TANIS is an important archaeological site in the North-Eastern Delta of the Nile where we can find:
- Ruins of an ancient royal capital city and inland harbour, founded at the end of the 2nd millenium. BC along the ancient Tanitic Nile branch.
- Temples built with massive stone remains from the monuments of AVARIS & PIRAMESSE, two other important royal cities and harbours of previous periods, 20km away, along the neighbouring Nile branch (Pelusiac), whose partial silting had caused their abandonment.
- Ancient rivers and canals now mostly silted up but traces can sometimes be detected in modern hydrography and micro variations of the ground surface topography.
Today’s Bahr Faqus drain might be the last avatar of an ancient waterway used for moving the heavy stone elements from Piramesse to Tanis. In this scenario, the challenge is to check this hypothesis on highly precise 3D information on the surface topography in the considered area.
