Thonis-Heracleion

BELOW LEFT Imported Greek ceramics, including the lidded vessel and lamp seen here, were among the funerary offerings found at the burial mound in the city, in use at the end of the 5th / beginning of the 4th century BC.

Ship-shape finds from a sunken city

The newly discovered Ptolemaic galley was found under 5m of dense Nile clay and building remains.

Above Beneath the waters of Egypt’s Aboukir Bay, archaeologists found the remains of a small tholos, a Greek round temple. Among the fallen Doric columns were ritual artefacts and statuettes, including this 3rd to 2nd century BC Isis Aphrodite anasyromene.

New discoveries from the lost cities of the Nile delta

Underwater archaeologists have taken to the waters of Egypt’s Aboukir Bay once more, revealing remarkable new finds from a temple at Thonis-Heracleion. Franck Goddio told Lucia Marchini about the latest results from this year’s excavation at the sunken city.

Above Egyptian boatbuilding. Here, the keel is being trimmed with an adze, as shown in a 3rd millennium BC depiction in the Tomb of Ti at Saqqara. Traditionally, the study of Egyptian boats has been heavily dependent on such images.

Ship 17: a wreck in the Nile

The emporium of Thonis-Heracleion lay at the westernmost entrance to the Nile. When this city sank into the Mediterranean, it created an extraordinary underwater repository of ancient activity, complete with ports and canals crammed with traces of ancient craft. Alexander Belov told Matthew Symonds what the first ship from the city to be excavated reveals about rivercraft that once caught Herodotus’ eye.

Below Colossal statue of a Ptolemaic king, carved from red granite. He would have stood 5m (16ft 5ins)high, and weighs 5.5 tons. right Colossal red granite statue of a fertility god, believed to be Hapy, probably 4th 3rd century BC the early Ptolemaic Period. It stands 5.4m (17ft 9ins)high and weighs about 6 tons.

Thonis-Heracleion: finding a legendary port under the sea

Once gatekeeper to Egypt’s interior, Thonis-Heracleion lay forgotten beneath the sea several miles off the Egyptian coast. The legendary city, visited by Helen of Troy as she eloped with Paris, enjoyed wealth and prestige before vanishing from the face of the earth.