For more than 2,000 years, an ancient Egyptian city was immersed in the sea at the mouth of the Neel River. Till the discovery in 1990, this city was mentioned only in ancient texts and books of history. For a long time, people felt that this is a fictional place, which is mentioned in the old Greek and Egyptian texts. The city is named Thonis-Heraklion, which is now drowned in the sea. According to the report, this city of Egypt was immersed in both sand and sea at the mouth of the Nile for 2000 years. The city was named Heraklion after the Greeks named their hero Heraclies. It is believed that this is the same place where the Greek hero Heraclies stepped into Egypt for the first time and it was here that Troy’s lover Paris and Helen also came before the Trojan War. A film named Troy has also been made on him. The city was situated on the sea shore at the mouth of the Nile River. Thonis is the original Egyptian name of this city. Hence the city is called Thonis-Heraklion. Located at the western mouth of the Nile River, it was a rich port. The ships coming from across the Mediterranean Sea passed through its complex canal network, the evidence of which is found by the discovery of 60 ships and the remains of more than 700 langars.
One of the most influential artifacts obtained from this city underwater is the order of a cass. It is a two meter high black stone slab, called Stella. It is engraved on this fourth century BC, which gives information about the important details of the Egyptian tax system of the time. This also confirms that Thonis-Heraklion was the same city. According to the History.com report, during the tolemic dynasty, Thonis-Heraklion was the entrance of all Greek ships coming to Egypt. The grand temple of Amun was also located here. It is believed that Tolamic Parao attained his divine power here.
A city disappeared without leaving any mark
Historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) wrote about the grandeur of Thonis-Heraklion, and its ancient location was also mentioned by Geography Strabo (first century BCE), but it once disappeared without a mark.
The clue of this lost city found in this way
Then, in the 1990s, the remains of this ancient city led by Frank Godio were discovered under water. A team of archaeologists solved a mystery that was unresolved by other archaeologists from millennia. Equipped with high -tech scanners and sonar, the Godio team detected an unusual bubble from inside the sea, more than four miles from the Egyptian coast, which spread over a square mile of the sea level. Godio says that when we first went to dive there, we only saw sand, because there was nothing to see. Everything was pressed under the sediment. As soon as Godio started digging, his team got a lottery -like success.
This ancient city was once flourishing
These amazing discoveries hidden in the deep water of the Mediterranean Sea included two giant red granite sculptures of the Tolemic king and the queen. Each of these idols was 15 feet high and many tons were heavy. The remains of an entire city, its palaces and temples were present inside the sea. The most valuable discovery of Godio was a completely intact statue made of black granite. There was a painlip inscribed on it. This statue, six feet high, has a royal decree of Pharaoh Nectanebo I, which is 380 BC. After continuous excavation for more than two decades, two temples at the Thonis-Heraklion site, the largest Egyptian statue of a deity (Happy), countless bronze rituals and more than 100 ship remains, some of which are of the time of violent destruction of the city.
Earthquake and tsunami suddenly drowned it
Thonis-Heraklion city, situated on the clay near the mouth of the Nile River, was particularly sensitive to earthquakes. About 150 BC, a fierce earthquake occurred in the city and followed by a tsunami. During the earthquake, soil liquefaction shook the city’s foundation. Then a powerful wave shed it into the sea. Godio says that in a short time, the city and all its monuments drowned seven meters (23 feet) and the sea covered everything. They estimate that only 5 percent of the submerged city has been excavated.
