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A ONCE bustling city with multi-storey tower houses and a cobra goddess temple built 2,400 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists.
The densely built city dates back to the 4th century BCE – and even used to have a thriving local economy and religious traditions, researchers said.
Buried under modern day Tell el-Fara’in, Egypt, state-of-the-art technology has been used to uncover the ancient city of Imet.
Boffins from the University of Manchester and the University of Sadat City in Cairo made the groundbreaking discovery in the African nation’s Nile Delta.
A team of archaeologists led by Dr. Nicky Nielsen excavated an array of extraordinary artefacts – which point to the location’s booming economy and religious practice.
The team said: “The University of Manchester is bringing the ancient Delta back one discovery at a time.”
They said locating the forgotten city of Imet allowed them to have a greater understanding of “daily life, spirituality, and urban planning in the Delta”.
The incredible city dates back to the Late Period in Egypt – the final era of Egyptian rule which was killed off by Alexander the Great’s conquest.
Archaeologists used remote sensing including high-resolution satellite imagery.
They first detected ancient mudbricks, which led them to discover “dense architectural remains”.
These included multi-storey buildings with “exceptionally thick foundation walls”.
The team dubbed these “tower houses”.
The 4th-century Egyptians are understood to have built them to accommodate their soaring population.
Imet, as well as the Delta region, became an urban center, the scientists said following their breakthrough finding.
Leading researcher Dr Nielsen said: “These tower houses are mainly found in the Nile Delta between the Late Period and the Roman era, and are rare elsewhere in Egypt.
“Their presence here shows that Imet was a thriving and densely built city with a complex urban infrastructure.”
In another shocking revelation, the scientists also discovered a large building dating to the mid-Ptolemaic Period – even older than the Late Period.
This fascinating find meant that the city may have had even more ancient roots.
The building, which is understood to be older than the rest of the city, had a limestone plaster floor and massive pilars.
It was also built across a processional road that connected it to a temple dedicated to the city’s patron deity, Wadjet, the cobra goddess.
But it was abandoned around the mid-Ptolemaic era, sparking theories that religious beliefs may have changed at the time, the experts said.
Archaeologists also uncovered a grain-processing area and animal pens – proof that Imet had a developed local economy and religious traditions.
And they found artefacts which supported the idea that the Delta centre was once a thriving Ancient Egyptian community.
Their most prized discoveries included a green faience ushabti from the 26th Dynasty, a stela of the god Harpocrates with protective iconography, and a bronze sistrum adorned with the twin heads of Hathor, goddess of music and joy.
These finds have helped experts piece together one of Ancient Egypt’s long-lost cities – shining new light on the empire’s final days.
