Alexandrian’s catacombs in danger

Civil engineering program to better preserve 2000 years old catacombs from rising groundwater, which threatens this archeological tourist site, was inaugurated today in Alexandria by the Egyptian authorities. Work on this modernization project, with support from the United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ), began in november 2017 to equip the site with 6 drainage pumps.


Used from the 1st to the 4th century AD under the roman empire, the catacombs of Kom- el Shouqafa were discovered in 1900 and are considered the most famous and important of Alexandria.



Mixing Egyptian, Roman and Greek styles, they consist of a set of three underground tomb, dug in limestone rocks and sheltering the burials of whealty families of the time.



In 1985, the Egyptian authorities launched a groundwater drainage program with a permanent pumping system. In 2015, USAID agreed to fund the modernization of this program. Several ancient Egyptian sites are threatened by rising groundwater, which weakens their fundations, including the Karnak temple in Luxor or the plateau of the Sphynx of Giza.



The rise of groundwater is link to various factors, including a very greedy irrigation system , urbanization, wastewater leakage, rising sea levels due to climate change or artificial dams.



Please feel free to post your Alexandrian’s coins !!!

 

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Great pics!

 

Cool and glad that something is being done.

 

My best attempts to destroy a link from man to his past thwarted again!

 

Glad they are saving it! I hate to see historic artifacts and sites get destroyed.

 

No coins. Just yours truly in the Alexandrian catacombs, January 1990. Man, I wish I had a better camera.

 

Here is one of my Alexandrian’s babies. Claudius the Gothicus ; a sharp strike of the head, but a sloppy lettering around... Milne 4291