Archaeologists confirm location of lost city founded by Alexander the Great
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Archaeologists have confirmed the location of a long-lost city founded by Alexander the Great, a once-thriving trading post that had been hidden for centuries.
The ancient city known as Alexandria on the banks of the Tigris is located in the south of Iraq, near the Persian Gulf.
It was founded in the 4th century BC as a port city connecting trade from India to Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world. It was buried in darkness after the 3rd century AD when the course of the Tigris changed.
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Over the past few years, researchers have mapped the city’s fortifications, street grids, and city blocks using drone imagery and high-resolution geophysical scans.
Archaeologists had been working in this area since the 2010s, when ISIS gained control over Iraq; but until now the full size of the lost metropolis had not been revealed.
Archaeologists have confirmed the location of Alexandria on the Tigris River, which Alexander the Great founded near present-day southern Iraq in 324 BC. (Bettman via Getty Images; Charax Spasinou Project (Stuart Campbell 2017))
The University of Konstanz in Germany said in a Jan. 28 press release that diggers “are only allowed to conduct surface surveys under the close supervision of soldiers or police officers.”
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Researchers identified temple complexes, workshops containing furnaces and furnaces, and ruins of the city’s port and canal system.
Stefan R. Hauser, professor of archeology at the University of Konstanz, said the city was “flooded many times” but was miraculously well preserved.
The virtually untouched area offers what researchers call a rare chance to reconstruct the entire ancient city plan. (Charax Spasinou Project 2016 (Jörg Fassbinder))
Like its more famous counterpart in Egypt, Alexandria on the Tigris was built at the junction between the river and the sea, Hauser told Fox News Digital.
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The city was founded at a time when a new port was sorely needed in Southern Mesopotamia for trade with India.
Citing author Pliny the Elder, who relied on older sources, Hauser said Alexander the Great personally chose the site in 324 BC.
“The quality of the geophysical evidence is absolutely astounding… The preservation of the buildings is surprisingly good.”
Alexander, the Macedonian leader who conquered the Persian Empire, was drawn to the region due to the strategic location of the river.
The archaeologist said he was surprised by the city’s size of 2.5 square miles, which he described as “enormous for an ancient city.”
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“The size of the city blocks is extraordinary,” he said. “It surpasses even the great capitals of the time, such as Seleucia on the Tigris or Alexandria on the Nile.”
Hauser added: “The quality of the geophysical evidence is absolutely impressive… The preservation of the buildings is surprisingly good and we have begun to identify walls just below the surface, which explains the good results in geophysical exploration.”
Scientists say the city was founded at a critical junction between river and sea and helped anchor trade routes across the Persian Gulf. (Charax Spasinou Project 2022 (Robert Killick))
Hauser said the research began in 2016 under the direction of British archaeologists Jane Moon, Robert Killick and Stuart Campbell, who he believes contributed to the launch of the project.
He said excavating the area was a challenge as summer temperatures soared above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. There is also air pollution in the general area.
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Pending funding, the research team plans to investigate the city’s neighborhood and its workshops and bakeries in the future.
“We started detecting walls just below the surface,” said an archeology professor. (Charax Spasinou Project (Stuart Campbell 2017))
Hauser emphasized that this site could shed new light on the Parthian Empire, which controlled the city centuries after Alexander’s conquest. He described the empire as one of the least studied powers of antiquity.
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“There is not a single useful summary [of] its history, structure and culture,” Hauser said.
The medieval depiction of Alexander the Great crossing the Tigris, seen above, showcases the legacy of the Macedonian ruler who founded Alexandria on the Tigris in the fourth century BCE. (Art Images via Getty Images)
He added that the area was “particularly suitable for this type of research because no subsequent construction activity has been carried out since ancient times.”
“We have an almost unique chance to rebuild an entire city plan [through] “We are carrying out geophysical surveys and currently hope to complete the geophysics this year.”
