An Egyptian mission has discovered 18 tombs at Marina el-Alamein, the site of the Graeco-Roman city of Leukaspis on Egypt's north coast, The Past reports. The find comprises 11 deep rock-cut tombs and 7 limestone surface tombs, many of them still sealed.
Marina el-Alamein lies west of Alexandria along the Mediterranean, and its ancient remains are those of Leukaspis, a settlement that flourished in the Graeco-Roman period. The city and its cemeteries have drawn archaeological attention for their combination of Egyptian and classical influences, and the newly recorded tombs add to the picture of how the community buried its dead.
The two types of tomb reflect different approaches to burial at the site. The deep rock-cut tombs were hewn into the bedrock, a method that allowed for chambers set well below the surface. The limestone surface tombs, by contrast, were built at ground level. That several of both kinds remain sealed is significant, because undisturbed tombs offer archaeologists the chance to study burials as they were originally arranged rather than as later looting or reuse left them.
Sealed tombs are comparatively rare finds, and they can preserve funerary goods, human remains and the internal layout of a burial in their original context. Careful excavation of intact tombs allows researchers to record the position of objects and bodies before anything is moved, information that is lost once a tomb has been entered in antiquity. The presence of both rock-cut and surface types at Marina el-Alamein also gives the mission an opportunity to compare burial practices within a single cemetery.
Leukaspis sat at the meeting point of Egyptian and Mediterranean worlds, and its material culture tends to blend the two traditions. The mission's continued work at the site should help clarify who was buried there and how, and where the community's practices fit within the broader Graeco-Roman story of the Egyptian coast. The Past notes that many of the tombs await further investigation.
Excavation and conservation at Marina el-Alamein have been ongoing over successive seasons, and the recording of 18 further tombs represents a substantial addition to what is already known about the necropolis. As the sealed tombs are opened and documented, they are likely to yield further detail about the lives and deaths of the people of Leukaspis.