2,500-year-old lost city found hidden off the coast of Egypt
Thonis-Heracleion was once a bustling city at the mouth of the River Nile, serving as Egypt’s primary port for international trade before the rise of Alexandria in 331 BCE. This city, a fusion of myth and reality, played a vital role in ancient Egyptian civilization, hosting a grand temple dedicated to Amun, which had significance in the country’s dynastic rites.
Founded around the 8th century BCE, Thonis-Heracleion thrived for centuries, surviving natural disasters until it finally sank into the Mediterranean in the 8th century AD. Lost to time, it vanished from all records except for the accounts of historians like Herodotus, who described the city’s temple as the place where the Greek hero Herakles first set foot in Egypt.
Strabo, another ancient geographer, placed it at the Canopic mouth of the Nile. Despite these historical mentions, no physical trace of the city was found until the turn of the 21st century.
In 2000, Franck Goddio and his team from the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) made a groundbreaking discovery. After years of research beginning in 1996, they finally located the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion six kilometers off Egypt’s coast, submerged under 10 meters of water in Aboukir Bay.