Heracleion is a city much like Atlantis, submerged and swallowed-up by the sea – in this case, Abu Qir Bay in the southeastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt.
Once a prosperous, thriving city grand enough to be mentioned by the 5th-century BC historian Greek writer Herodotus, it was engulfed by the sea around 1,500 years ago at its location on the Nile Delta.
Archaeologists are now discovering amazing statues of Egyptian Gods and beautiful gold artifacts. The mysteries of this sunken city are starting to become unraveled. The city was known by two names: Heracleion by the Greeks and Thonis by the Egyptians. It was discovered 150 feet below the surface of the sea, over a decade ago by a mapping survey.
The city of Heracleion is mentioned by Herodotus in the classical story of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, with “the face that launched a thousand ships, during the Trojan War, was described as traveling to Heracleion, then a port of “great wealth”, with her glamorous Trojan lover, Paris.
“This was a very interesting mission,” said Frank Goddio, a Frenchman archaeologist who headed the team. “We discovered so many things. This site is amazingly rich.”
Using magnetic wave technology, the divers found the basin of what used to be the city’s harbor and electronically surveyed and charted it, finding amazingly well-preserved palaces, temples and statues. Next to the harbor, they found 10 antique shipwrecks.
Next to the harbor, they found 10 antique shipwrecks. Artifacts, including two large colossi of a queen and a pharoah, lay amazingly intact at the bottom of the sea, the archaeologists said. They said they found these massive statues on the site of what had been the Great Temple of Heracleion.
The scientists may have also helped solve the mystery of how one of the most thriving cities of ancient Egypt seemed to simply disappear.
The shipwrecks found caused them lean toward the idea that Heracleion and two nearby cities were struck by a powerful, sudden earthquake and engulfed huge tidal wave, some 1,200 years ago.
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