Divers pulled out several sunken antiquities from Abu Qir Bay in Alexandria on Thursday.
The artefacts include a quartz sphinx statue with the sigil of Rameses II, a granite figure and a white marble statue of a Roman nobleman. The relics were lifted out of the water using cranes and set on the shoreline as onlookers cheered.
The event was attended by several officials, including Sherif Fathi, Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, and Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The site of the artefacts had long been known to Egyptian authorities. The town of Abu Qir is near the ruins of several ancient cities that became submerged as a result of earthquakes, tsunamis and rising sea levels. These include Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion.
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Egyptian divers retrieve submerged artefacts before an official visit by Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy and Supreme Council of Antiquities secretary-general Mohamed Ismail Khaled at Abu Qir Naval Port in Alexandria. Reuters -
Reporters film an ancient artefact, an unknown headless statue, as it is lifted out of the water. AP -
Divers celebrate as a crane pulls an object from the water, as part of an event organised by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to recover sunken antiquities. AFP -
Divers watch as a crane pulls a piece of stone from the water. AFP -
A crane pulls a relic from the water. AFP -
A crane lifts a specimen out of the water. Reuters -
An artefact that was retrieved by Egyptian divers. Reuters -
Egypt's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Sherif Fathi inspects a recovered antiquity. AFP
Thursday’s recovery event was organised by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and came as part of a series of initiatives aimed at celebrating the history and legacy of the ancient cities. These include a new exhibition at the Alexandria National Museum to showcase treasures recovered from the depths of the Mediterranean Sea.
Secrets of the Sunken City runs until February and features 86 artefacts that were retrieved from the sunken cities in Abu Qir, as well as the Royal Quarter in the Eastern Harbour of ancient Alexandria. They include statues, pottery and jewellery – providing material evidence of the cultures that thrived in the area thousands of years ago.
A number of the exhibited artefacts were recovered over the past 25 years by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology, a French non-profit dedicated to exploring and excavating sunken sites.
While the newly retrieved artefacts will probably be exhibited in the future, they are not part of the exhibition at the Alexandria National Museum. The sites at Abu Qir contain many more submerged artefacts, including pillars, statues and an ancient warship, and there are plans to recover more of the relics, authorities confirmed to The National.
