Marea (

Ancient Egyptian Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

: ;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

: , , ;

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

: ) was an ancient city in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, located 45 km south-west of

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, on the southern shore of Lake Maryut (ancient , ).

History

The pharaoh

Psamtik I Wahibre Psamtik I (Ancient Egyptian: ) was the first pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the Saite period, ruling from the city of Sais in the Nile delta between 664 and 610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian E ...

installed a garrison at Marea in 654 BCE to secure the western borders of his kingdom after he had previously defeated the

Libyan Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. All figures are from the United Nations Demographic Yearbooks ...

tribes living in the area who had taken over the Oxyrhynchite nome of Lower Egypt.

Archaeological research

In 1977–1981, archaeological excavations were conducted by researchers from the University of Alexandria. Since 2000, the work is carried out by a Polish expedition from several scientific institutions, including the Archaeological Museum of Kraków and the Institute of Archaeology and the

Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology The Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw (PCMA UW; ) operates as an independent research institute of the University of Warsaw under the present name since 1990. It is dedicated to organizing, implementing and coordina ...

(both

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

). The expedition is currently headed by Prof. Tomasz Derda (Institute of Archaeology UW) and Dr. Krzysztof Babraj (Archaeological Museum of Kraków). In 2003, excavations in the Byzantine

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

began.

Description of the site

The site of Marea was a large port city in the

Roman period The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, and possibly already in the

Ptolemaic Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy, and may refer to: Pertaining to the Ptolemaic dynasty *Ptolemaic dynasty, the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter *Ptolemaic Kingdom Pertaining t ...

times. The research results indicate that the harbor might have functioned until the medieval period, as attested by finds dated to the 13th–14th century. Its remains include four large jetties, the longest of which extends 120 m into the lake. The ancient city was famous for its wine, which was distributed throughout the Mediterranean Basin. The

amphora An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

e in which it was transported were also produced locally. Marea was undoubtedly a large pottery production center – one of the largest pottery kilns in Egypt was found here. A bath complex and a funerary chapel dated to the 6th century, as well as a large (49 m by 47 m) basilica with a

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

, are examples of

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

architecture at the site. An important discovery was made in 2001: the largest known set of

ostraca An ostracon (Greek language, Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeology, archaeological or epigraphy, epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer ...

from the 5th–6th century was found, inscribed with notes regarding the construction of the basilica. Under the basilica, the excavators uncovered the remains of an older church, dated preliminarily to the second half of the 4th century. The history of this center from the end of the 3rd century to the building of the Byzantine city in the 5th–6th century is also the object of study.

Footnotes

References

* Babraj, K., Drzymuchowska, A. and Willburger, N.
Marea 2011. „Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean” 23/1 (2014)
* Szymańska, H., Babraj, K.
Marea: Fourth season of excavations. „Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean” 15 (2004)
* Szymańska, H., Babraj, K.
Marea: First interim report, 2000. „Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean” 12 (2001)

External links

Marea Archaeological Project – homepage of the project

Marea Archaeological Project – information on the PCMA UW website
{{coord, 30, 59, 39, N, 29, 39, 20, E, display=title Archaeological sites in Egypt Roman Egypt Byzantine Egypt