Lost Cities

Strong Mediterranean currents can churn the water near the mouth of the Nile river into a sea of mud. But when divers led by French explorer Franck Goddio plunged overboard into the Bay of Abukir one morning last year, good visibility made their mission easier. As they removed centuries of silt from a jumble of limestone blocks on the sea bed 6.5 m below the surface, one of the divers noticed a large granite imbedded in the clay. The divers flipped it over to read Egyptian hieroglyphs on a stele that had been perfectly preserved for nearly 2,000 years. “We were the first to receive this message from the past,” Goddio recalls. “Suddenly, we felt that we had made direct contact with the ancient world.”

They had done more than that. After e-mailing a digital underwater photo of the inscriptions back to Paris for identification, Goddio learned that his team had confirmed the discovery of Herakleion, the fabled ancient gateway to Egypt that fell into the sea some 1,300 years ago.

Gradually, the coastal settlements of ancient Egypt, buried by earthquakes and massive collapses of sediment, are being brought back from the depths of the sea. For centuries, historians have relied heavily on the works of contemporary travelers such as Herodotus and Strabo for knowledge about Cleopatra and other rulers just before and during Egypt’s Ptolemy dynasty (305-30 B.C.). But for the last decade, marine expeditions off the coast of modern Alexandria have produced thousands of artifacts, including statues, sphinxes, jewelry and coins, providing important clues to one of the most elusive periods of classical times. “The discoveries inspire us to continue the work,” says Ibrahim Darwish of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities. “What we have found represents less than 1% of what is still underwater.”

Perhaps the most significant breakthrough is Goddio’s discovery of Herakleion, named for the Greek hero Hercules, which predates the founding of nearby Alexandria by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. Goddio’s team from his European Institute of Archaeology tentatively located the city during an expedition in 2000, but it was last year’s findings that confirmed the discovery. The most important clue was the stele, erected by the King Nektanebos I in 380 B.C. Its inscription concerning customs taxes identifies the site as Thonis, the Egyptian name for Herakleion. But Goddio’s divers also brought up a pink granite naos, or inner sanctuary, that archaeologists believe belonged to the sacred temple of Amun-Gereb at Herakleion, visited by Herodotus in the 5th century B.C. In addition, the temple yielded three colossal statues, 5.7 m high and weighing 15 tons, depicting Hapy, the god of Nile fertility, as well as a pharaoh and a queen.

This year’s expedition resulted in another impressive haul, indicating that Herakleion will continue pleasing archaeologists for some time to come. Inscriptions on a statue, for example, indicate that the Temple of Herakleion was in continuous use for much of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The treasures discovered at the site include exquisite bronze ritual objects, such as an incense burner with a duckbill handle, and a ladle topped by a vulture’s head. The discovery of gold Byzantine coins and crosses in the area may indicate the presence of a Christian monastery, proof that Herakleion was still inhabited as late as the 8th century A.D. Goddio’s latest topographical study indicates that Herakleion was an ancient version of Venice, a city where canals were as prevalent as roads.

If Goddio seems like a wizard pulling off astonishing tricks, he has a magician’s secret: a nuclear resonance magnetometer, a torpedo-shaped super-sensing device that can detect likely antiquities by measuring the relative density of submerged objects against the earth’s magnetic field. As it is towed on the surface, the magnetometer relays data to the survey ship that are plotted on to a computerized grid connected to the satellite-based Global Positioning System. Goddio says that he adapted the magnetometer for archaeological use in collaboration with the French Atomic Energy Commission, which develops the French Navy’s submarine-detection equipment. Exclusive rights to the magnetometer’s civilian use give Goddio his edge over the competition. “Wherever we dive, we find something,” says Susan Henrickson, an American member of Goddio’s underwater team.

In the 1980s, Goddio concentrated on excavating shipwrecks, including a Chinese junk and the Spanish galleon San Diego, off the coast of the Philippines. Since then, he has focused on Egypt. In 1999, his team excavated the remains of L’Orient, Napoleon’s warship sunk by Lord Nelson in 1798 during the Battle of Abukir. Turning to the antique world, Goddio used the magnetometer to develop the most detailed map ever made of the ancient Egyptian coastline. Excavations based on this topographical research led to his discovery of Herakleion and part of the city of Canopus in the same year.

Without doubt, Goddio’s most glamorous work has been mapping and excavating the Royal Quarters of Alexandria. He identified the probable site of Cleopatra’s palace on the island of Antirrhodos, which featured an esplanade lined with statues and granite columns. At about the same time, French archaeologist Jean-Yves Empereur, working a concession in Alexandria’s eastern harbor, discovered the likely remains of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Critics of Goddio’s work say he has stretched himself too thin, dashing from one project to another more out of love for adventure than for the serious discipline of archaeology. But it is hard to argue with his success in opening a window on ancient Egypt that was closed for centuries. So rich are the 8,741 artifacts that Goddio has brought up so far that Egyptian officials are talking about an international tour and a permanent museum of underwater archaeology in Alexandria. Recently, as his latest Herakleion mission was winding down, Goddio, who is 54 and lives in Paris, stood in shorts and a baseball cap on the deck of his survey vessel, Princess Duda, watching as a red granite naos was hoisted on board. “We cannot identify it yet,” he explains. “We hope to discover some more clues about it during the next excavation.” Most archaeologists could consider the discovery the achievement of a lifetime. For Goddio, it was another day’s work.