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| Photo: Christoph Gerigk (c) Franck Goddio/HILTI Foundation |
In previous posts, I have looked
at archaeological sites preserved in water. Over 450 logboats or dug-out canoes
have been recorded in Ireland mainly in lakes and rivers. For example, a
remarkable assortment of 14 logboats has recently been discovered in Lough
Corrib, Co. Galway, dating from the early Bronze Age (c. 2,500 BC) to the
eleventh century AD.
Estimates of the number of
crannogs found on Lough Gara, Co. Sligo, range from 145 to 369 although a
maximum of 190 is more realistic. The archaeological evidence suggests that
crannogs, or at least platforms, may have been built in this lake in the Late
Mesolithic around 4,000 BC.
Across the Irish Sea, the Must
Farm settlement in Cambridgeshire, England, is one of the most complete Late
Bronze Age examples known in Britain. The settlement consists of five circular
wooden houses, built on a series of piles sunk into a river channel below and
seems to have been built around 1300 – 1000 BC.
The discoveries of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus have challenged our perceptions
of ancient Egypt. These two ancient
cities thrived on the exchange and flow of people, goods and ideas, from around
300 years before Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt (332-331 BC). The cities
sank beneath the sea over twelve hundred years ago. A large multinational team
is studying the finds and the cities they came from and is slowly piecing
together what life was like on the Canopic coast of ancient Egypt.
Thonis and Heracleion are
mentioned as apparently separate cities in ancient Egyptian and Greek sources
including the trilingual Decree of Canopus,
issued in Egypt in 238 BC. Excavations on the site, however, provided evidence
to prove that Thonis and Heracleion, were the same town. The
underwater excavations uncovered the remains of a large sanctuary located on
the central island, built from limestone blocks. Archaeologists recovered a
pink granite naos (shrine) from which they established that the principal god
of the temple was Amun-Gereb and that the name of the town was Heracleion.
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| Stele commissioned by Nectanebo 1 - Thonis-Heracleion Photo: Christoph Gerigk (c) Franck Goddio/HILTI Foundation |
A second discovery around the
temple was an intact stele (a stone or wooden slab) bearing a decree by pharaoh
Nectanebo 1 (r. 380-362 BC.) The stele indicates the Egyptian name of the town
where it was erected: ‘The-hone-of-Sais’, that is, Thonis. The discovery of these two inscribed objects – the shrine
of Amun-Gereb and the stele of Thonis-Heracleion
– solved a mystery of historical geography. The archaeological site that
archaeologists had located was both the Heracleion
of the Greeks and the Thonis of the
Egyptians.
Thonis-Heracleion was active from at least the seventh century BC,
rising in primacy as the major trading centre in the fifth to fourth centuries
BC. The excavations have revealed a sizeable collection of pottery and coins,
the study of which reveals that supply of both to the city abruptly stops at
the same time at the end of the second century BC. Shortly afterwards the main
temples on the central island were destroyed in a catastrophic natural event.
After the destruction of its major temples, the city appears to have been
largely abandoned. Core samples taken from the sediments under the bay
identified the characteristic signs of ‘liquefaction’, whereby the ground
surface literally turns from a solid into a liquid.
Significant quantities of metals
including copper, tin and iron, are listed among the imported goods brought to
Egypt on Greek and Phoenician ships in a fifth century BC tax register,
together with wine, oil, wool and wood. Egyptian exports to Greece included
vital supplies of grain, but also natural resources such as alum and natron,
which were especially important in dyeing. Egypt was well known for semi-luxury
goods such as papyrus, perfume and amulets.
Religion and religious spaces
(sanctuaries) played an important role in the lives of Egyptians and Greeks, as
well as in their relations with each other. Religion could help in retaining
one’s own identity and culture or provide a means of adapting to a foreign
environment.
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| Pink Granite Garden Tank: Thonis-Heracleion Photo: Christoph Gerigk (c) Franck Goddio/HILTI Foundation |
Other significant artefacts were
found around the temple. Close to the shrine of Amun-Gereb, a large basin of
red granite was discovered, known as the ‘garden tank’ intended for the secret
rituals known as the Mysteries of Osiris. Three immense red granite statues
over five metres high, representing a king, a queen and Hapy, god of fertility,
abundance and the flooding of the Nile, provide clear evidence of the temple’s
scale and importance.
Excavation in the Grand Canal
along the north side of the temple has revealed a substantial collection of
artefacts that appear to have been ritually deposited in the waters. Many of
these artefacts such as bronze ceremonial ladles, known as simpula, and ritual lead
models of barques (boats), were associated with the Mysteries of Osiris, and
help to illustrate the sacred character of this great waterway.
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| Colossal Statue of Pharoah Photo: Christoph Gerigk (c) Franck Goddio/HILTI Foundation |
From at least as early as the Middle
Kingdom (c.2055-1650 BC), the Mysteries of Osiris were the most important
ritual celebrations to take place in Egypt each year. An effigy of the god,
probably made during the Mysteries, emerged from the temple for a public
procession in its golden barque (sailing boat), called Neshemet.
The excavations carried out in
the towns of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus by the European Institute for
Underwater Archaeology, brought to light ritual deposits and instruments linked
to the Mysteries of the month of Khoiak. These objects reveal the sacred
character of the Grand Canal, the waterway that flowed along the north side of
the temple of Amun-Gereb.
An exhibition at the British
Museum entitled ‘Sunken Cities: Egypt’s
lost worlds’ ends on 27th November 2016.
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