Heracleon is an ancient Egyptian city that sank off the coast of Egypt 1200 years ago. The city was one of the most important trade centers in the Mediterranean region before it disappeared. The ruins of the lost city were found at a depth of 9 meters in the Mediterranean Sea near the city of Alexandria.
For 13 years of excavations since the discovery of the first artifacts, 64 ancient shipwrecks and more than 700 anchors have been recovered. In addition, among the finds were gold coins, weights from Athens, and huge slabs with inscriptions in ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian.
The city was flooded by a series of natural disasters around AD 700 and researchers have a long work ahead of them to explore the archaeological treasure.”According to Damien Robinson, director of the Oxford Center for Underwater Archeology, who helped excavate the artifacts, the city was one of the most important maritime transport hubs of antiquity, as well as a major cultural center.
Scientists do not yet know exactly why Heracleon sank more than a millennium ago, but they speculate that the gradual rise in sea level, combined with the sudden collapse of unstable sedimentary rocks, led the city to sink to a depth of about 3.6 meters.
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Over time, the city disappeared from memory and its existence became known only from a few references in ancient texts.
Various religious artifacts from the sunken city have also been found, including a 5-meter stone sculpture that probably adorned the city's central temple and limestone sarcophagi containing mummified animals.
After removing the layer of sand and mud, divers uncovered evidence of extreme wealth that paints a picture of what life was like in Heracleon, believed to have been the center of Mediterranean trade more than 1000 years ago.
Scientists have also discovered the remains of the legendary temple of Amun-Gereb, where Cleopatra was empowered to rule Egypt. The temple was the central point of the city. Experts have yet to find out what caused the city's sinking, however, one theory is an unstable geological environment, as Heracleon was built on marine sediments, which, combined with rising sea levels, may have caused the entire city to sink to a depth of about 3. 6 meters.
The water in the bay is clear only 15-20 days a year. The rest of the year, due to the very large amount of silt, visibility is no more than twenty centimeters! In any case, the silt covers everything, changing both the shape of the bottom and the objects on it. It is no coincidence that when a “stone” was found covered with silt and shells, they first walked past it and only then realized that it was the head of an ancient sculpture.
Scuba divers worked in extreme conditions. They raked the "mud-silt" over an area of about one hundred meters with the help of suction pumps equipped with filters so that some valuable find would not slip into this "unit" and break. If they didn’t find anything, then the scuba divers went up to receive the next task.
In the photo: Bronze oil lamp (2nd century BC) belonging to the temple of Amun.
In the photo: a fragment of the head of a colossal red granite statue (5.4 meters), symbolizing the god Hapi - the god of the Nile and the patron saint of the harvest in Egyptian mythology. Hapi personified the annual flood of the great Nile, rich in fertile silt, which allowed the Egyptians to grow good crops along the banks of this river. His name means "The only flowing", which implies the flow of the Nile. Hapi was also known as the "Lord of the fishes and birds of the swamp", the "Lord of the river carrying the plant."
Archaeologists are raising a statue of the god Hapi, 5.4 meters high. She decorated the main temple of the city.
In the photo: archaeologists put together the fragments of a colossal stele raised from the bottom. Pharaoh, Queen and God Hapi are immortalized in red granite. The red granite stele was collected from 17 pieces. It dates back to the 2nd century. BC
This gold object (11 x 5 cm) was found during preliminary exploration of the southern sector of the city. The plate is engraved with Greek text 5 and a half lines long. Such a tablet served as a confirmation of contributions in the name of the ruler Ptolemy III (246-222 BC).
In the photo: a bronze statue of Osiris, the killed and then resurrected pharaoh-god. It is adorned with the crown of Atef. The typical signs of power are missing. His open eyes are accented with gold leaf.
In the photo: Scientists raise the stele of Heracleon. It was commissioned by Pharaoh Nectanebus I (378-362 BC) and is an almost identical copy of the Naukratis stele, which is now in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo.
Photo: Golden vessel (Phiale), found in the sector Thonis-Heracleon. These vessels were essentially shallow plates used throughout the Hellenistic world for drinking and pouring various libations.
In the photo: God Hapi, already familiar to us. The statue is 5 and a half meters high from red granite.
In the photo: God Hapi. The archaeologist checks the reliability of the fastening before raising God to the surface.
One of the amazing finds is a magnificent statue of the fruits of the Greco-Egyptian art of the Ptolemaic era - the statue of the Queen, made of black stone. Scientists believe that this is definitely one of the rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty, possibly a representation of Cleopatra II or Cleopatra III, dressed in the clothes of the Goddess Isis - the goddess of femininity and motherhood.