Nile releases city's deep history
11:00 22 April 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition.
ALEXANDER wasn't quite so great after all. Sure, he conquered most of
the world known to the ancient Greeks, but he didn't found the
Egyptian city of Alexandria - he just rebranded it. It now seems that
this part of the Nile has been settled for at least 4500 years,
pre-dating Alexander's arrival by a good two millennia.
Alain Véron from the Paul Cézanne University in Aix-en-Provence,
France, and colleagues made the discovery by measuring the variations
in lead concentration in a mud core from Alexandria's ancient harbour.
They determined how lead levels had changed over time by carbon-dating
seashells found in the core.
Clear pulses of lead contamination occurred between 2686 and 2181 BC
and then again from 1000 to 800 BC. The researchers conclude that
these peaks were associated with human activities such as plumbing,
fishing, building and ship-building. This is supported by ancient
texts, which mention a settlement named Rhakotis (Geophysical Research
Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2006GL025824).
Lead levels rocketed around 330 BC when Alexander the Great arrived,
and got higher by the time of the Roman empire about 400 years later.
The work should settle a long-running debate over the founding of the
city based on literary evidence.
--
Michael Gray.
Founding Member and Doorman,
Earthquack's 666 Club.
EAC Trainee Inquisitor.
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