Treasures From a Sunken City
Divers are working with archaeologists to help pull ancient Egyptian artifacts from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.
© Khaled Desouiki—AFP/Getty Images
Divers celebrate as a crane pulls an artifact out of the waters off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, in 2025.
About 1,200 years ago, earthquakes and rising sea levels caused part of an Egyptian city to sink beneath the Mediterranean Sea, carrying countless treasures with it below the waves. Scuba divers, archaeologists, and Egyptian officials are working together to bring some of these artifacts back to the surface.
Statues, coins, pottery, and ship parts are among the treasures pulled from the Abu Qir Bay, off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. The artifacts come from Canopus, which was a thriving coastal city thousands of years ago. One statue pulled from the water was of a sphinx—a mythical creature with the head of a man and the body of a lion—that dated back at least 3,000 years to the rule of Egyptian king Ramses II. Other statues depict Roman and Macedonian nobles, showing that several ancient dynasties influenced the city culture before it sank into the depths.
© Khaled Desouiki—AFP/Getty Images
Divers carry an ancient artifact to land on the coast of Alexandria.
The coasts of Egypt are home to many sites of “underwater cultural heritage,” which is the term for places with shipwrecks and submerged artworks and other historic objects. While some items have been retrieved, many treasures will remain in the water that claimed them.
“There’s a lot underwater, but what we’re able to bring up is limited,” said Sherif Fathi, an Egyptian government official who spoke to the media at the Abu Qir Bay site. “The rest will remain part of our sunken heritage.”
