1/7/2024 0 Comments The sinking city lost at sea![]() It was a similar inscription on the Rosetta Stone - discovered in the Nile Delta town of Rosetta in 1799 by a French soldier, and now in the British Museum - that cracked the code of hieroglyphics in the first place.Īnd like the Rosetta Stone, those steles found beneath the waters of Aboukir Bay are inscribed in Greek and Egyptian, too. Translated, they will reveal much about the religious and political life in this corner of ancient Egypt. ![]() The Heracleion finds will add tremendous depth to our understanding of the ancient world - not least because, among the discoveries, there are perfectly preserved steles (inscribed pillars) decorated with hieroglyphics. Archaeologists have determined that as well as having a naturally navigable channel next to its ancient harbour, a further artificial channel appears to have been dug to expedite trade. It was, if you like, a major motorway junction - the spot where the Nile, Egypt’s lifeline, met the Med. All their greatest cities, including Constantinople, Rome and Athens, were either on the coast or on rivers with easy access to it.Īnd now Heracleion can be added to their number as Egypt’s most important port during the time of the later pharaohs. In the ancient world, the Mediterranean Sea was their equivalent of a superfast motorway. Heracleion was mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus, who told of Helen of Troy visiting the city with her lover Paris before the Trojan war Gold coins and lead, bronze and stone weights from Athens (used to measure the value of goods and to calculate the tax owed) show that Heracleion was a lucrative Mediterranean trading post. Other finds illustrate how crucial Heracleion was to the economy of the ancient world. The importance of Heracleion has been further proved by the discovery of 64 ships - the largest number of ancient vessels ever found in one place - and a mind-boggling 700 anchors. These were made not just for the Egyptians but for visiting traders, who incorporated them into their own religions and also, one imagines, kept them as trinkets to remind them of their far-flung journeys. Many amulets, or religious charms, have been unearthed, too, showing gods such as Isis, Osiris and Horus. It seems the Amun-Gereb temple at Heracleion was the Egyptian equivalent of Westminster Abbey, where our own Queen was crowned 60 years ago.ĭozens of sarcophagi have been found, containing the bodies of mummified animals sacrificed to Amun-Gereb, the supreme god of the Egyptians. Along with these 16ft 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. Twelve years on, their fabulous finds have been exposed to public view for the first time after more than a millennium spent beneath the silt and water of Aboukir Bay, 20 miles north-east of Alexandria.Īmong 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 shroud. The archaeologists first faced the mammoth task of reassembling massive stone fragments on the seabed before they could haul them to the surface. Goddio’s team has since been joined by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology and the Department of Antiquities of Egypt to produce a wealth of dazzling finds. Goddio was in search of Napoleon’s warships from the 1798 Battle of the Nile, when he was defeated by Nelson in these very waters, but came upon this much more significant discovery. Among the most important monuments that were discovered at the temple area of Thonis-Heracleion is this monolithic chapel dating to the Ptolemaic periodīut no physical evidence of such a grand settlement appeared until 2001, when a group led by French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio stumbled upon some relics that led them to one of the greatest finds of the 21st century.
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