In the Bay of Abukir in Egypt, underwater archaeologists have discovered further remains of the sunken port city of Thonis-Herakleion. Among them is a Ptolemaic galley from the second century BC, well preserved under layers of clay, whose construction is a hybrid of Greek and Egyptian ship architecture. Elsewhere in the sunken city, the archaeologists came across a burial site with rich gifts.
The port city of Thonis-Herakleion was once located in the Bay of Abukir, around 20 kilometers northeast of Alexandria. It was Egypt’s most important seaport between 550 and 331 BC in ancient Greece. A large part of the trade in goods between Egypt and Greece was carried out at the quays at the mouth of the Canopian arm of the Nile. In the course of these close trade relations, many Greek traders, seafarers and mercenaries settled in the city and were allowed to build their own sanctuaries near the city’s great Amun temple.
Galley under temple rubble
But from 331 B.C. There were repeated severe earthquakes and floods. Thonis-Herakleion, which was built on several islands, and its port were gradually destroyed and finally sank in the floods in late antiquity. Tidal waves and soil liquefaction caused a 110 square kilometer area of the Nile Delta to sink into the sea and with it the cities of Thonis-Herakleion and Canopus. Today they are around seven kilometers from the coast at the bottom of the Mediterranean. The remains of these places were only rediscovered 20 years ago by archaeologists working with Franck Goddio from the European Institute for Underwater Archeology (IEASM). The inscriptions discovered during these excavations showed that the Egyptian Thonis and the Greek Herakleion were the same city.
At this year’s excavations in Thonis-Herakleion, the archaeologists made further exciting discoveries. Among them are the remains of a Ptolemaic galley around 25 meters long. At the time of its sinking in the second century BC, it was apparently moored to a jetty on the south side of the Amun temple and sank together with it during an earthquake in the floods. Protected by a five-meter-thick layer of clay and debris from the Amun Temple, the ship has survived the millennia so well that the researchers were even able to identify details of its construction using a sediment echo sounder.
Egyptian-Greek mixed construction
“Such a find is extremely rare,” explains Goddio. “The only other known ship of this type is the Marsala boat from 235 BC. It was discovered in 1969 off the coast of Sicily. ”As the photos reveal, the galley from Thonis-Herakleion has some special features. On the one hand, the technology of their hull construction corresponds to that of classic shipbuilding. The planks of the hull were connected by mortise and tenon joints with large tongues. On the other hand, the ship also has some typical features of the Egyptian ship architecture, as the archaeologists report.
“The ship had a flat bottom and keel, which was beneficial for navigation on the Nile and in the Delta. These features, as well as the evidence of recycled wood, suggest that it was probably built in Egypt, ”said Goddio. In addition, the galley was designed to be driven by rowers. At the same time, however, it must have been equipped with a large sail, as a mast base of considerable size shows. In the opinion of the archaeological team, all of this speaks for the fact that this galley was built in a mixed construction method in several respects.
In another part of the sunken city of Thonis-Herakleion, the underwater archaeologists have found what they are looking for during the current excavations. At the northeast entrance to the canal, they came across the remains of a Greek burial site with valuable grave goods. To the beginning of the 4th Jhs. v. Finds dated to the 3rd century BC include some ceramics imported from Greece and a gold relief representation of the deity Bes, who was considered the protector in everyday life and the patron god of pregnant women.
Source: European Institute for Underwater Archeology (IEASM)