A diver beside a monumental inscribed stone gives the scene its scale. The object is impressive; the larger surprise is that it belongs to a city whose streets and harbour once stood where the sea now covers them.
Thonis-Heracleion, in Egypt’s Aboukir Bay, was an important port linking Egypt with the Greek world before Alexandria rose to prominence. It is a real archaeological site with inscriptions, structures and ship remains—not a discovery of Plato’s Atlantis.
The exhibition that brought the finds to London
The 2016 article concerned the British Museum’s 2016 underwater-archaeology exhibition, announced for May 19–November 27. It described more than 200 objects from the submerged cities, including a monumental statue of Hapy, the deity associated with the Nile flood. Those dates are part of the discovery’s public history, not current ticket information.
Franck Goddio was quoted comparing the scale of the work with a much longer-running excavation:
“Pompeii is a very small city. They started archaeological excavation there in the 18th century – and it is still not excavated fully. Thonis-Heracleion covers an area that is three times the size of Pompeii,” Goddio told the Telegraph.
The account’s percentage of the site uncovered and Goddio’s age were snapshots of that reporting. Its reference to Isis as a Greek goddess conflated the Egyptian deity with her later reception in the Greek world. The excavation’s own documentation remains the starting point for identifying individual objects.
Two names, one city
The expedition led by Franck Goddio and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology, working with Egyptian authorities, identified the site in 2000 after years of survey. The project’s account of Thonis-Heracleion explains how archaeological evidence helped establish that the Egyptian name Thonis and the Greek name Heracleion referred to the same place.
This is a particularly satisfying kind of discovery. It connects names preserved in historical sources with physical evidence on the seabed, allowing two apparently separate pieces of a story to fit together.
A port was a whole working landscape
The remains include temples, harbour basins, channels, anchors and wrecks. The city occupied a watery landscape with islands and connected spaces, rather than the simple solid block that the word “city” may suggest.
Picture the practical questions such a port had to answer. Where could a vessel enter? Where would goods move next? How were religious buildings connected to the routes of daily life? A map makes those relationships easier to grasp than a photograph of a single spectacular statue.
The expedition’s interactive overview of the site is a good starting point for following those connections. You can move from the striking individual find to the larger setting that gave it meaning.
Why did it disappear below the water?
The project describes a long history involving natural catastrophes and a final submergence by the eighth century CE. A gradual history of vulnerable ground and changing water conditions is more useful than imagining one cinematic instant when every building vanished.
Compare the setting with Roman Baia in Italy, where volcanic ground movement helped submerge parts of the town. Both places are underwater today, but their geographical and historical explanations should not be collapsed into a single “sunken city” formula.
How to enjoy the finds without losing the context
When a large object appears in a photograph, look for its catalogue information: what is it, where was it found and what evidence supports its interpretation? An inscription, for example, can contribute information that its dramatic appearance alone cannot convey.
The London exhibition that helped bring these discoveries to a wider audience in 2016 is part of the story’s history. An old announcement should not be read as a current invitation to book tickets.
What remains open is the research itself. Thonis-Heracleion gives us the pleasure of rediscovery, but also a reminder that archaeology advances through measured connections—between objects, places and names—rather than a single treasure reveal.
Video and posts
(The Facebook video originally embedded here is no longer available.)
Posts and process videos
Underwater: The ruins of Thonis-Heracleion were found in 2000 in the Mediteranean sea near Alexandria. #archeology pic.twitter.com/gKqLF5CKoG
— The Culture Trip (@CultureTrip) April 12, 2016
“Colossal statue of the god Hapy. Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt, 4th century BC. Maritime Museum, Alexandria.” pic.twitter.com/krwUrWfbT8
— IG: matt.rose_ (@mlwrose) March 9, 2016
Adore this image of the Stela of Thonis-Heracleion being raised from the Bay of Abukir pic.twitter.com/gZj0l7VjMZ
— T W Ayling (@tomayling) April 27, 2016
(This post is no longer available on X.)
More from the archive:
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- Skopje 2014: Monumental Design and a Disputed Historical Narrative
Original references and creator profiles: via GIPHY; Telegraph; RT.
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