New discovery in Qantara West highlights exact date of Tel Al-Dafna site

Lava remains of San Turin volcano unearthed in Tel Al-Dafna archaeological site, west of Al-Ismailiya governorate

By Nevine El-Aref , Wednesday 30 Dec 2015

During excavation work carried out at Tel Al-Dafna archaeological site located at Al-Qantara west area, 11 kilometres west of the Suez Canal, an Egyptian archaeological mission led by Egyptologist Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud stumbled upon what is believed to be Lava remains of San Turin volcano.
The volcano is considered to be the first destructive environmental phenomena from the Mediterranean in antiquity to hit Cyprus.

Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty described the discovery as “very important” because it would help in uncovering more history from the Tel Al-Dafna site.

The oldest archaeological evidence discovered in Tel Al-Dafna dates back to the ancient Egyptian 26th dynasty although the lava remains can be dated to an era before the 26th dynasty.

At the same site, Abdel Maqsoud told Ahram Online that the mission has also uncovered a part of a fortified island surrounded with mud and brick shields used as wave breakers as well as protecting the west side of King Psamtiak I’s citadel from floods.

Maqsoud continued to say that the citadel was built in such an area to protect the country’s eastern gate from any invasion. Its fence area is 20 metres thick and inside it houses a collection of fortified residential houses.

Developments in Qantara

A new rehabilitation project is shaking the dust off ruins that reveal Egypt’s great military history, writes Nevine El-Aref

Two weeks ago, archaeologists and heritage officials applauded when President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi gave the go-ahead for the Suez Canal Corridor Development Project (SCCDP).

The project will widen parts of the existing waterway and create a second, parallel canal. The scheme will not only develop Egypt’s economy and provide jobs, but it will also open up new tourist destinations.

The new waterway is ten km south of Qantara, the eastern gateway to Palestine and Syria in ancient times and the starting point of the famous Horus Road, the longest military road in Egypt and the only one to have retained physical evidence of its ancient fortresses and military structures.

Horus Road was a vital commercial and military link between Egypt and Asia and has borne the marching feet of no fewer than 50 armies. From west to east, the pharaohs Thutmose III and Ramses II crossed Sinai with their military forces. From east to west came the Assyrian hordes, the Persian army of Cambyses, Alexander the Great and his mercenaries, Antiochus and the Roman legions, and Arab conquerors led by Amr Ibn Al-As.

“Digging a parallel canal, ten km from one of Egypt’s most important archaeological sites, is certainly good news for archaeology,” Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Al-Damati told the Al-Ahram Weekly. He added that the project is a good opportunity to spruce up a planned development project for archaeological sites located within the vicinity of the Suez Canal, especially at Qantara.

“The chequered history of Qantara is a reminder of military battles from Pharaonic times to the early 1970s,” Al-Damati said.

Stephen Ruzicka, Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire, 525-332 BCE. - A Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.03.21 

Stephen Ruzicka, Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire, 525-332 BCE. Oxford studies in early empires.   Oxford; New York:  Oxford University Press, 2012.  Pp. xxv, 311.  ISBN 9780199766628.  $74.00.   

Reviewed by Anthony J. Papalas, East Carolina University 


Egypt of the Pharaohs flourished for over two thousand years. During this period, apart from two incursions, Egypt did not experience major foreign invasions. Its frontiers provided Egypt with excellent natural defensive barriers. Ruzicka’s Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire 525-332 BCE deals with the difficulties in conquering Egypt and the problems in holding it. This work begins with Cambyses’s conquest of Egypt in 525 (all dates are BCE) to Alexander’s subjugation of it in 332. Ruzicka argues that Persia’s primary concern in the West was not Greece but Egypt and during these approximate two centuries Persian rule was never secure. His thesis is supported by many costly and often unsuccessful Persian expeditions which were usually triggered by rebellions in the western part of the Delta, a region that the Persians never secured. Ruzicka contrary to reports in Herodotus and in line with recent scholarship argues that initial Persian rule was enlightened. Cambyses did not trample on Egyptian customs nor kill the Apis bull and Darius continued a liberal policy by maintaining low taxes and respecting Egyptian culture. In view of the immenseness of the Persian Empire, some three million square miles, it was practical to win over the people and maintain the area with light garrisons. But after the revolt of 487 Xerxes established a repressive rule and thereafter measures became increasingly oppressive. The Achaemenids, however, tolerated for about a century a strong Egyptian military class, the machimoi, which provided the Persians with military service. The machimoi were among Xerxes’s best soldiers in the Greek invasion of 480 but they eventually became untrustworthy.