Underwater researchers have unearthed a captivating find in proximity to the reputed final resting place of a renowned military figure. Share Article Share Article Facebook X LinkedIn Reddit Bluesky Email Copy Link Link copied Bookmark Comments
Submerged archaeologists operating close to the area where the famous ancient military leader Alexander the Great is thought to be interred have made an extraordinary discovery. Experts have revealed the remains of an opulent ancient Egyptian pleasure craft within the submerged harbor of Alexandria, representing a significant breakthrough.
Up until now, a craft of this nature, referred to as a thalamagos, has solely been chronicled in classical writings and artistic renditions, with no concrete examples ever located. Nevertheless, a group headed by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) has now detected a wreckage consisting of wooden beams in exceptionally sound condition, spanning approximately 92 feet in length. Assessments indicate that the entire barge once measured roughly 115 feet in length and 23 feet in width. The thalamagos was discovered in the almost 1,000-acre port of Portus Magnus, adjacent to Antirhodos, an island that currently sits beneath the Mediterranean in the northern Egyptian city.
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The Port of the Royal Island of Antirhodos once constituted a portion of Alexandria’s vast harbor complex. Prior to being engulfed by the sea, the island housed a Ptolemaic Egyptian palace and remained inhabited until the 4th century, when it succumbed to earthquakes and a tsunami following a tremor in the eastern Mediterranean near Crete in the year 365. It currently rests at a depth of approximately 16 feet below the surface.
Thalamagos vessels, akin to the one unearthed, were mentioned in the writings of Strabo, a Greek geographer, historian, and philosopher who visited Alexandria around 29–25 BCE. In one of his texts, Geography, he documented citizens who held “feasts in cabin-boats (thalamagoi), in which they enter the thick of the cyami and the shade of the leaves.” An instance also featured in the renowned Nile mosaic at Palestrina, depicting men hunting for hippos.
Constructors of these party boats emphasized width to accommodate a central pavilion and elaborate cabin. The hull showcased a flat base with a sharp angle at the bow and a curved stern, as these vessels were engineered for tranquil, shallow waterways rather than open-sea voyages. Over 20 oarsmen would have propelled the craft utilizing oars.
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Greek inscriptions located on the central structure date the vessel to the initial half of the first century AD. The graffiti also verifies the barge was built locally in Alexandria. The wreckage was situated less than 164 feet from the Temple of Isis, which is also an ongoing excavation site.
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Underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio speculated that the wreck could have sunk during the obliteration of the temple of Isis on Antirhodos Island around 50 CE. The same justification is thought to be behind the disappearance of Alexander the Great’s tomb, the precise whereabouts of which remains a mystery after his body was relocated from Memphis to a mausoleum known as the Soma in Alexandria.
Mr Goddio proposed a “ritual purpose for the barge”, that “it could have belonged to the sanctuary” and been “part of the naval ceremony of the navigatio iside when a procession celebrating Isis encountered a richly decorated vessel – the Navigium – which embodied the solar barque of Isis, mistress of the sea.” The ship may have been embarking on a “yearly ritual voyage of the goddess” to Osiris’s sanctuary up the coast at Canopus alongside the Canopic Channel.
The team are endeavoring to connect the Temple of Isis to Cleopatra, the final sovereign of the Ptolemaic Empire. According to a recent PBS special on the site, “while modern Alexandria stands on the ruins of the ancient city, some of the most significant artefacts from Cleopatra’s time lay untouched”.