City submerged for 1,200 years reveals its secrets

You may think of this as a fairy tale or a fantasy or a myth. It would have been a myth or a fairy tale if not for French underwater archaeologist Dr Franck Goddio who was surveying the Mediterranean Sea for French warships that sank there in the 18th century battle of the Nile.

Dr. Goddio was taken by surprise when he discovered a port city submerged under the Mediterranean Sea. It was a strange sight as well as a strange world.

This strange discovery is of Thonis-Heracleion a city lost between legend and reality. Before the foundation of Alexandria in 331 BC, the city knew glorious times as the obligatory port of entry to Egypt for all ships coming from the Greek world.

The city was founded probably around the 8th century BC, underwent diverse catastrophes and finally sunk entirely in the sea in the 8th century AD.

It has been there for some 1,200 years before Dr Goddio's sudden discovery. Along with his team from the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology, Dr Goddio unearthed the lost city revealing a treasure trove of artifacts and ruins some 30ft under the sea in Aloukir Bay, Alexandria. For the past 13 years they have been excavating the area, lifting up pieces of history, long since forgotten, from the bottom of the ocean.

To this day few can tell with absolute certainty why this city itself was plunged into the murky depths of the Mediterranean Sea. What caused it to sink? Did it collapse? Was a natural disaster to blame?

Dr Goddio's team have spent countless hours piecing together evidence trying to find answers for those questions. As more fragments and elements are brought to the surface his team has been able to create a virtual model of what the city might have looked in those times. Dr.Goddio has found important information on the ancient landmarks of Thonis-Heracleion such as the grand temple of Amun and his son Khonson (Herakles for the Greeks). The harbours that once controlled all trade into Egypt and daily life of the people.

He has also solved a historic question that has puzzled Egyptologists over the years: the archaeological material has revealed that Heracleion and Thonis were one and the same city with two names. Heracleion being the name given by the Greeks and Thonis by the Egyptians.

According to the popular view Thonis-Heracleion was in fact a port due to its location - acting as an entry point for merchants and trade. The items that have been found also support the theory, gold coins, stone ledgers and even weights all suggests a city bustling with energy, commerce and transactions. They have also discovered the remains of more than 64 ships buried in the thick clay and sand that now covers the sea bed.

Dr Danian Robinson, director of the Oxford centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Oxford, who is part of the team working on the site says that the site had amazing preservation and adds that had been a major international port for Egypt at that time and also it was where taxes and duties were levied on important export items.

Among the discoveries are colossal statues of the Egyptian goddess Isis, the god Hapi, and an unidentified Egyptian pharaoh all preserved in immaculate condition by their muddy burial ground. Along with these 16 foot statues there are hundreds of smaller statues of Egyptian gods - among them the figures that guarded the temple where Cleopatra was inaugurated as Queen of the Nile.

In Amun - Gereb, the most important temple of the supreme god of the Egyptians, dozens of sarcophagi have been found, containing the bodies of mummified animals sacrificed to the God. Many amulets or religious charms have been unearthed, too, showing gods such as Isis, Osiris and Horus.

The Greek historian Herodotes (5th century) tells us of a great temple that was built where the famous hero Herakles first set foot on Egypt.

He also reports of Helen's visit to Heracleion with her lover Paris before the Trojan War. More than four centuries after Herodotus’ visit to Egypt, geographer Strabo observed that the city of Heracleion which possessed the temple of Herakles is located straight to the east of canopus at the mouth of the canopic branch of the River Nile.

Going by the numerous archaeological finds Heracleion flourished especially from the 6th to the 4th century BC. And according to the popular views the city sank in the 6th or 7th century AD, probably due to major earthquakes and floods. Until Dr Franck Goddio unearthed this glorious city scholars were not sure if Heracleion and Thonis were in fact one and the same city.