HERAKLION
Lost city of Heraklion
Port of
Thonis-Heraklion ,a lost ancient Egyptian city submerged beneath the sea
1,200 years ago .
Heraklion (Greek: Ἡράκλειον), also known as Thonis (Θῶνις), was an ancient Egyptian city near Alexandria whose ruins are located in Abu Qir Bay, currently 2.5 km off the coast, under 10 m (30 ft) of water.
Its importance grew particularly during the waning days of the Pharaohs—the late period, when it was Egypt's main port for international trade and collection of taxes.
Heracleion was originally built on some adjoining islands in the Nile Delta, and was intersected by canals. It possessed a number of harbors and anchorages, was the sister city of Naucratis, and was superseded by Alexandria.
Giant 16 foot statues have been uncovered and brought to the surface while archaeologists have found hundreds of smaller statues of minor gods on the sea floor.
Slabs of stone inscribed in both ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian have also been brought to the surface.
Dr Damian Robinson, director of the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology said :
“The site has an amazing preservation ,
“We are getting a rich picture of things like the trade that was going on there and the nature of the maritime economy in the Egyptian late period. There were things were coming in from Greece and the Phoenicians.
Heraklion (Greek: Ἡράκλειον), also known as Thonis (Θῶνις), was an ancient Egyptian city near Alexandria whose ruins are located in Abu Qir Bay, currently 2.5 km off the coast, under 10 m (30 ft) of water.
Its importance grew particularly during the waning days of the Pharaohs—the late period, when it was Egypt's main port for international trade and collection of taxes.
Heracleion was originally built on some adjoining islands in the Nile Delta, and was intersected by canals. It possessed a number of harbors and anchorages, was the sister city of Naucratis, and was superseded by Alexandria.
Giant 16 foot statues have been uncovered and brought to the surface while archaeologists have found hundreds of smaller statues of minor gods on the sea floor.
Slabs of stone inscribed in both ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian have also been brought to the surface.
Dr Damian Robinson, director of the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology said :
“The site has an amazing preservation ,
“We are getting a rich picture of things like the trade that was going on there and the nature of the maritime economy in the Egyptian late period. There were things were coming in from Greece and the Phoenicians.
Intact wake of Heraklion (1.90 m). It was commissioned by
Nectanebo I (378-362 B.C.)
Videos : Heraklion remnants .
Antirhodos (or Antirrhodos) - ALEXANDRIA
Antirhodos (sometimes
Antirrhodos or Anti Rhodes) was an island in the eastern harbor of Alexandria,
Egypt, on which a Ptolemaic palace was sited. The island was occupied until the
reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla and it probably sank in the 4th century,
when it succumbed to earthquakes and a tsunami following an earthquake in the
eastern Mediterranean near Crete in the year 365. The island now lies
underwater, near the seafront of modern Alexandria, at a depth of approximately
5 metres.
Descriptions of the
island were recorded in classical antiquity by Greek geographers and
historians. Strabo described a royal house on Antirhodos in 27 BC[4] and wrote
that the island's name ("counter-Rhodes") derived from the island's
rivalry with the island of Rhodes. Antirhodos was part of Alexandria's ancient
royal port called the Portus Magnus, which also included part the island of
Pharos in the West.
Rediscovery
In 1996, underwater
archaeology in the harbour of Alexandria conducted by Franck Goddio
showed that the island had been occupied from before the founding of Alexandria
and that it was totally levelled and prepared for construction around 250BC. On
narrow branch of the island there was a small Temple of Isis which had at
its entrance a life-size granite statue representing a shaven-headed Egyptian
priest of the goddess Isis carrying a jar topped with an image of Osiris. The
remains on the island do not seem to date from later than the Ptolemaic period,
suggesting the palace may have been abandoned soon after Cleopatra's death and
the absorption of Egypt into the Roman Empire.
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Intact wake of Heraklion (1.90 m). It was commissioned by
Nectanebo I (378-362 B.C.)
Map of the region
Statues found on the sunken island of
Antirhodos
Isis priest holding Osiris jar. Statue made
of black granite.
White marble torso of Hermes .
Videos : Alexandria remnants
Sources :
-Telegraph Travel Collection
-http://www.franckgoddio.org
