation had a powerful spiritual context, and crucially, it was not beneath the management of the Romans on the time, not like the Royal Quarters.
“She outsmarted the Romans,” stated Martinez.
Martinez advised CBS Information that the workforce will proceed their exploration of the harbor website in a couple of week, and it’s set to go on for at the very least one other two months.
Dr. Kathleen Martinez 
“That is the primary time that we’ll truly excavate underwater. It will be very thrilling,” she stated, including that no one is understood to have ever dived on the website earlier than. “We do not know what we’ll uncover there as a result of that is the start of the search.”
“It is a thriller. There was little or no details about this place,” she stated. “The positioning itself typically leads you in a sure route.”
For 2 millennia, Cleopatra has been profitable in hiding the situation of her stays, not simply from the Romans, however from archaeologists.
Martinez has no hangups about dedicating herself to the search for Cleopatra for practically three many years.
“Properly, it is a 2,000-year-old puzzle, and you’re placing the items collectively,” she advised CBS Information, including that she stays “100% satisfied that it is a matter of time” earlier than her work lastly pays off.
