Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of an ancient Egyptian town dating back more than 3,000 years, effectively challenging the prevalent belief that the area in and around Alexandria was first populated during the Hellenistic period. The discovery was unearthed at Kom el-Nugus, a mound-shaped archaeological site situated between the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mariout, approximately 43 kilometers west of Alexandria.

Roman Amphitheater of Alexandria in Egypt (Representational image). Credit: Daniel Mayer

The excavation, led by Dr. Sylvain Dhennin from the University of Lyon and published in the journal Antiquity, revealed an unknown New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE) settlement beneath layers of later construction. Kom el-Nugus—also historically named Plinthine—had been thought to have been inhabited only from the Hellenistic era (beginning in 332 BCE), when Alexander the Great and his successors dominated Egypt.

One of the most striking finds was an amphora fragment stamped with the name of Meritaten, daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Neferтιтi. This artifact, along with a grape-crushing installation, shows that the site was a royal wine estate during the 18th Dynasty. The site also yielded fragments of a stela bearing the cartouche of Seti II and carved blocks from a temple of Ramses II. These finds date the site to both the 18th and 19th Dynasties of Egypt’s powerful New Kingdom.

The archaeologists, who were part of the French Mission of Taposiris Magna and Plinthine (MFTMP), also unearthed a sequence of mud-brick buildings, two of which were laid out along a central street with a drainage system to prevent water from eroding the buildings. Excavation of the street revealed that it had been rebuilt and modified on many occasions, reflecting a long period of intermittent use, possibly for seasonal or strategic purposes.

Alexander the Great (crowned), Luxor Temple, East Bank, Valley of Nile, Egypt. Credit: Elias Rovielo, Flickr, (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Above the New Kingdom ruins, the archaeologists found the remains of a later Hellenistic temple carved out of the local calcarenite stone, which they believe was constructed after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt. While mostly reduced to its foundation, the building’s layout and the inscriptions attest to a sacred building, which was later targeted by plundering during the Roman Imperial period.

While the Hellenistic structure altered much of the earlier landscape, remnants of the New Kingdom settlement remained preserved beneath the debris and foundation walls. That such ancient vestiges survived for centuries beneath overbuilding renders the discovery all the more significant.

Until now, historians had ᴀssumed that Egypt’s Mediterranean coastline was largely uninhabited before the Ptolemaic period. That narrative is now shattered by this new evidence, showing that organized urban life, religious activity, and even wine production took place here as far back as the reigns of Akhenaten and Ramses II.

The team, with the help of the French Insтιтute of Oriental Archaeology and the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), will continue working on the site. Their next step is to try to identify the original name of the settlement and determine its exact purpose.

More information: Dhennin S. (2025). A new Ramesside settlement north of Mareotis Lake (Kom el-Nugus, Egypt). Antiquity:1-7. doi:10.15184/aqy.2024.230