Posted on 05/01/2013 7:30:36 AM PDT by the scotsman
'Until a decade ago, no one knew if Heracleion, believed to be an ancient harbor city, was fiction or real. Now, reports the Telegraph, the researchers who found it150 feet beneath the surface of Egypt's Bay of Aboukirare sharing some of the amazing historical artifacts preserved there.
The finds include 64 ships, 16-foot-tall statues, 700 anchors and countless gold coins and smaller artifacts.
According to underwater archeologist Franck Goddio, credited with having discovered the site, the city was probably built sometime around the 8th century B.C., which makes it older than the famed city of Alexandria. Over the years, it fell victim to a number of natural disasters before being swallowed by the sea, probably around A.D. 700.
We are just at the beginning of our research, said Goddio. We will probably have to continue working for the next 200 years for [it] to be fully revealed and understood.'
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.news.yahoo.com ...
It also gives me hope that the wish I've frequently expresed for certain countries to simply sink into the ocean could actually happen!
Over the years, it fell victim to a number of natural disasters before being swallowed by the sea, probably around A.D. 700.
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GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
Thanks the scotsman. |
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Franck Goddio and divers of his team are inspecting the statue of a pharaoh. The colossal statue is of red granite and measures over 5 metres. It was found close to the big temple of sunken Heracleion.
Head of a colossal statue of red granite (5.4 m) representing the god Hapi, which decorated the temple of Heracleion. The god of the flooding of the Nile, symbol of abundance and fertility, has never before been discovered at such a large scale, which points to his importance for the Canopic region.
Franck Goddio with the intact and inscribed Heracleion stele (1.90 m). It was commissioned by Nectanebo I (378-362 BC) and is almost identical to the Naukratis Stele in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The place where it was to be situated is clearly named: Thonis-Heracleion.
Amazing stuff at this find.
Thanks Fred Nerks.
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