4,300-Foot-Long Tunnel Under an Ancient Egyptian Temple is Found by Archaeologists

The Taposiris Magna Temple, west of the ancient city of Alexandria, as shown on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 Egypt's Taposiris Magna Temple, a shrine to the god of death Osiris, has a subterranean passageway that archaeologists have uncovered.

The temple, which is located west of the ancient city of Alexandria, is where the 6.5-foot-tall, 4,300-foot-long tunnel was discovered by archaeologist Kathleen Martinez of the University of San Domingo. According to Sarah Cascone of Artnet, the woman also discovered two alabaster statues from the Ptolemaic dynasty and numerous ceramic pots and vessels.

In a statement last week, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery and called the tunnel a "geometric miracle."

The tunnel and the entry shaft Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, with permission

The fact that a portion of the tunnel is underwater may be due to the numerous earthquakes that occurred in the area between 320 and 1303 C.E. Archaeologists think that such calamities were what brought down the temple.

According to Martinez, the tunnel is "an identical duplicate of the Eupalinos Tunnel in Greece, which is regarded as one of the most significant engineering marvels of antiquity. On the Greek island of Samos in the eastern Aegean Sea, there is a structure known as the Tunnel of Eupalinos that served as an aqueduct for more than a thousand years.

Archaeologists discovered numerous more items at the location during earlier digs, including coins with the names and likenesses of Alexander the Great and Cleopatra VII. In addition, they discovered statues of the goddess Isis, figurines, a gold-tongued mummy, and a cemetery full of mummies in the Greco-Roman style.

One of the two alabaster heads that researchers found at the location Courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities From 51 to 30 B.C.E., Cleopatra was the Ptolemaic Egyptian ruler. In 30 B.C.E., she committed suicide along with her longtime partner, the Roman general Mark Antony. Although they are probably interred together, historians are unsure about the location.

Martinez, a former criminal defense attorney who is now an archaeologist, has long held that the ancient queen was interred at the Taposiris Magna Temple. She started digging after being granted permission to do so by the Egyptian government, and although she hasn't yet located Cleopatra's tomb, she has uncovered numerous other significant finds over the past 15 or so years, including the tunnel.

The tunnel is 4,300 feet long and 6.5 feet height. Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, with permission

She is still looking for the long-lost tomb of the old queen, and she believes she is getting closer. She stated in 2009 on the Heritage Key blog that it was her job to look for the last Egyptian queen if there was even a 1% chance that she would be interred there.