The ancient city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by a fourth century tsunami that devastated the region.

More recently, it was nearly buried under the modern resort of Marina in a development craze that turned this coast into the summer playground for Egypt’s elite.

Nearly 25 years after its discovery, Egyptian authorities are preparing to open ancient Leukaspis’ tombs, villas and city streets to visitors — a rare example of a Classical era city in a country better known for its pyramids and Pharaonic temples.

“Visitors can go to understand how people lived back then, how they built their graves, lived in villas or traded in the main agora (square),” said Ahmed Amin, the local inspector for the antiquities department. “Everyone’s heard of the resort Marina, now they will know the historic Marina.”

The history of the two Marinas is inextricably linked. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for the new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of a town founded in the second century B.C.

About 200 acres were set aside for archaeology, while everywhere else along the coast up sprouted holiday villages for Egyptians escaping the stifling summer heat of the interior for the Mediterranean’s cool breezes.

The ancient city yielded up its secrets in a much more gradual fashion to a team of Polish archaeologists excavating the site through the 1990s.

A portrait emerged of a prosperous port town, with up to 15,000 residents at its height, exporting grains, livestock, wine and olives to the rest of the Mediterranean.

Merchants lived in elegant two-story villas set along zigzagging streets with pillared courtyards flanked by living and prayer rooms.

Rainwater collected from roofs ran down special hollowed out pillars into channels under the floor leading to the family cisterns. Waste disappeared into a sophisticated sewer system.

Around the town center, where the two main streets intersect, was the social and economic heart of the city and there can still be found the remains of a basilica, a hall for public events that became a church after Christianity spread across the Roman Empire.

A semicircular niche lined with benches underneath a portico provided a space for town elders to discuss business before retiring to the bathhouse across the street.

Greek columns and bright limestone walls up to six feet high (2 meters) stand in some places, reflecting the sun in an electric blue sky over the dark waters of the nearby sea. Visitors will also be able to climb down the steep shafts of the rock-cut tombs to the deeply buried burial chambers of the city’s necropolis.

It is from the sea from which the city gained much of its livelihood. It began as a way station in the coastal trade between Egypt and Libya to the west. Later, it began exporting goods from its surrounding farms overseas, particularly to the island of Crete, just 300 miles (480 kilometers) away — a shorter trip than that from Egypt’s main coastal city Alexandria.

And from the sea came its end. Leukaspis was largely destroyed when a massive earthquake near Crete in 365 A.D. set off a tsunami wave that also devastated nearby Alexandria. In the ensuing centuries, tough economic times and a collapsing Roman Empire meant that most settlements along the coast disappeared.

Today, the remains of the port are lost. In the late 1990s, an artificial lagoon was built, surrounded by summer homes for top government officials.

“It was built by dynamite detonation so whatever was there I think is gone,” said Agnieszka Dobrowlska, an architect who helped excavate the ancient city with the Polish team in the 1990s.

However, Egyptian government interest in the site rose in the last few years, part of a renewed focus on developing the country’s Classical past. In 2005, Dobrowlska returned as part of a USAID project to turn ancient Marina into an open air museum for tourists.

It couldn’t have come at a better time for ancient Marina, which had long attracted covetous glances from real estate developers.

“I am quite happy it still exists, because when I was involved there were big plans to incorporate this site in a big golf course being constructed by one of these tycoons. Apparently the antiquities authorities didn’t allow it, so that’s quite good,” recalls Dobrowlska.

Redoing the site is part of a plan to bring more year-around tourism to what is now largely a summer destination for just Egyptians — perhaps with a mind to attracting European tourists currently flocking to beaches in nearby Tunisia during the winter.

Much still needs to be done to achieve the government’s target to open the site by mid-September, as ancient fragments of pottery still litter the ground and bones lie open in their tombs.

But if old Marina is a success then similar transformation could happen to a massive temple of Osiris just 30 miles (50 kilometers) away, where a Dominican archaeological team is searching for the burial place of the doomed Classical lovers, Anthony and Cleopatra.

“The plan is to do the same for Taposiris Magna so that tourists can visit both,” said Khaled Aboul- Hamd, antiquities director for the region.

These north coast ruins may also attract the attention of the visitors to the nearby El-Alamein battlefield and cemeteries for the World War II battle that Winston Churchill once called the turning point of the war.

In fact, there are signs the allied troops took refuge in the deep rock cut tombs of Marina, just six miles (10 kilometers) from the furthest point of the Axis advance on Alexandria.

Crouched down awaiting the onslaught of German Gen. Rommel’s famed Afrika Corps, the young British Tommies would have shared space with the rib bones and skull fragments of Marina’s inhabitants in burial chambers hidden 25 feet (8 meters) below ground.

The ancient city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by a fourth century tsunami that devastated the region.

More recently, it was nearly buried under the modern resort of Marina in a development craze that turned this coast into the summer playground for Egypt’s elite.

Nearly 25 years after its discovery, Egyptian authorities are preparing to open ancient Leukaspis’ tombs, villas and city streets to visitors — a rare example of a Classical era city in a country better known for its pyramids and Pharaonic temples.

“Visitors can go to understand how people lived back then, how they built their graves, lived in villas or traded in the main agora (square),” said Ahmed Amin, the local inspector for the antiquities department. “Everyone’s heard of the resort Marina, now they will know the historic Marina.”
Click image to see photos of the ancient city of Leukaspis

AP/Nasser Nasser

The history of the two Marinas is inextricably linked. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for the new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of a town founded in the second century B.C.

About 200 acres were set aside for archaeology, while everywhere else along the coast up sprouted holiday villages for Egyptians escaping the stifling summer heat of the interior for the Mediterranean’s cool breezes.

The ancient city yielded up its secrets in a much more gradual fashion to a team of Polish archaeologists excavating the site through the 1990s.

A portrait emerged of a prosperous port town, with up to 15,000 residents at its height, exporting grains, livestock, wine and olives to the rest of the Mediterranean.

Merchants lived in elegant two-story villas set along zigzagging streets with pillared courtyards flanked by living and prayer rooms.

Rainwater collected from roofs ran down special hollowed out pillars into channels under the floor leading to the family cisterns. Waste disappeared into a sophisticated sewer system.

Around the town center, where the two main streets intersect, was the social and economic heart of the city and there can still be found the remains of a basilica, a hall for public events that became a church after Christianity spread across the Roman Empire.

A semicircular niche lined with benches underneath a portico provided a space for town elders to discuss business before retiring to the bathhouse across the street.

Greek columns and bright limestone walls up to six feet high (2 meters) stand in some places, reflecting the sun in an electric blue sky over the dark waters of the nearby sea. Visitors will also be able to climb down the steep shafts of the rock-cut tombs to the deeply buried burial chambers of the city’s necropolis.

It is from the sea from which the city gained much of its livelihood. It began as a way station in the coastal trade between Egypt and Libya to the west. Later, it began exporting goods from its surrounding farms overseas, particularly to the island of Crete, just 300 miles (480 kilometers) away — a shorter trip than that from Egypt’s main coastal city Alexandria.

And from the sea came its end. Leukaspis was largely destroyed when a massive earthquake near Crete in 365 A.D. set off a tsunami wave that also devastated nearby Alexandria. In the ensuing centuries, tough economic times and a collapsing Roman Empire meant that most settlements along the coast disappeared.

Today, the remains of the port are lost. In the late 1990s, an artificial lagoon was built, surrounded by summer homes for top government officials.

“It was built by dynamite detonation so whatever was there I think is gone,” said Agnieszka Dobrowlska, an architect who helped excavate the ancient city with the Polish team in the 1990s.

However, Egyptian government interest in the site rose in the last few years, part of a renewed focus on developing the country’s Classical past. In 2005, Dobrowlska returned as part of a USAID project to turn ancient Marina into an open air museum for tourists.

It couldn’t have come at a better time for ancient Marina, which had long attracted covetous glances from real estate developers.

“I am quite happy it still exists, because when I was involved there were big plans to incorporate this site in a big golf course being constructed by one of these tycoons. Apparently the antiquities authorities didn’t allow it, so that’s quite good,” recalls Dobrowlska.

Redoing the site is part of a plan to bring more year-around tourism to what is now largely a summer destination for just Egyptians — perhaps with a mind to attracting European tourists currently flocking to beaches in nearby Tunisia during the winter.

Much still needs to be done to achieve the government’s target to open the site by mid-September, as ancient fragments of pottery still litter the ground and bones lie open in their tombs.

But if old Marina is a success then similar transformation could happen to a massive temple of Osiris just 30 miles (50 kilometers) away, where a Dominican archaeological team is searching for the burial place of the doomed Classical lovers, Anthony and Cleopatra.

“The plan is to do the same for Taposiris Magna so that tourists can visit both,” said Khaled Aboul- Hamd, antiquities director for the region.

These north coast ruins may also attract the attention of the visitors to the nearby El-Alamein battlefield and cemeteries for the World War II battle that Winston Churchill once called the turning point of the war.

In fact, there are signs the allied troops took refuge in the deep rock cut tombs of Marina, just six miles (10 kilometers) from the furthest point of the Axis advance on Alexandria.

Crouched down awaiting the onslaught of German Gen. Rommel’s famed Afrika Corps, the young British Tommies would have shared space with the rib bones and skull fragments of Marina’s inhabitants in burial chambers hidden 25 feet (8 meters) below ground.

Hermine continued dissolving just south of San Antonio and was expected to be downgraded into a tropical depression later Tuesday. Most of south Texas woke up to few signs that a tropical system had swept through, aside from scattered downed trees and power lines.

As when Hurricane Alex lashed the same flood-prone Rio Grande Valley in June, there was a feeling that Hermine could have been worse. There were no reports of serious injuries, damage or flooding, and authorities ordered no evacuations.

Hermine dumped between 5 inches to a foot of rain after crossing into Texas late Monday. The storm made landfall in northeastern Mexico with winds of up to 65 mph (100 kph), arriving near the same spot as Alex, whose remnants killed at least 12 people in flooding in Mexico.

But unlike Alex, which swiped Texas then plunged southwest into Mexico, Hermine was felt in more places.

“This is going to be much more of a memorable storm than Alex,” National Weather Service meteorologist Joseph Tomaselli said Tuesday.

Raymondville won’t forget Hermine anytime soon. The rural farming town, about 20 miles off the Texas coast, began cleaning up early Tuesday without power after Hermine ripped the roof off a roadside motel occupied by terrified guests who say they fled for safety in the nick of time.

Melanie Tamyl and Roy Tamez were in their second-story room when their ceiling began bowing up and down. They opened the door just in time to watch the awning get peeled back like a lid.

“I told (Melanie) that we’ve got to get out of here right now,” said Tamez, 52. “The whole roof is about to go.”

Tamez and Tamyl helped two other families to evacuate the motel. They returned Tuesday to find half the roof over their room gone and their bedding soaked and soiled with ceiling tile and mud. They picked through soggy clothes and food, salvaging what they could.

As many as 35,000 homes were without power in the Rio Grande Valley early Tuesday, according to an online outage map of American Electric Power, the area’s power utility. A company representative did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Shelters throughout Rio Grande Valley were on standby but mostly kept their doors shut, and offers for sandbags saw relatively few takers.

Flash flood warning remained in effect Tuesday, but officials said first reports only indicated nuisances such as high water on neighborhood streets.

Hermine might have been no Alex in terms of strength, but it wasn’t taken lightly: Mexican emergency officials in Tamaulipas worked to evacuate 3,500 people around Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, and schools on both sides of the border canceled classes Tuesday.

Forecasters said remnants of Hermine will be felt as far north as Oklahoma and Kansas in the coming days.

In Mexico, Hermine brought another unwelcome downpour.

Mexico’s northeast cattle-ranching region is one of the most dangerous hotspots in the country’s bloody turf war between two drug cartels. It is the same area where 72 migrants were killed two weeks ago in what it believed to be the country’s worst drug gang massacre to date.

Mexican emergency officials urged those living in low-lying coastal areas to move to shelters. Classes in Matamoros and several other Mexican towns were canceled, and authorities began releasing water from some dams to make room for expected rains.

In inland Hidalgo state, authorities said heavy rains caused by the passing storm unleashed landslides that damaged 20 homes, left 120 people homeless and cut off small communities.

Tropical storm warnings in Mexico were canceled early Tuesday.

On South Padre Island, Hermine arrived too late to ruin another long weekend at the tourist hotspot. Alex plummeted Fourth of July hotel occupancies to about one-third of the normal rate, but most Labor Day weekend vacationers were already packing up for home by the time Hermine came into the picture.

“It really crept up on us,” said Dan Quandt, executive director of the South Padre Island Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In an interview published Monday, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf quoted Joran van der Sloot as confessing to taking money from the family of the American in return for revealing the location of her body. He was indicted in the U.S. in June for extortion after being caught in an FBI sting, though the place he indicated as her burial site turned out to be bogus.

Holloway was last seen alive with him on the Caribbean resort island of Aruba in 2005, and he has publicly said he killed her and then retracted his confession several times.

“I wanted to get back at Natalee’s family — her parents have been making my life tough for five years,” the paper quoted him as saying from prison in Peru. “When they offered to pay for the girl’s location, I thought: ‘Why not’?”

U.S. prosecutors say in the sting earlier this year, Natalee’s mother sent $10,000 in cash to Van der Sloot through an FBI witness, and a wire transfer of $15,000 to Van der Sloot’s bank account in the Netherlands. He took the money and flew to Latin America.

He has been charged with killing Stephany Flores in his hotel room in Lima, Peru, on May 30 — 5 years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance. He met both women in casinos.

Van der Sloot initially confessed to killing Flores to Peruvian police, but later said he only did so because he was intimidated and had been promised he would be extradited to the Netherlands.

His requests to have the Peruvian confession retracted have so far been denied and he awaits trial.

A tropical storm warning was issued early Monday for the southern Texas coast. A tropical storm warning was already in effect for the coast of Mexico from Tampico to the mouth of the Rio Grande.

Hermine’s maximum sustained winds have increased to near 45 mph (75 kph) with some additional strengthening expected before the storm makes landfall.

Heavy rain is predicted with northeastern Mexico into south Texas getting 4 to 8 inches with as much as a foot in some places. It could cause flash floods and mudslides.

The storm is located about 280 miles (450 kilometers) south-southeast of Brownsville, Texas, and is moving north near 10 mph (17 kph).

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Hermine is getting a little stronger in the Gulf of Mexico as it heads toward the coasts of Texas and Mexico.

A tropical storm warning was issued early Monday for the southern Texas coast. A tropical storm warning was already in effect for the coast of Mexico from Tampico to the mouth of the Rio Grande.

Hermine’s maximum sustained winds have increased to near 45 mph (75 kph) with some additional strengthening expected before the storm makes landfall.

Heavy rain is predicted with northeastern Mexico into south Texas getting 4 to 8 inches with as much as a foot in some places. It could cause flash floods and mudslides.

The storm is located about 280 miles (450 kilometers) south-southeast of Bronwsville, Texas, and is moving north near 10 mph (17 kph).

JetBlue Airways says that there will be no second exits for famed flight attendant Steven Slater — who captured the nation’s imagination with his profanity-laced loudspeaker tirade and jump down a plane’s emergency chute, beer in hand.

Spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said Saturday that Slater is no longer employed by the airline. She said the airline won’t release further details out of respect for Slater’s privacy.

Slater’s lawyer had said he loved flying and wanted to return to work, and Slater’s folk-hero status among tens of thousands of online fans had led some of them to urge the airline to keep him on.

The airline said at the time of the incident last month that Slater was suspended pending an investigation. It told employees in a memo that press coverage was not taking into account how much harm can be caused by emergency slides, which are deployed with a potentially deadly amount of force.

The former flight attendant still has to navigate the criminal justice system. He’s been charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing; his lawyer has said a passenger’s “lack of civility” prompted his behavior.

Despite Slater’s online popularity, some passengers came forward to criticize him as brusque and cranky throughout the 90-minute trip from Pittsburgh to New York. One passenger portrayed Slater as the instigator, saying he cursed without provocation at a woman who had asked about her bag.

His employment status was first reported by the NBC New York website.

To compete against cheaper regional rivals, JAL also said it would look at creating a low-cost carrier. The state-backed turnaround body leading the restructuring said relisting the airline would be possible by 2013.

JAL’s turnaround pledge, submitted to the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday, includes a halt to 10 international flights following earlier closures aimed at stemming losses. It will also stop plying 39 domestic routes.

JAL forecast the latest contraction in money-losing services would help it to achieve an operating profit margin of 9.2 percent by March 2013.

“JAL’s flop has caused a lot of trouble to shareholders and financial institutions,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Kazuo Inamori at a news conference in Tokyo.

“Today is a new start for us,” said Inamori, the 77-year old founder of electronics maker Kyocera Corp (6971.T), who was asked by the government to run JAL for three years after it filed for bankruptcy.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Under the turnaround plan, JAL will receive an injection of 350 billion yen ($4.14 billion) from the government and a 521 billion yen debt waiver from banks including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (8306.T) and Mizuho Financial group (8411.T). JAL said it had 959 billion yen of liabilities at the end of March.

Brought down by years of high costs, the former state carrier still faces an uncertain future as it takes on other carriers in a burgeoning and increasingly competitive regional air market.

JAL’s new start may also be without the architect of its revival. Speaking at the unveiling of its business plan, Inamori said he wanted to step down as CEO in February 2012, a year earlier than he had agreed to when he took the job in January.

Aviation analysts applauded Inamori’s fleet changes, which amount to the elimination of 103 aircraft.

JAL will offload all its Boeing (BA.N) 747-400 jumbos and every Airbus (EAD.PA) A300-600 jet it owns by March next year, and will stop operating all its McDonnell Douglas-built MD81 and MD90 aircraft by a later date. When complete, JAL will use four models rather than the seven it flies now.

“This is a massive shutdown in a very short amount of time, and generally only happens when airlines are shut down, not when they restructure,” said Shashank Nigam, head of Singapore-based airline industry consultant SimpliFlying Pte.

“We are likely to see a very much smaller and more regional Japan Airlines come out of this,” he said.

($1=84.53 Yen)

The storm, far less intense than feared, brushed past the Northeast and dumped heavy, wind-driven rain on Cape Cod cottages and fishing villages, but caused little damage. It left clear, blue skies in its wake, the perfect start to the Labor Day weekend.

The worst of the damage in Massachusetts amounted to a few hundred power outages, a handful of downed power lines and isolated flooding. The storm didn’t make much of an impression on the dozen people who stayed overnight at a Red Cross shelter at the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School in Yarmouth on the Cape.

“Everybody was ready for something big to happen,” said Red Cross worker Harry Watling. “But when it came, most of us hardly even noticed.”

Earl swooped into New England waters Friday night as a tropical storm with winds of 70 mph after sideswiping North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where it caused flooding but no injuries and little damage. The rain it brought to Cape Cod, Nantucket Island and Martha’s Vineyard was more typical of the nor’easters that residents have been dealing with for generations — except this one disrupted the unofficial last weekend of summer.

Winds on Nantucket blew at around 30 mph, with gusts above 40 mph. The island got more than 2 inches of rain, while adjacent Martha’s Vineyard got more than 4 inches. Hyannis, home to Kennedy compound, got about 4.5 inches.

Nantucket, the well-to-do resort island and old-time whaling port, briefly saw some localized flooding, but it cleared within hours, Nantucket Assistant Town Manager Gregg Tivnan said.

Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said the damage was so minimal on Cape Cod and the islands that the agency didn’t send out assessment teams as planned Saturday morning.

“There’s nothing to assess at this point,” he said. “It wasn’t even a really bad rainstorm.”

Judge said power outages peaked at about 1,800 but were down to a few hundred early Saturday and were being quickly restored. He said the state shut down its emergency management center as of 7 a.m. Saturday.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Friday that a hurricane warning for the southeast coast of Massachusetts was reduced in size. But the warning remains in effect for areas including Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Earl’s center was moving away from North Carolina on a north-northeast track and was expected to approach southeastern New England on Friday night.

Top sustained winds have decreased to near 85 mph (140 kph). It’s center is about 350 miles (565 kilometers) south-southwest Nantucket.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BUXTON, N.C. (AP) — Hurricane Earl kicked up dangerous waves and rip currents along the East Coast as it blew over open water Friday toward Cape Cod after brushing North Carolina’s Outer Banks, leaving flooding but no injuries on the narrow vacation islands.

The weakened storm passed the Outer Banks before dawn, farther offshore than had been feared but still knocking out power to thousands and closing a road to a main bridge between the islands and the mainland.

The storm remained very much a threat as it swirled up the Eastern Seaboard toward Cape Cod. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Massachusetts to make it easier for the government to provide disaster relief.

When Earl sideswiped North Carolina, its winds had dropped to 105 mph from 145 mph a day before. And at its closest approach, its center passed about 85 miles east of Cape Hatteras — up to 50 miles farther out than forecasters feared.

Hurricane-force winds, which start at 74 mph, apparently did not reach the Outer Banks, the National Hurricane Center’s chief forecaster James Franklin said.

Visitors were taking ferries off Ocracoke Island and told to leave neighboring Cape Hatteras in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and federal authorities have warned people all along the Eastern seaboard to be prepared to evacuate. Emergency officials as far north as Maine were checking their equipment and urging people to have disaster plans and supplies ready.

Earl was still more than 700 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, with top sustained winds of 125 mph. It was on track to near the North Carolina shore late Thursday or early Friday and then blow north off the coast, with forecasters cautioning that it was still too early to tell how close the storm may come to land.

Hurricane watches were out from Surf City, N.C., to Virginia’s Parramore Island. Not since Hurricane Bob in 1991 has such a powerful storm had such a large swath of the East Coast in its sights, said Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center.

“A slight shift of that track to the west is going to impact a great deal of real estate with potential hurricane-force winds,” Feltgen said.

Even if Earl stays well offshore, it will kick up rough surf and dangerous rip currents up and down the coast through the Labor Day weekend, a prime time for beach vacations, forecasters said.

The only evacuation orders so far affected parts of the Outer Banks, thin strips of beach and land that face the open Atlantic.

Tourist cars, some with campers in tow, lined up for the first ferries of the day from Ocracoke to the mainland. Another car ferry connects to Hatteras, which has a bridge to the mainland and came under the second evacuation order a little later Wednesday morning.

The evacuation orders are called mandatory, but Julia Jarema, spokeswoman for the state Division of Emergency Management, said it doesn’t mean people will be forced from their homes. Local law enforcement officials may do something such as going door-to-door and asking people who stay behind for their information about their next of kin.

Emergency officials said they hoped Ocracoke’s 800 or so year-round residents would heed the call to leave. But Carol Paul said she and husband Tom would stay put if the current forecasts hold. Only a direct hit from a stronger storm would drive them from the island where they’ve lived for seven years, running an antiques store.