The discovery of a warship dating back to the Ptolemaic era in Abu Qir, Alexandria.
The Egyptian-French archaeological mission of the European Institute of Underwater Archeology (IEASM), operating in the sunken city of Heraklion in Abu Qir Bay in Alexandria, discovered the wreck of a warship from the Ptolemaic period and the remains of a Greek funerary area dating back to the beginning of the fourth century BC.

Dr Mustafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the ship was scheduled to dock in the canal that flowed along the tribal face of the Temple of Amun. Still, it sank due to the collapse of the temple and the fall of huge blocks on it during the second century BC, as a result of a devastating earthquake. The fall of those stone blocks helped keep the ship down the deep channel, now littered with temple wrecks.

Dr Ayman Ashmawy, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, explained that the wreck of that ship was discovered under approximately 5 meters of solid mud that represents the seabed and mixed with the temple’s remains, using underwater excavation devices such as sub-bottom profiler devices.

Frank Goddio, head of the mission of the European Institute of Sunken Archeology (IEASM), stressed that the discovery of fast ships dating back to that time is still very rare and that Greek ships of this type were completely unknown until the discovery of the Punic ship Marsala (235 BC), which is the only example. We’ve got.

He added that preliminary studies indicate that the ship was long, with more than 25 meters, and the hull was built according to the classic style that relies on the docus-and-deck technique. Yet, it contains the characteristics of the ancient Egyptian style, and therefore it is a mixed type of construction.

The ship had a flat bottom and flat keel, a handy model for navigation in the Nile and the delta, and had oars with a large sail as indicated by the shape of the mast of great dimensions.

As some typical features of shipbuilding in ancient Egypt indicate, as well as evidence of timber reuse, the ship was built in Egypt.

Ehab Fahmy, head of the Central Department of Sunken Antiquities, said that the mission succeeded in finding the remains of a Greek funerary area dating back to the beginning of the fourth century BC, at the entrance to the northeastern canal of the city, which shows the presence of Greek merchants who lived in that city and controlled the entrance to Egypt at the mouth of the city. Canopic branch of the Nile. Where they were allowed to settle during the late Pharaonic era and set up their funerary temples near the main temple of the god Amun, but due to natural disasters, the area was destroyed, and the discovery of its archaeological remains mixed with the Temple of Amun stable, and in excellent condition in the deep channel during the land subsidence caused by the phenomenon of the fragility of the earth. These ruins bear witness to the richness of the temples of that city, which are now located under the surface of the Mediterranean, 7 kilometres from the beach of Abu Qir.

It is worth mentioning that the city of Heraklion was for centuries the largest port in Egypt on the Mediterranean, before the founding of the city of Alexandria by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. Several earthquakes followed by tidal waves, causing the fragility of the land and the collapse of a section of about 110 square kilometres of the Nile Delta, with the collapse of the cities of Heraklion and Canopus under the sea. The two cities were rediscovered by the European Institute of Sunken Archeology (IEASM) mission in cooperation with the Central Department of Sunken Antiquities at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in the period from 1999 to 2001.