CAIRO: The ancient Hyksos capital of Avaris may have been discovered in the Egyptian Nile Delta as a result of radar scans, the country's culture ministry reported. The Hyksos capital had been lost since the people ruled here 3,500 years ago. It appears, however, that Austrian archaeologists used radar imaging to locate the underground outlines of a major city in the Nile Delta region, which is currently densely populated. The Hyksos were not Egyptian. They hailed from Asia and ruled the Egyptian state for about one century. Their summer capital Avaris, if accurate, is located near the town of Tal el-Dabaa, north of Cairo. According to a statement from the culture ministry, the radar images have revealed the outline of streets and houses beneath the fields and towns of the modern Delta. “We believe, based on the information given to us by the Austrian delegation that this is the ancient capital Avaris, but we hope to do more in depth studies in the near future to confirm this for certain,” said a ministry spokesman. Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said in a statement that the area could be part of Avaris, the summer capital of the Hyksos who ruled Egypt from 1664-1569 BC, during the 15th Dynasty. “The pictures taken using radar [imaging] show an underground city complete with streets, houses and tombs which gives a general overview of the urban planning of the city,” Hawass said. Irene Mueller, who heads the Austrian team, said the main purpose of the project had been to determine how far the underground city extended. “The aim of the geophysical survey was to identify the size of the ancient city and the mission managed to identify a large number of houses and streets and a port inside the city,” she said. “The mission also identified one of the Nile river tributaries that passed through the city, as well as two islands,” she was quoted as saying in the statement. BM
