Since 1999, the German Institute of Archaeology at Cairo undertook three excavtion campaigns in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities in the western part of the predynastic settlement of Maadi. This area was formerly occupied by a wireless station and not accessible for archaeologists until the 80's, and it is nowadays in danger to be destroyed by modern building activities.

Several trial trenches were excavated to get an impression of the archaeological situation in this part of the site, and a semi-subterranean, oval shaped stone structure was cleaned, excavated by F.A. Badawy already in the 80s. During drillings, undertaken to check the extension and thickness of cultural layers within the whole area, a subterranean cave-like building with stone lined entrance corridor was discovered, which can be seen as a link between the oval stone building and four other subterranean structures known from the older excavations further to the east at Maadi. As such structures have no parallels elsewhere in Egypt but are well-known in Chalcolithic Southern Palestine (subterranean dwellings) and EB IA Northern Palestine (oval shaped stone building) questions concerning the interconnections between Lower Egypt and Palestine as well as their chronology are a matter for discussion.

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