Tura was a site in
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
, located about halfway between modern
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
and Helwan. It was Egypt's primary
quarryThe Stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the construction of decorative monuments such as sculptures and obelisks...
for
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
. The limestone from Tura was the finest and whitest of all the Egyptian quarries, so it was used for facing stones for the richest tombs, as well as for the floors and ceilings of
mastabaA mastaba is a type of Ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with outward sloping sides that marked the burial site of many eminent Egyptians of Egypt's ancient period. Mastabas were constructed out of mud-bricks or stone....
s which were otherwise made of mudbrick. It was used during the
Old KingdomThe Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The...
and was the source of the limestone used for the "Rhomboidal Pyramid" or
Bent PyramidThe Bent Pyramid, located at the royal necropolis of Dahshur, approximately 40 kilometres south of Cairo, of Old Kingdom Pharaoh Sneferu, is a unique example of early pyramid development in Egypt, about 2596 BCE...
of
SnefruSnefru is a cryptographic hash function invented by Ralph Merkle which supports 128-bit and 256-bit output. It was named after the Egyptian Pharaoh Sneferu, continuing the tradition of the Khufu and Khafre block ciphers....
, the Great Pyramid of
KhufuKhufu was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He reigned from around 2589 to 2566 B.C.E Khufu was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...
, the
sarcophagiA sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos the word came to refer...
of many old kingdom nobles, the pyramids of the Middle Kingdom, and certain temples of the New Kingdom built by at least
Ahmose IAhmose I was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Eighteenth dynasty. He was a member of the Theban royal house, the son of pharaoh Tao II Seqenenre and brother of the last pharaoh of the Seventeenth dynasty, King Kamose...
, who may have used Tura limestone to begin the temple of
PtahIn Egyptian mythology, Ptah was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead cosmogony, which was more literally referred to as Ta-tenen , meaning risen land, or as Tanen, meaning submerged land, though Tatenen was a god in his own right before being assimilated with Ptah...
at
MemphisMemphis was the ancient capital of the first nome of Lower Egypt, and of the Old Kingdom of Egypt from its foundation until around 2200 BC and later for shorter periods during the New Kingdom, and an administrative centre throughout ancient history....
and the Southern Harem of Amun at
ThebesThebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile . It was inhabited beginning in around 3200 BC. It was the eponymous capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome...
.
The Tura limestone was deep underground and instead of
open-pit miningOpen-pit mining, also known as open-cast mining, open-cut mining, and strip mining, refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
, the miners tunnled deep underground to cut large stones out, leaving some limestone behind to support the caverns left behind.
Tura was a site in
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
, located about halfway between modern
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
and Helwan. It was Egypt's primary
quarryThe Stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the construction of decorative monuments such as sculptures and obelisks...
for
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
. The limestone from Tura was the finest and whitest of all the Egyptian quarries, so it was used for facing stones for the richest tombs, as well as for the floors and ceilings of
mastabaA mastaba is a type of Ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with outward sloping sides that marked the burial site of many eminent Egyptians of Egypt's ancient period. Mastabas were constructed out of mud-bricks or stone....
s which were otherwise made of mudbrick. It was used during the
Old KingdomThe Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The...
and was the source of the limestone used for the "Rhomboidal Pyramid" or
Bent PyramidThe Bent Pyramid, located at the royal necropolis of Dahshur, approximately 40 kilometres south of Cairo, of Old Kingdom Pharaoh Sneferu, is a unique example of early pyramid development in Egypt, about 2596 BCE...
of
SnefruSnefru is a cryptographic hash function invented by Ralph Merkle which supports 128-bit and 256-bit output. It was named after the Egyptian Pharaoh Sneferu, continuing the tradition of the Khufu and Khafre block ciphers....
, the Great Pyramid of
KhufuKhufu was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He reigned from around 2589 to 2566 B.C.E Khufu was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...
, the
sarcophagiA sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos the word came to refer...
of many old kingdom nobles, the pyramids of the Middle Kingdom, and certain temples of the New Kingdom built by at least
Ahmose IAhmose I was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Eighteenth dynasty. He was a member of the Theban royal house, the son of pharaoh Tao II Seqenenre and brother of the last pharaoh of the Seventeenth dynasty, King Kamose...
, who may have used Tura limestone to begin the temple of
PtahIn Egyptian mythology, Ptah was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead cosmogony, which was more literally referred to as Ta-tenen , meaning risen land, or as Tanen, meaning submerged land, though Tatenen was a god in his own right before being assimilated with Ptah...
at
MemphisMemphis was the ancient capital of the first nome of Lower Egypt, and of the Old Kingdom of Egypt from its foundation until around 2200 BC and later for shorter periods during the New Kingdom, and an administrative centre throughout ancient history....
and the Southern Harem of Amun at
ThebesThebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile . It was inhabited beginning in around 3200 BC. It was the eponymous capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome...
.
The Tura limestone was deep underground and instead of
open-pit miningOpen-pit mining, also known as open-cast mining, open-cut mining, and strip mining, refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
, the miners tunnled deep underground to cut large stones out, leaving some limestone behind to support the caverns left behind. These tunnles were surveyed in 1941, and in quarry 35, workmen found many loose quires from books by
OrigenOrigen was an early Christian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished of the early fathers of the Christian Church. According to tradition, he is held to have been an Egyptian who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had...
and
Didymus the BlindDidymus the Blind was an ecclesiastical writer of Alexandria whose famous catechetical school he led for about half a century....
, two
AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
n
Church FathersThe Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, or Fathers of the Church are the early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, particularly those of the first five centuries of Christian history. The term is used of writers and teachers of the Church, not necessarily saints...
. The workers who found them stole them, and although some were seized by the authorities, most are still missing, and turn up on the antiquities market from time to time. It is believed that some of the original books could have been up to 480 pages.
Tura was known to the ancient Egyptians as Troyu or Royu. This name was misinterpreted by
StraboStrabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born in a wealthy family from Amaseia in Pontus , which had recently become part of the Roman Empire.. He studied under various geographers and philosophers; first in Nysa, later in Rome...
to mean that it was inhabited by
TrojansTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
, thus the Hellenistic city was named Troia. This site was located at , and its site is occupied by the modern town of Tura,
Cairo GovernorateCairo Governorate is one of the governorates of Egypt. Its capital is the national capital of Cairo. Parts of the governorate were separated in April 2008 to form a separate Helwan governorate.External links* Official website...
.