Ancient Tombs at Marina el-Alamein Reveal How Egyptian Burial Rituals Endured Into the Greco-Roman Era
A cluster of newly uncovered tombs on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast is offering a rare look at burial customs that survived well beyond the pharaonic age. At Marina el-Alamein, archaeologists have identified 18 previously unknown Ptolemaic and Roman tombs, adding fresh evidence that Egyptian funerary traditions remained active during the Greco-Roman period.
The tombs include 11 rock-cut chambers, some descending as far as 26 feet, and seven surface tombs built from limestone. Several burial chambers were still sealed with stone slabs, a detail that helped preserve their contents for more than 2,000 years. Among the most notable discoveries was an 8-foot-long sarcophagus with its original lid still in place. Skeletal remains were found inside and are now under study.
Nearby, the team led by Eman Abdel-Khaliq found a fragment of a plaster sphinx, along with 24 gold funerary amulets shaped like tongues. Some of those amulets had been placed in the mouths of the deceased, a practice meant to help the dead speak to the gods of the underworld. Researchers also recovered a gold amulet depicting the Eye of Horus, another sign of the symbolic language that continued to shape burial rites in this period.
Additional finds included a limestone offering altar in the form of an Egyptian false door, a funerary sculpture of a seated man holding a bird, and complete and near-complete pottery vessels. The false door, in ancient Egyptian belief, marked a passage between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Marina el-Alamein was discovered in 1986 during construction work and is thought to be the Greco-Roman port city of Leukaspis, which flourished from the second century until the fourth. Earlier excavations have already revealed streets, residential and commercial districts, public buildings, and a harbor, suggesting a substantial coastal settlement rather than an isolated necropolis.
Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Sherif Fathy, said the site will be developed with a visitor center, electric shuttles, pedestrian walkways, a museum storage facility, and administration buildings. The project is expected to be completed in the first half of 2027, signaling a broader effort to make the site legible to visitors while protecting what remains underground.
