Archaeologists discover massive ancient Egyptian fortress

When you think of ancient Egypt, you might imagine towering pyramids, majestic temples, and the noseless Great Sphinx of Giza. But the iconic civilization produced many more architectural marvels than the monuments it’s best known for today, and one such example has just come to light in the sands of the Sinai. 

Archaeologists working in the northern region of Sinai—the Egyptian peninsula bordering Israel—have discovered a military fort from ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom era (1550–1077 BCE) along the Horus Military Road. Also known as the “Way of Horus,” it was a chain of ancient Egyptian fortifications in North Sinai created during the New Kingdom. The recently discovered fort is one of the chain’s biggest and most important, according to a social media post by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

“The fortresses likely served as rest stops for trade caravans moving into Egypt, but also as places to reprovision the Egyptian army when it went on campaign across the Near East,” Nicky Nielson, an Egyptologist from the University of Manchester who wasn’t involved in the discovery, tells Popular Science. 

The archaeological excavation unearthed defensive towers; portions of the northern, western, and southern walls; a distinctive New Kingdom wall surrounding a residential area for soldiers; and pottery shards and vessels, including a handle with the name of Thutmose I, a pharaoh from the 18th-dynasty (around 1539 to 1292 BCE). They also found a large bread oven and fossilized dough, confirming that soldiers lived out their daily lives in the fortress. 

“Bread was very much a staple of the Egyptians – bread and beer specifically,” Nielson explains. “There are some slightly later texts (reign of Ramesses II) which talk about provisioning the army, and bread is mentioned as the key food.” 

He explains that the text belongs to a genre of biased writings called The Hardships of a Soldiers Life whose aim was to highlight the difficulties of being a soldier to scribal students. Indeed, the excerpt Nielsen highlights is grim:

His bread and his water are upon his shoulder like the load of a donkey; his neck having formed a ridge like that of a donkey. The vertebrae of his back are broken whilst he drinks of smelly water and halts only to keep watch.

The fortress seems to have experienced a number of restorations and changes, and archaeologists expect to find the military port that served it near the coast. What’s more, its area is around 86,111 square feet (8,000 square meters), three times that of another fortress discovered just about 700 meters away in the 1980s, per the post. 

Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained in the ministry’s post that the discovery provides insight into the fortifications of Egypt’s eastern borders during that time period, and that every new fortress that comes to light highlights that ancient Egypt was more than just tombs and temples—it was a strong state capable of defending itself. 

However, “the site is important for understanding not only how the Egyptian state defended newly won territories in Sinai at the start of the New Kingdom, but also how it organised its occupation, and mediated its relationship with local populations and foreign powers,” Christian Knoblauch, an archaeologist specialized in ancient Egypt and Nubia from Swansea University, tells Popular Science. “On the one hand, it demonstrates the massive investment of material and human resources required to occupy this territory, but probably also the economic and political rewards for doing so.”

Moving forward, the team hopes to reveal the rest of the walls and related structures.