Egypt rescues 2,000-year old catacombs from rising water

Egypt has announced the completion of a project to save famed 2,000-year old catacombs in the costal city of Alexandria from rising waters.

The Kom al-Shoqafa location, considered by archaeologists to be the largest Greco-Roman burial site in Egypt, has been threatened by water since its discovery in 1900.

The catacombs, which were in use from the first to the fourth century AD, are renowned for funerary architecture blending ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art.

The rising water prompted Egypt to launch a massive drainage project supported by the United States Agency for International (USAID) in 2017.

Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani tells reporters at the site that the program had helped “end a problem threatening the area for more than 100 years.”

Thomas Nichols, an engineer involved in the project, calls it “a unique program where we blended archaeology and civil engineering together.”

Egypt has in recent years sought to promote archaeological discoveries across the country in a bid to revive tourism hit by the turmoil that followed its 2011 uprising.

— AFP