Leukaspis

Leukaspis, la ciudad egipcia que renace de un tsunami en el siglo IV d.C.

Expertos en antigüedades egipcias caminan por el poblado parcialmente restaurado en la antigua ciudad de Leukaspis, un puerto greco-romano con vistas al Mar Mediterráneo, muy conocido en la localidad costera de Marina, Egipto. Domingo, 29 de agosto 2010. Hoy en día, es un complejo hotelero con casas de vacaciones de lujo, en una zona muy rica de Egipto en las playas blancas de la costa mediterránea. Sin embargo, hace 2.000 años, era una ciudad próspera greco-romana del puerto, que disponía de villas que enriquecían a los comerciantes dedicados al comercio de trigo y de oliva(¿aceite?).

Leukaspis, Ancient City By The Sea, Rises Amid Egypt’s Resorts (PHOTOS)

First Posted: 09- 7-10 01:11 PM   |   Updated: 09- 7-10 01:11 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/ancient-city-by-the-sea-r_n_707417.html
MARINA, Egypt (AP) – Today, it’s a sprawl of luxury vacation homes where Egypt’s wealthy play on the white beaches of the Mediterranean coast. But 2,000 years ago, this was a thriving Greco-Roman port city, boasting villas of merchants grown rich on the wheat and olive trade. (Scroll down for photos)
It is 106 kilometres (66 mi) west of Alexandria and 240 kilometres (149 mi) northwest of Cairo en El Alamein.
El Alamein (or Al Alamayn) (Arabic: العلمين‎, which means “the two flags”) is a town in northern Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea coast in Matruh Governorate. It is 106 kilometres (66 mi) west of Alexandria and 240 kilometres (149 mi) northwest of Cairo. The population was about 7,397 in 2007.^[1]
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Mapa de Egipto: El Alamein.
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The population was about 7,397 in 2007.^[1]


The ancient city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by a fourth century tsunami that devastated the region.
More recently, it was nearly buried under the modern resort of Marina in a development craze that turned this coast into the summer playground for Egypt’s elite.
Nearly 25 years after its discovery, Egyptian authorities are preparing to open ancient Leukaspis’ tombs, villas and city streets to visitors — a rare example of a Classical era city in a country better known for its pyramids and Pharaonic temples.

Cementerio militar de El Alamein,Marina,Egipto
“Visitors can go to understand how people lived back then, how they built their graves, lived in villas or traded in the main agora (square),” said Ahmed Amin, the local inspector for the antiquities department. “Everyone’s heard of the resort Marina, now they will know the historic Marina.”
The history of the two Marinas is inextricably linked. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for the new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of a town founded in the second century B.C.
About 200 acres were set aside for archaeology, while everywhere else along the coast up sprouted holiday villages for Egyptians escaping the stifling summer heat of the interior for the Mediterranean’s cool breezes.
Egyptian antiquities experts walk down the stairs of a royal tomb entrance at the ancient city of Leukaspis a well known Greco-Roman port overlooking the Mediterranean Sea at the costal resort of Marina,
Egypt Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010. Today, it’s a sprawl of luxury vacation homes where Egypt’s wealthy play on the white beaches of the Mediterranean coast. But 2,000 years ago, this was a thriving Greco-Roman port city, boasting villas of merchants grown rich on the wheat and olive trade. AP Photo/Nasser Nasser.
By: Paul Schemm, Associated Press Writer
MARINA, EGYPT (AP).- Today, it’s a sprawl of luxury vacation homes where Egypt’s wealthy play on the white beaches of the Mediterranean coast. But 2,000 years ago, this was a thriving Greco-Roman port city, boasting villas of merchants grown rich on the wheat and olive trade.
The ancient city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by a fourth century tsunami that devastated the region.
More recently, it was nearly buried under the modern resort of Marina in a development craze that turned this coast into the summer playground for Egypt’s elite.
Nearly 25 years after its discovery, Egyptian authorities are preparing to open ancient Leukaspis’ tombs, villas and city streets to visitors — a rare example of a Classical era city in a country better known for its pyramids and Pharaonic temples.
“Visitors can go to understand how people lived back then, how they built their graves, lived in villas or traded in the main agora (square),” said Ahmed Amin, the local inspector for the antiquities department. “Everyone’s heard of the resort Marina, now they will know the historic Marina.”
The history of the two Marinas is inextricably linked. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for the new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of a town founded in the second century B.C.
About 200 acres were set aside for archaeology, while everywhere else along the coast up sprouted holiday villages for Egyptians escaping the stifling summer heat of the interior for the Mediterranean’s cool breezes.
The ancient city yielded up its secrets in a much more gradual fashion to a team of Polish archaeologists excavating the site through the 1990s.
A portrait emerged of a prosperous port town, with up to 15,000 residents at its height, exporting grains, livestock, wine and olives to the rest of the Mediterranean.
Merchants lived in elegant two-story villas set along zigzagging streets with pillared courtyards flanked by living and prayer rooms.
Rainwater collected from roofs ran down special hollowed out pillars into channels under the floor leading to the family cisterns. Waste disappeared into a sophisticated sewer system.
Around the town center, where the two main streets intersect, was the social and economic heart of the city and there can still be found the remains of a basilica, a hall for public events that became a church after Christianity spread across the Roman Empire.
A semicircular niche lined with benches underneath a portico provided a space for town elders to discuss business before retiring to the bathhouse across the street.
Greek columns and bright limestone walls up to six feet high (2 meters) stand in some places, reflecting the sun in an electric blue sky over the dark waters of the nearby sea. Visitors will also be able to climb down the steep shafts of the rock-cut tombs to the deeply buried burial chambers of the city’s necropolis.
It is from the sea from which the city gained much of its livelihood. It began as a way station in the coastal trade between Egypt and Libya to the west. Later, it began exporting goods from its surrounding farms overseas, particularly to the island of Crete, just 300 miles (480 kilometers) away — a shorter trip than that from Egypt’s main coastal city Alexandria.
And from the sea came its end. Leukaspis was largely destroyed when a massive earthquake near Crete in 365 A.D. set off a tsunami wave that also devastated nearby Alexandria. In the ensuing centuries, tough economic times and a collapsing Roman Empire meant that most settlements along the coast disappeared.
Today, the remains of the port are lost. In the late 1990s, an artificial lagoon was built, surrounded by summer homes for top government officials.
“It was built by dynamite detonation so whatever was there I think is gone,” said Agnieszka Dobrowlska, an architect who helped excavate the ancient city with the Polish team in the 1990s.
However, Egyptian government interest in the site rose in the last few years, part of a renewed focus on developing the country’s Classical past. In 2005, Dobrowlska returned as part of a USAID project to turn ancient Marina into an open air museum for tourists.
It couldn’t have come at a better time for ancient Marina, which had long attracted covetous glances from real estate developers.
“I am quite happy it still exists, because when I was involved there were big plans to incorporate this site in a big golf course being constructed by one of these tycoons. Apparently the antiquities authorities didn’t allow it, so that’s quite good,” recalls Dobrowlska.
Redoing the site is part of a plan to bring more year-around tourism to what is now largely a summer destination for just Egyptians — perhaps with a mind to attracting European tourists currently flocking to beaches in nearby Tunisia during the winter.
Much still needs to be done to achieve the government’s target to open the site by mid-September, as ancient fragments of pottery still litter the ground and bones lie open in their tombs.
But if old Marina is a success then similar transformation could happen to a massive temple of Osiris just 30 miles (50 kilometers) away, where a Dominican archaeological team is searching for the burial place of the doomed Classical lovers, Anthony and Cleopatra.
“The plan is to do the same for Taposiris Magna so that tourists can visit both,” said Khaled Aboul- Hamd, antiquities director for the region.
These north coast ruins may also attract the attention of the visitors to the nearby El-Alamein battlefield and cemeteries for the World War II battle that Winston Churchill once called the turning point of the war.
In fact, there are signs the allied troops took refuge in the deep rock cut tombs of Marina, just six miles (10 kilometers) from the furthest point of the Axis advance on Alexandria.
Crouched down awaiting the onslaught of German Gen. Rommel’s famed Afrika Corps, the young British Tommies would have shared space with the rib bones and skull fragments of Marina’s inhabitants in burial chambers hidden 25 feet (8 meters) below ground.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

Rome and Greece in Egypt? Ancient Egyptian Port Town Opening to Tourists

Posted by Christianne Klein on September 7, 2010 · 1 Comment

More than two decades after it’s discovery near the modern resort town of Marina, Egyptian authorities are planning to open the ancient city of Leukaspis or Antiphrae to tourists.  The 2,000 year old Greco-Roman port city was buried for more than 1,500 years after an earthquake near Crete in 365 A.D. set off a tsunami that buried the area in water.
Leukaspis is a rare sight in Egypt- it’s two story villas and Greek columns are a good example of a classical city amid Egypt’s more famous pyramids, and temples.
Excavations in the 1990s showed this city was an active port town with nearly…To read the rest of this article please login or register for Free Basic Membership to view this premium content.
MARINA, Egipto

Marina, also Marina El Alamein (Arabic: مارينا العلمين‎) is a tourist village located on the northern coast of Egypt, with a 11 km long beach. It is about 300 km away from Cairo in the El Alamein area. Marina Village is often recognized by Egyptians as an area which caters to the elite of Egypt.
The village is a gated community only accessible to those who live inside. Spanning almost 15 miles, this beach resort is split into eight different sections named Marina 1-7. Limestone villas and chalets and beautiful greenery are what characterize this exclusive part of the Middle East. In the summer of 2005, Porto Marina, one of the hottest hotel/mall destinations in the Middle East was opened in the center of Marina Village. Porto Marina is characterized by its Venetian canals and exclusive boutiques, and it has an impressive view over a lake.
There are rumors that the Egyptian government will be building an international airport near Marina due in 2010

Fuente : http://www.bloganavazquez.com/2010/09/08/leukaspis-la-ciudad-egipcia-que-renace-de-un-tsunami/