Skip to content
Sinai

Archaeologists discover ancient workshop in Egypt’s Sinai

Catherine Saunders-Watson
Catherine Saunders-Watson
Sinai
Map of Ptolemaic Empire (shown in purple) circa 300 B.C., image sourced through Wikipedia and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

CAIRO (AP) – Egypt says archaeologists have uncovered an ancient workshop used to build and repair ships that dates back to the Ptolemaic era (332 B.C.-30 B.C.) in the Sinai Peninsula.

The Antiquities Ministry says Tuesday that excavations took place in the Tel Abu Saifi archaeological site in Northern Sinai. The site is said to have been the location of the Roman fortress of Silla.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the workshop includes two dry dockyards where ships were built or repaired.

The Greco-Roman period in Egypt spans from its fall to Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. to the Islamic conquest in the 7th century.

Egypt hopes such discoveries will spur tourism, which suffered a major setback during the unrest that followed the 2011 uprising.

_________

Copyright 2019 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This information may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Sinai