Intact Roman city discovered in Luxor, Egypt

In the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, archaeologists have uncovered a fully preserved Roman city that is 1,800 years old.

Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, confirmed that the city dates back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, calling it “the oldest and most significant city found on the eastern bank of Luxor.”

A fully preserved residential village was found, along with two pigeon towers that had never been seen before, Waziri revealed in a video posted on Twitter on Tuesday.

These pigeon towers were used to house carrier pigeons, which were then used to send messages across the Roman Empire, Waziri explained.

The excavations, which started in September, also uncovered a stash of tools, pottery, and Roman coins made of bronze and copper. The ancient city was discovered in Luxor, a modern city located on the banks of the Nile, the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes.

Luxor is home to the renowned Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Waziri hailed the discovery as an exceptional find in what has already been an “outstanding” season. Luxor has long been a treasure trove of archaeological discoveries, and this latest find follows the unearthing of several tombs just this January.

The recent surge in discoveries comes just ahead of the highly anticipated opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo later this year. The museum will showcase many of Egypt's ancient treasures, with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities hoping it will provide a significant boost to the sector as it recovers from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.