A lost city of Alexander the Great, buried for centuries beneath the earth of Mesopotamia, is coming to light again.
They have confirmed the location of an ancient metropolis, known as Alexandria on the Tigris, in the south, near the Persian Gulf, which was once one of the world’s most important trading centers and which remained hidden for more than 1,500 years.
It was founded in the 4th century BC. as a port city that linked trade from India with Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world. After the 3rd century AD passed into oblivion when the course of the Tigris River changed. In recent years, researchers have mapped the city’s fortified walls, road network and building blocks, thanks to drone imagery and high-resolution geophysical scans.
What was found?
Archaeologists have been working at the site since the 2010s, a period when ISIS controlled parts of Iraq, but only now has the full extent of the lost metropolis been revealed.
The University of Konstanz in Germany said in a statement on January 28 that researchers “were only allowed to carry out surface searches, under the close supervision of soldiers or police.” Researchers have identified temple complexes, workshops with furnaces and ovens, as well as the remains of the city’s harbor and canal system.
The city had been “flooded repeatedly” but was remarkably well preserved, said Stefan R. Hauser, a professor of archeology at the University of Constanta. Hauser said that, like the better-known city of the same name in Egypt, Alexandria on the Tigris was founded at a point where river and sea meet. The city was founded at a time when there was a great need for a new port of trade with India in southern Mesopotamia.
Hauser stated that Alexander the Great personally selected the site in 324 BC, citing author Pliny the Elder, who relied on earlier sources. Alexander, the Macedonian leader who conquered the Persian Empire, was fascinated by the river’s strategic location. “The size of the building blocks is impressive”, . “It surpasses even those of the great capitals of the time, such as Seleucia on the Tigris or Alexandria on the Nile.”
“The quality of the geophysical evidence is absolutely impressive… The preservation of the buildings is amazingly good and we started to trace the walls just below the surface, which explains the very good results in the geophysical surveys,” he added.
The space
The archaeologist said he was surprised by the size of the city, which measures 6.5 square kilometers (2.5 square miles), which he described as “huge for an ancient city”. Houser said the research began in 2016 by British archaeologists Jane Moon, Robert Killick and Stuart Campbell.
Excavating the site was difficult, as temperatures in summer exceed 49°C. In addition, the wider region faces an air pollution problem. The research team plans to study city districts and furnace workshops in the future, if funding is secured.
Hauser stressed that the site could shed new light on the Parthian Empire, which controlled the city centuries after Alexander’s conquests. He described it as one of the least studied forces of antiquity. “There is not a single really useful summary of its history, structure and culture,” he said.
The site is “particularly suitable for this kind of research because there has been no subsequent building activity since antiquity,” he added.
“We have an almost unique opportunity to reconstruct the entire urban plan of a city through a geophysical survey, and we hope to complete the geophysical studies within the year.”
