In 1998 and 1999 Professor Fawzy Fakharany excavated in the cemetery of Terra Santa no. 2. In 2001 he requested the collaboration of the CEA in these excavations and, after a delay in order to gather the necessary finance and permits, we began work on 25 September 2002. Since then we have been digging in this deconsecrated cemetery that had been transformed into a plant nursery. Half belongs to the faculty of Agriculture, Alexandria University, and the other half to the Governorate of the city.

This area had always been coveted by the archaeological milieu since the discovery in 1906 of what is called the Alabaster Tomb. This is, in fact, the antechamber to a monumental tomb that Achille Adriani, the last Italian director of the Graeco-Roman Museum considered to be the tomb of Alexander the Great!

The geophysical prospections, using radar, seismic and electromagnetic measurements, undertaken at the request of Professor Fakharany in 1998 and 1999, firstly by a Greek and then by a German team, revealed a series of anomalies in the vicinity of the tomb and we have taken these findings into account with our first trenches. In certain areas we have reached the bedrock which appears to have been cut. We must now look for the passages, wells or other descents that will lead us to the cavities revealed by the geophysicists. The excavation on this large site of more than 2 hectares has only just begun and we will have to be patient before obtaining the first meaningful results.