Shipwreck Found at Egypt’s Submerged Site of Thonis-Heracleion

News July 19, 2021

(Christoph Gerigk/© Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation)
SHARE:
Thonis Heracleion Ship
(Christoph Gerigk/© Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation)

CAIRO, EGYPT—According to a Reuters report, a team of Egyptian and French researchers found the wreckage of an ancient military vessel at the site of Thonis-Heracleion, a now-submerged city along Egypt’s Mediterranean coastline that once controlled the mouth of a western branch of the Nile River. The 80-foot ship had a flat bottom, oars, and a large sail. When the city’s huge temple of Amun collapsed in the second century B.C., it sank the vessel, which was moored nearby. The researchers also identified a funerary area dated to the fourth century B.C., where Greek merchants were buried in their own sanctuaries near the temple of Amun. To read about more discoveries at Thonis-Heracleion, go to "Egypt's Temple Town."

  • Features May/June 2021

    Last Stand of the Hunter-Gatherers?

    The 11,000-year-old stone circles of Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey may have been monuments to a vanishing way of life

    Read Article
    (Vincent J. Musi)
  • Letter from Australia May/June 2021

    Where the World Was Born

    Newly discovered rock art panels depict how ancient Aboriginal ancestors envisioned climate change and creation

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Paul Tacon)
  • Artifacts May/June 2021

    Magdalenian Wind Instrument

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Carole Fritz et al. 2021/CNRS – the French National Centre for Scientific Research)
  • Digs & Discoveries May/June 2021

    You Are How You Cook

    Read Article
    (loraks/iStock)