This book presents the first topographic outline of the city of Heracleion and the nearby Ptolemaic and Byzantine sites, all currently being excavated underwater in the Bay of Aboukir. This volume is the product of ten years of survey and excavation.

Topography and Excavation of Heracleion-Thonis and East Canopus (1996-2006): Underwater Archaeology in the Canopic region in Egypt (OCMA Monograph)

History

Goddio, Franck

Ancient Civilizations

Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology

This volume presents the geoarchaeological analysis of the Aboukir Bay by the Smithsonian Institute. This study outlines the reasons for the submergence of the ancient coast line through detailed analysis of geological core samples.

Geoarchaeology: Underwater Archaeology in the Canopic region in Egypt (OCMA Monograph)

Stanley, J.D.

This monograph presents the almost completely reconstituted Naos of the Decades with an excellent set of photographic images. The four additional fragments, recovered in East Canopus during the excavations of the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology, are examined with the two original fragments from the Louvre and Greco Roman Museum (Egypt). The largest of the new fragments consists of a cosmogony of over 20 columns with no known parallel, disproving the order of the decades as it was initially assumed and suggesting a far older tradition of Egyptian astrology. Price approx.

The Naos of the Decades: Underwater Archaeology in the Canopic region in Egypt (OCMA Monograph)

Von Bomhard, A. S.

This monograph contains the joint proceedings of the first two conferences organised by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology. It contains 23 papers that cover land-based and underwater excavation and survey in the area of the North-Western Nile Delta, principally concerning the cities of Alexandria and Heracleion-Thonis, as well as studies of aspects of the material culture from these sites.

Alexandria and the North-Western Delta: Joint Conference Proceedings of Alexandria: City and Harbour (Oxford 2004) and The Trade and Topography of ... 8th century AD (Berlin 2006) (OCMA Monograph)

Von Bomhard presents an edition of the stela found during underwater excavations in the Abukir Bay, at the site of ancient Thonis-Heracleion, and inscribed with the Decree of Sais. The text is a parallel to that inscribed on another stela found at Naucratis at the turn of last century. The author gives an introduction to the discovery of the two stelae, as well as a description of the monuments, including the scenes and captions found in the lunette (Part II). Von Bomhard goes on to discuss the arrangement of the texts and figures depicted on the decree, and the possible symbolism behind them. The bulk of the text is occupied by a careful transliteration and translation of the text, followed by an exhaustive bibliography, an index of words discussed, a synoptic overview of orthographic and figurative variations, and an index of Egyptian words. This is an important work that contributes to the understanding of royal benefactions to temples and aspects of trade and taxation systems in force at the time of the decree.

The Decree of Sais (OCMA Monograph)

The author presents a detailed analysis of the construction of ship 17, a Late Period vessel discovered by Franck Goddio and a team from the Institut Européen d'Archéologie Sous-Marine during underwater excavations at Thonis-Heracleion, a sunken city in Aboukir Bay, Egypt. Drawing upon Herotodotus' description of boat-building, the author concludes that ship 17 is a baris-boat and highlights its specifically Egyptian method of assembly.

Ship 17 a baris from Thonis-Heracleion (Ships and boats of the Canopic Region in Egypt)

Belov, Alexander

This work investigates a temple identified at site M8 at Thonis-Heracleion, which was located on an island or a peninsula at the point where the waters of the Nile met the Mediterranean Sea. This book presents a remarkable range of inscribed bronze objects engraved with royal and divine names were discovered within its demolition layer. Offering theological rather than physical protection, the divine forces, including Khonsu-Thoth and Neith, were deployed alongside military forces that were also located at the Canopic gate. This study brings together a range of material evidence for these theological defences.

Theological Defences of the Canopic Gate in the Saïte Period (Underwater Archeology in the Canopic Region in Egypt)

von Bomhard, Anne-Sophie

J3, a small boat around 6 meters long, was discovered by the Institut Européen d'Archéologie Sous-Marine (IEASM) in the Eastern Harbor of Alexandria, the ancient Portus Magnus. The boat, dating to the 1-2nd century AD, was discovered towards the northeastern end of Antirhodos Island in the sheltered inner harbor, well preserved in the sediments.The excavation allowed a team from the IEASM to study the wreck in detail, to reveal the details of the construction of this transom sterned vessel. The ship was flat-bottomed with a prominent keel, the surviving length of which was 4.4 m long. The port side was completely preserved in the center of the boat from the keel through fourteen strakes to the guard rail. Due to the angle that it came to rest on the harbor bottom, only six lines of strakes were preserved on the starboard of J3. The boat was constructed with a well-developed internal structure with 21 preserved frames. The carvel planking of the ship was assembled with mortise-and-tenon joints cut in the middle of the edges of the planks.The preservation of J3 was such that the remains of two thwarts were discovered still in situ with evidence to indicate the presence of a third rowing bench. These were accompanied by three thole pins set into the guard rail and the final lines of strakes. The boat was preserved with a mast-step, indicating that it could be sailed as well as rowed.A wide variety of carefully chosen wood species were used in its construction and as is typical for the Roman period hard woods used for the keel and frames and softwoods for the planking. These species were not native to Egypt, nor were several of them used in shipbuilding in the eastern Mediterranean during the Roman period. Instead, the suite of timbers used would suggest that J3 originated in a boatyard on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy.J3 was transporting a large iron anchor at the moment it sank. This occupied almost the entire preserved length of the ship and was carefully positioned with its crown on the decked aft area and the shank under the removable thwarts. It had been disassembled before stowage in J3 with the stock removed and carefully placed in the bottom of the boat. While typologically similar anchors have also been found in anchorages outside of the Portus Magnus, the majority of this type have been found in the western Mediterranean.

J3: a ship's boat from the Portus Magnus, Alexandria (Ships and boats of the Canopic Region in Egypt)

The weights from Thonis-Heracleion offer a new perspective on trading activities and mechanisms in the emporium of Egypt (Diodorus Siculus, Hist., I, 19, 4). The extensive harbour facilities and temple of Amun-Gereb, rediscovered by the Institut Européen d'Archéologie Sous-Marine (IEASM), provided the necessary infrastructure for the city's role in the economic regulation of maritime trade. Located on Egypt's coastal border, the port was a natural stop for merchant ships before or after a long sea voyage, a space where they could rest and give thanks to the gods.

The weights from Thonis-Heracleion (The Underwater Archaeology of the Canopic Region in Egypt)

van der Wilt, Elsbeth

The chapters in this volume are organised in such a way as to provide windows onto constructing, remaking, and dismantling sacred landscapes in cities in the north western Delta of Egypt, notably Thonis-Heracleion and Alexandria, and also more widely in Lower Egypt. They are drawn from a conference on the Religious Landscapes of Lower Egypt held at the University of Zurich and present case studies that examine different aspects of the long-term life-histories of the landscape and the unfolding relationships between the people of Egypt and the sacred spaces in which they lived and went about their daily tasks. Through the examination of objects, buildings, cities and landscapes, the papers aim to capture a sense of how space was actively constructed and how these social spaces change through their active manipulation.

Constructing, Remaking and Dismantling Sacred Landscapes in Lower Egypt from the Late Dynastic to the Early Medieval Period (Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology Monograph)

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