City limitsThe first complete map of the drowned quarters of ancient Alexandria has been compiled by French archaeologist Franck Goddio. It shows the exact location of Pharaonic palaces, temples and dockyards. Goddio thinks the new map probably shows the outline of the city before the 8th century, when a major earthquake submerged much of the coastline... The 19th century maps showed structures only in the eastern part of the harbour. Goddio's excavations show that the eastern part of the bay was reserved for royal palaces and harbours, as well as temples, but the western part held dockyards and commercial ports. Sphinxes, statues and colossal heads, including one thought to be of Caesarion, Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar, have been brought to the surface.
Emma Young
1530 GMT, 10 April 2001Riddle of Egypt's ghost cities is solvedThe cities of Menouthis and Thonis -- also known as Eastern Canopus and Herakleion -- have inspired and bemused archaeologists for centuries. Coins, plays and other papyrus texts written in Greek and Latin point to the existence of two cities at the mouth of the Nile that existed from the times of the Pharoahs, becoming thriving trading posts with a reputation for immorality and luxuriant living... Experts speculated the cause could have been a sudden catastrophe -- rising seas, perhaps, subsidence or an earthquake... In the mid-8th century AD -- the best bet is 741 or 742 -- the Nile spat its wrath, rising more than a metre (3.25 feet) above its usual flood peak. Its churning waters overwhelmed the cities' flimsy defences, washed away the buildings' foundations and then covered them forever as the river permanently shifted course... An earthquake can be ruled out because there is no record of a temblor in Egypt at this time, they add.
Thursday July 19, 2:01 AMFlooding Blamed for Cities' SinkingIn Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, geologist Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian Institution and two colleagues from the European Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Paris argue that flooding did the cities in. When the cities were first discovered, archaeologists had assumed that an earthquake sent them to their watery end. Stanford University geologist Amos Nur, who has also studied the site, still prefers that theory. "We have identified three earthquakes that probably devastated the city in the eighth century," Nur said.
by Matt Crenson
Wednesday July 18 2:02 PM ETAncient cities vanished into muddy morassThe disappearance of these cities has been blamed on earthquakes, subsidence and rising sea levels. But Jean-Daniel Stanley, a coastal geoarchaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, blames the Nile... The ruins of the two long lost Greek cities of Eastern Canopus and Herakleion were uncovered in 1999 and 2000 by marine archaeologist Franck Goddio of the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology in Paris... Hi-tech surveys of the seafloor revealed the substantial remains of Eastern Canopus 1.6 kilometres offshore and buried under five metres of mud. The city of Herakleion lies beneath seven metres of mud 5.4 kilometres from the shore. Today the nearest branch of the Nile lies more than 20 kilometres to the east of Abu Qir bay. But the surveys show that both cities once stood at the mouth of a now-extinct branch of the Nile - where they could control incoming vessels and tax goods being shipped upriver... Excavations at the two sites indicate that both cities were damaged by earthquakes before they disappeared.
by Stephanie Pain
19:00 18 July 01
I think I'll just call it an "Act of God" and be done with it ;^)
I suppose the point is, we mortals have little control over the planet when the natural processes do their thang. Standing in awe is about as good as it gets.
FGS