Dr. Penny Wilson Reveals the Latest Discoveries of the British Excavation of the Royal City of Sais
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Alexandria—
The BA organized, in cooperation with the Egypt Exploration Fund, on Monday, 3 September 2007, a lecture entitled "The Royal City of Sais as a Prototype for Alexandria" by Dr. Penny Wilson, Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University and Director of the Archaeological excavation of the city of Sais, Old West Governorate, introduced the most important findings of the British archaeological excavation, which began its work in 1997, with funding from the British Academy and the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt. The lecture was chaired by researcher Ahmed Mansour, BA Manuscripts Center.
Sais is located 100 km south-east of Alexandria on the Rosetta Branch of the Nile, it is close to the Mediterranean coast and was considered in the past an area of swamps.
This region has been established since the Neolithic times (around 4500 BCE), it evolved to become an important city during the Pharaonic period and the capital of Egypt from 525 -664 BC.
The British excavation team was able to locate the old city of Sais carefully, after finding a hole that was used to collect sewage that can be described as rubles of a castle or fortress what had been built in this city.
The excavation found a group of holes, with a lot of inscriptions and also found ruins of stone flint, porcelain and bone. Among the debris there were black blocks composed of fish bones dated back to thousands of years, which confirms that ancient Egyptians were professional fishermen, raising fish in basins which were earmarked for fishing catfish.
Dr. Wilson confirmed that among the discoveries that were found, Temple of Nice, which is located in the south, where it was indicated on several manuscripts that it is located, however, the excavation was not able to determine the exact location, which may be due to it being hidden underground.
Dr. Wilson made a comparison between the city of Alexandria and the City of Sais, where both cities are located in the West Delta, whereas the norm was to establish the capital in the Eastern Delta, in order for kings and queens to maintain relations between Egypt and the neighboring countries such as Syria and Palestine.
In addition Dr. Wilson pointed out that the building material and stones that are used to carve statues within the cities are very much similar, while some stones were brought to Alexandria from Sais. The city of Sias has been the link between Upper and Lower Egypt across the Nile River. And the high-rising towers and light houses, in Alexandria, had similar counterparts in the city of Sais.
At the end of the lecture, Dr. Wilson pointed out that the design and planning of the city of Alexandria made it a melting pot where all races fused with the Egyptians.