Archaeologists Discover An 8th Century Drowned And Lost Egyptian City
October 11, 2020 1222
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Every time we hear or discover a new find
about ancient Egypt, it gives us great satisfaction to write about it and share
with the world.
Ancient Egypt is synonymous with greatness,
glory, and super-human civilization. Above all, ancient Egypt speaks volumes of
the power and prowess of the Black race.
The world to date learns from the knowledge
of ancient Egyptian discoveries. Many Egyptian cities still stand till today,
but there are also those who have been lost. Some have disappeared in the
water, while others have withered away.
One of such ancient Egyptian cities that
disappeared was Heracleoin. It was founded even before the great city of
Alexandria, around the 8th century BC. Heracleion was the major port for the
ships and voyages that came to Egypt from Greece.
The Greeks called this city Thonis. The Greeks
were one of the people who held ancient Egypt in high regard and wrote great
tales about them. So, after the city disappeared over time, the only evidence
of its existence was found only in Greek and Egyptian texts and inscriptions and
artifacts. The city was of great spiritual importance to the Egyptians
(Africans) because of the temple of Amun.
At its prime, the famous Greek historian,
Herodotus, wrote of the city, Thonis-Heracleion, in the 5th Century BC, when he
visited Egypt. After 4 centuries that Herodotus visited Egypt, a Greek
geographer, Strabo, visited Egypt and recorded that the Egyptian city of
Thonis-Heracleion was located straight to the east of Canopus at the mouth of the
Canopic branch of the River Nile.
So you could imagine the excitement and joy
Egyptologists and archeologists had when the city was discovered in the year
2000 by archaeologist Franck Goddio and the IEASM (European Institute for
Underwater Archaeology).
The city is said to be located 6.5 kilometers
off today's coastline in Egypt. The research area which the city falls in is an
11 by 15 kilometers in the western part of Aboukir Bay in Egypt. The discovery
was made possible by the help of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The search for this city started in 1996 and took four years before they
could discover the ancient city of Thonis (the name by Egyptians) or Heracleion
(the name by Greeks).
The ancient objects recovered from these
excavations prove beyond doubt the immeasurable beauty, glory, and elegance of ancient Egypt. The grand temples and statues of Gods with inscriptions and
architectural elements found by the team was a great marvel for them. They
found spiritual and ritual objects, gold, jewelry, coins, ceramics, and many
more beauties of the ancient world.
The city of Thonis, through the quantity and
quality of the materials excavated, can be said to be a very wealthy city. It
can be said to be a city for the elites of that time, the 6th to the 4th century
BC.
The amount of wrecked (drowned) ships and ship
anchors found at this location points to the busy and commercial nature of the
city. The recovery team discovered more than 700 ancient ship anchors, and
also over 70 wrecked ships that sunk as far back as the 6th to the 2nd century
BC.
The city of Thonis was basically a coastal
city and that is proven by the network of canals which was found by the
discovery team.
Despite all that has been discovered, the
team has said that only about 5% of the city has been discovered and excavated.
They are continuously working to discover more of this ancient city.