The Lost City of Thonis-Heracleion
It’s crazy to think how things can be lost to rivers, lakes, and oceans for hundreds and thousands of years. There’s so much left to explore under water and it’s exciting, and kind of scary, what could be uncovered. A recent find is the city of Thonis-Heracleion. The ruins are located in Abu Qir Bay, 2.5 km off the coast under 30 ft. of water. Historians had heard of this city, and in fact until 20 years ago thought it was two different cities. But recent explorations have helped us discover so much more about this world’s history.
Thonis-Heracleion was an ancient Egyptian city whose history goes back to the 12th century BC. It was built on adjoining islands in the Nile Delta and was cut up by canals and harbors. It was a main trading port for international trade and collection of taxes. The city was visited by Paris and Helen of Troy before the Trojan war (they sought refuge there). But by the 2nd century BC, Alexandria had taken over as the main port and Thonis was left to ruin. From a combination of earthquakes, tsunamis and rising sea levels the ground of hard clay turned to liquid and buildings began collapsing into the water. By the end of the eighth century AD, the city had sunk below the sea.
The city became lost to history, just small mentions in ancient texts. It wasn’t until 1933 when an RAF commander flew over the area and saw the ruins in the water, that our first modern day glimpse of this city came into play.
In 1999, after a five-year search, Franck Goddio found and explored the parts of the ruins. He was able to find incredible artifacts like incomplete statues of Serapis and Queen Arsinoe I, 5 meters high. In 2010 an ancient Nile river boat was excavated and in July 2019 a small Greek temple and treasure-carrying ships were found. Smaller items included goblets, coins, ritual pails and sarcophagi.
Photograph: Christoph Gerigk/Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation
But this is no easy exploration – the water down there is constantly murky and muddy, visibility is low, which is why it’s so cool how much divers have already been able to capture. They had to use side-scan sonar which involves directing pulses of sound at the seabed and then analyzing the echo. They also used a nuclear magnetic resonance magnetometer which detected localized anomalies in the magnetic fields. Once they had determined where to send the divers in, investigation began.
It’s a little scary to think how a city of this importance, one that controlled all the maritime traffic, taxed goods, and trading, could vanish into history. But because of these finds we now have an even better understanding of the nature of Egypt during that time. One example is the finding of the Decree of Sais which is a stele that revealed how the taxation in Egypt worked at that time. It also revealed that Thonis and Heracleion were the same city. Historians had been going off of ancient texts and the Greeks had referred to it as Heracleion only, and Egyptians called it Thonis.
So far, they’ve only explored 5% of this area! This will be a fascinating city to watch in the future as archaeologists and historians dig up more of its fascinating history.
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