FRANCK GODDIO -
DIGGING UP
LOST CITIES AT SEA
G'day folks,
Now, here is a man with a bloody interesting job. For the last thirteen years,
he’s been busy digging up a lost underwater civilization the size of Paris
off the coast of Egypt. The remarkably well-preserved ruins that were
discovered have been sitting at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea for the past
1,200 years, at long last solving the mystery of the lost city of Alexandria’s
ancient eastern harbour, Portus Magnus. Not bad for a day job.
Frenchman Franck Goddio
is our man, a pioneer of modern maritime archeology who has wanderlust running
in his veins. He’s the grandson of the inventor of the modern catamaran, Eric
de Bishop, and a specialist of ancient navigational routes in the South
Pacific. Yet, before pulling up Pharoah’s heads from the seabed, Franck was a
finance guy — an advisor to governments and United Nations. It wasn’t until the
1980s that he left the world of finance behind and decided to find his sea legs
(and a few other things).
He founded the Institut Européen
d’Archéologie Sous-Marine (IEASM) and put together
a team of divers, archaeologists, scientists, and other experts. To date, his
ongoing thirteen-year excavation off the coast of Egypt has been Goddio’s most ambitious.
In 2000, after nearly eight years of prior research (dedicated to determining
the location of the submerged civilisations), Goddio and his team rediscovered
the ancient port cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus in Aboukir bay.
More than a thousand years ago, they had fallen prey to
natural disasters and disappeared beneath the waves. Colossal statues, giant
tablets inscribed in ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian, gold and bronze
artifacts forgotten on the seabed — they were all unearthed from layers of
sediment by Goddio and his team.
Everything that’s been found dates from the 8th century AD
(or earlier), and experts have been astounded by how well preserved the
artifacts are. Canopus was a city famous for its extravagant shrines and the opulent
lifestyles of its citizens. Heracleion, just 3km east of Canopus, was home to
an enormous ancient temple and convent. This colossal red granite statue
of red granite above, discovered on the site by Goddio’s team, represents
(rather ironically) Hapi, the god of the flooding of the Nile. Never before has
such a large-scale representation of the divine figure been discovered.
To raise heavy artefacts, Goddio’s team will often
use airbags capable of resisting a pressure of 100 atmospheres. But
the work lies mostly in finding
the treasure first, a process that can occupy underwater archeologists for
decades, and requires meticulous study of ancients texts and archives in order
to determine a probable location (that alone can take years). Then, the cutting
edge technology comes in. We’re talking specially developed nuclear
magnetic resonance magnetometers, multi-beam bathymetries, sidescan sonars, and
other hi-tech stuff I can’t pronounce. Once they think they’ve found something,
test excavations are performed, and if the data gives some positive signals,
the full archaeological excavation can finally begin (in full accordance with
UNESCO, of course).
Water dredges (underwater suction devices) are used by the
divers to remove thousand-year-old sediment. As per the Convention for the
Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, artifacts
are “usually” left on site but if they’re deemed at risk, they may be risen for
their “safeguard, study and conservation.” At the Alexandria National Museum (a
renovated 1929 Italian style mansion in Alexandria, Egypt), one can find
Franck Goddio’s most important findings on permanent display for the public.
Now, check out these amazing photographs of Franck and his team.
Clancy's comment: Go, Franck! Wow, what an exciting and rewarding job. Staggering how preserved most of the treasures are.
I'm ....
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