Tura was the primary quarry for limestone in ancient Egypt. The site of Tura town, known by the ancient Egyptians as Troyu or Royu, is located about halfway between modern-day Cairo and Helwan. The ancient Greek geographer Strabo misinterpreted its ancient Egyptian name, which thought it meant Trojans inhabited it. Thus the Hellenistic city was named Troia. The site is located by the modern town of Tora in the Cairo Governorate.
Location of Tura town
Tura in the region of Al Qahirah is a city in Egypt – some 9 mi or ( 14 km ) south of Cairo, the country’s capital.
Ancient mining town
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 and for the floors and ceilings of mastabas, which were otherwise made of mudbrick. It was used during the Old Kingdom for mining. It was the source of the limestone used for the “Rhomboidal Pyramid” or Bent Pyramid of Sneferu, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and the sarcophagi of many Old Kingdom nobles. In addition, it was used for constructing the pyramids of the Middle Kingdom, and at least Ahmose I built certain temples of the New Kingdom. The latter may have used Tura limestone to begin the temple of Ptah at Memphis and the Southern Harem of Amun at Thebes.
The Tura limestone was deep underground. Instead of open-pit mining, the miners tunnelled deep underground to cut large stones out, leaving some limestone behind to support the caverns left behind. These tunnels were surveyed by British Forces in 1941, and in quarry 35, workers found many loose choirs from books by Origen and Didymus the Blind, two Alexandrian Church Fathers. It is believed that some of the original books could have been up to 480 pages. The workers who found them stole them, and although the authorities seized some, most are still missing and turn up on the antiquities market from time to time.
The caves were adapted by British forces during World War II and were initially used to store various equipment, including munitions. In 1942 it was decided they would serve better as a bomb-proof location for the repair of aircraft engines by the Royal Air Force. The engine repair section under the 111 Maintenance Unit was inspected on 22 August 1942 by Winston Churchill. He recorded, “Everything looked brilliant and efficient on the spot, and an immense amount of work was being done day and night by masses of skilled men. But I had my tables of facts and figures and remained dissatisfied. The scale was far too small.” The use of the caves for RAF aircraft engine repairs continued until 1945.
History of Boxing in Tura town
The boxing ring at Tura, Egypt, where a team from Maadi Camp met and defeated a team from an RAF unit near the end of November 1942. NZers won the contest by the odd bout in 9, in November 1942.
