The ruins of Taposiris, which cover more than a square kilometer, are almost completely unexcavated, apart from some limited undertakings which have remained unpublished. The tops of the walls of buildings show through on the surface almost everywhere: it would be possible to draw up a plan of the town based on their alignments, before even starting to dig. The American expedition which works there also tells us in its brief report that it has uncovered a public administrative building and some baths on the shore of the lake.

The lakeside here has been laid out in a remarkable way: a long breakwater, rising more than 3 meters (10 ft) above the level of the lake, extends from north to south for more than 300 meters (330 yds): its northern end is joined to the southern shore by a wall which barricades the basin and prevents all movement to and fro. Boats were obliged to pass beneath a bridge which connected the breakwater to the northern shore. This arrangement obviously facilitated traffic control and tax collection.

This must have been a customs checkpoint for boats coming from or going to Alexandria, like the one at Shedia, the city's other customs harbour, thirty kilometers (19 miles) to the east, at the point at which the canal which brought its water branched off the Nile. That Taposiris was a customs station is confirmed by the existence of a long wall, known as the wall of the Barbarians, which bars the onshore route to the west of the temple of Osiris. This wall, which appears from its contruction in big blocks of local limestone to be of the Hellenistic period, and of which several courses are still visible, ran from the sea to the lake and blocked the way of caravans travelling in both directions.

This, then, was Taposiris' main function in antiquity: the town was a customs station where there was a police checkpoint, and where dues were levied on all the trade with the west of the country and with Cyrenaica. Clearly this trade was important enough for these measures to be worthwhile. We have seen that the countryside's fertile vineyards alone must have channelled towards Alexandria a pentiful flow of boats laden with amphorae full of wine. Moreover, considering the dangers lurking on the coast, which was shallow, studed with reefs and liable to violent northerly storms, it is easy to imagine that people preferred to take the much safer routes across the lake.

Jean-Yves Empereur, Alexandria: Rediscovered (George Braziller Publisher, NY, 1998), p 225-227.