Satellites help map a 2,000-year-old Greco-Roman caravan city on Egypt’s coast

On Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, archaeologists are turning to the sky to understand a city they cannot easily map from the ground. A Polish team is using satellite images to study El Darazya, a Greco-Roman settlement that sat on an ancient caravan route. The site lies in a military zone where drones are banned, so satellites may help fill the gap.

Where El Darazya sits and why it matters

El Darazya lies in the Marina El-Alamein region, on Egypt’s northern coast. HeritageDaily, which credits the Polish Press Agency (PAP), places it about 300 kilometers from Cairo and describes it as a city of roughly 2 to 3 hectares. Polish National Geographic puts the wider Marina El-Alamein site about 100 kilometers west of Alexandria.

The city is not a brand-new discovery, so “lost” would overstate things. Polish National Geographic reports that workers found the ruins while building a tourist resort, and Polish excavations began in the second half of the 1980s under Professor Wiktor A. Daszewski of the University of Warsaw. The settlement dates from the 2nd century BC to the 6th century AD. Its ancient name remains unknown, though researchers suspect it was the Greco-Roman city of Antiphrai, with its port at Leukaspis.

A new partnership between archaeologists and space specialists

The latest phase pairs archaeologists from Jagiellonian University in Krakow with specialists from the Polish Space Agency (POLSA). According to Polish National Geographic, POLSA says its experts will support the research with satellite data and remote sensing methods. They will combine that information with archaeological documentation and field observations.

The goals are practical. The team wants a non-invasive survey of the site, a record of how well the remains have survived, and a plan for future work. Dr. Radoslaw Gurdak of POLSA is the only named expert in the HeritageDaily report. He suggests that comparing remains recorded on the ground with features visible from orbit could reveal the full extent of the settlement and structures nobody has found yet. He also says the approach should cut the time and cost of fieldwork by pointing researchers to the most promising spots.

What the team has identified so far

The HeritageDaily report says researchers have already identified residential buildings, ancient infrastructure and underground water cisterns. Polish National Geographic adds that earlier excavations uncovered numerous houses, public buildings and port warehouses. The report does not give dates for individual structures or say how many of them the satellite work has revealed.

The city’s position on a caravan trade route likely shaped its growth. Gurdak suggests that travelers probably stopped here to restock food and water. That would explain why the settlement needed cisterns and why it may have grown beyond a simple waystation.

Why satellites instead of drones

Drones have become a standard tool in modern archaeology, but they are not an option here. HeritageDaily reports that the tourist area lies within a military zone where drone use is prohibited. Satellite imagery avoids that restriction. It also leaves the ground undisturbed, which matters at a site where heavy equipment could damage fragile remains.

The team plans to combine satellite remote sensing, photogrammetry and field measurements to build 3D models of the structures. Those models could help researchers reconstruct how the settlement looked and was laid out. They could also support public presentation of the site. The work may help protect El Darazya too, by flagging areas at risk from environmental change and human activity.

Caveats and open questions

This story comes from a news report rather than a published study, and the original PAP text was not available to us. The details of the 3D modeling are plans, not results. The reports do not say which satellites or imaging methods the team uses, what resolution they achieve, or how many new structures the images have revealed. Polish National Geographic, which published its piece on 24 October 2026, mentions neither the drone ban nor the 3D models, so those points rest on HeritageDaily alone. The identification with Antiphrai also remains a suspicion, not a settled fact.

Even so, El Darazya shows how a site with limits on ground and air access can still yield to careful work from orbit. If the satellite data hold up against the excavation record, they could give archaeologists a fuller picture of a trading city that once fed and watered the caravans passing along Egypt’s coast.

Sources

• PAP (Polish Press Agency) report on El Darazya, as relayed by HeritageDaily (original not fetched)
• HeritageDaily: Satellite images reveal secrets of 2,000-year-old Egyptian city
• National Geographic Polska: experts from the Polish Space Agency help Polish archaeologists in Egypt