See artifacts that archaeologists discovered in this 1,600-year-old Byzantine Christian town buried in an oasis in Egypt

Beneath the western desert of Egypt, researchers discovered a settlement dating back to the fourth century C.E.—a remarkably intact remainder of the Byzantine Empire. The site contains housing quarters, a grid of streets and a basilica. Archaeologists unearthed kitchenware, receipts scrawled on pottery sherds, and even gold and bronze coins marked with emperors.

The newly discovered city is located in the Dakhla Oasis, according to a translated statement from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The site boasts structures made of mud bricks, a common ancient Egyptian building material formed from Nile river clay. The settlement looks like it had a city planner: Its main streets run north to south and its smaller streets west to east, forming open squares, reports the Associated Press’ Samy Magdy.

On one of the main streets is a Christian church which dates to the mid-fourth century, says Mahmoud Massoud, who leads archaeology for the excavation. Other prominent buildings included two watchtowers on the city’s edges, a thickly walled fortress and spacious houses that once contained vaulted ceilings.

“The first to third centuries saw activity on an unprecedented scale in Dakhla,” Colin Hope, an archaeologist at Monash University and a Dakhla Oasis expert who was not involved with the excavations, tells the Art Newspaper’s Garry Shaw. “In the fourth century, the amount of activity may have declined, but there were still many sites then and in the following centuries, when the occupants were largely Christian.”

Egypt’s Old, Middle and New Kingdom eras—the pharaoh-filled centuries most people think of as “ancient Egypt”—were followed by periods of colonization. In the fourth century B.C.E., Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered the region, leading to the Ptolemaic dynasty founded by one of his generals. In 30 B.C.E., Ptolemaic Egypt fell to the first Roman emperor, Augustus, who made it a colony of the new Roman Empire.

While the western, Latin-speaking part of the Roman Empire fell in the fifth century C.E., the Greek-speaking eastern portion, known now as the Byzantine Empire held on until the 1400s, centered in Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

Christianity spread through Rome starting in the first century C.E., and by the fourth century, it had become the empire’s official religion. Christians pervaded Rome’s colonies, including Egypt. Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries, they “transformed the architectural landscape of pharaonic Egypt by building monumental churches, martyrs’ shrines and monasteries,” according to the British Museum. The newly discovered basilica is one such construction.

“The church is important, as it clearly is fourth-century, and there are not too many so well preserved of that date—though Dakhla preserves quite a few, some much larger and decorated,” Hope tells the Art Newspaper.

In the newly discovered settlement, researchers found many artifacts reflecting the daily lives of its inhabitants: pottery, oil and perfume bottles, lamps, millstones and ovens. Zahran Mahdi, the director of excavations in the Islamic and Coptic antiquities sector, says that one of the most important finds is a collection of about 200 ostraca. These small pottery pieces are inscribed with everyday notes in Coptic and Greek, recording receipts and correspondence.

Additionally, the researchers unearthed bronze coins stamped with Byzantine emperors, Latin inscriptions and Christian symbols, reports the AP. They also found gold coins dating to the reign of fourth-century emperor Constantius II—son of Constantine the Great, Rome’s first publicly Christian emperor.

“The discovery of the gold coins is significant as they are rare in Dakhla, and raises questions of ownership, status and for what purpose they were being used,” Hope says. “The settlement was clearly agricultural, so how did an occupant acquire the coins? Were they being used in local transactions?”

This article was originally published on Smithsonian Magazine. Read the full story here: See Artifacts That Archaeologists Discovered in This 1,600-Year-Old Byzantine Christian Town Buried in an Oasis in Egypt © 2026 Smithsonian Institution.