Austrian archaeologists have located an underground Egyptian city which they believe to be Avaris, the capital used by the Hyksos who ruled 3,600 years ago, the culture ministry said on Sunday.
The Austrian mission carried out a geophysical survey of the area allowing them to identify parts of Avaris in the Nile Delta near the modern town of Tal al-Dabaa, northeast of Cairo.
Egypt’s antiquities department says an Austrian team has used radar imaging to find the outlines of the 3,500 year old capital of Egypt’s foreign occupiers.
The radar imaging shows the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern towns in Egypt’s Delta.
“The pictures taken using Austrian radar show an underground city complete with streets, houses and tombs which gives a general overview of the urban planning of the city,” antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said in a statement. “The aim of the geophysical survey was to identify the size of the ancient city and the mission managed to identify a large number of houses and streets and a port inside the city,” said Irene Mueller who heads the Austrian mission.
“The mission also identified one of the Nile river tributaries that passed through the city, as well as two islands,” she was quoted as saying in the statement.
The Hyksos were an Asiatic people who invaded Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (1569-1664 BC) and ruled for more than a century from their Nile Delta capital.
The Hyksos were so hated that when Egyptians eventually returned to power, they destroyed all Hyksos monuments and records.