Good evening and welcome to this live stream, brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology.
My name is Damian Robinson, and I'm the director of the centre and an associate professor here in the School of Archaeology.
Now, over the past term,
we've been running a twice weekly series of evening lectures which has been exploring the ancient port of Alexandria and its relationship to the sea.
It's founded by Alexander the Great and is lavishly developed by the Ptolemaic royal family, and it's further restructured in the Roman period.
This is one of the most important ports in the ancient Mediterranean.
It's a place of palaces and temples, markets and key sites.
It's one of the ancient wonders of the world. The iconic lighthouse of Alexandria is there.
It's a place of spectacle, political intrigue, warfare and feverish economic activity.
Now, our seminars were inspired by the work of tonight's speaker, Franck Goddio.
He's one of the world's leading underwater archaeologists.
And over the past 25 years, Franck and his team from the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology,
in partnership with Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities and with the long standing support of the Hilti Foundation,
they've scientifically explored beneath the waters of the eastern harbour and
have revealed in stunning detail the extent of the remains of this great port.
So over the course of this term, we've seen academic papers on scientific aspects of its archaeology.
We've looked at temples and palaces, shipwrecks. We've analyzed ceramics.
We've looked at the coins. But tonight, though, Franck is going to join all of these together and more and present for the first
time a sweeping overview of the Portus Magnus and his phenomenal work there.
So if you've got any questions while we're going along, please add them to the comments.
And at the end I'll put these to Franck, to our speaker.
When we should have ten minutes or so to go through them. So now I'll hand over to Franck and give you all his lecture.
The Portus Magnus of Alexandria. 25 years of underwater research.
Thank you. Franck. Good evening.
Thank you for this very nice introduction. We have here a satellite view of the east port of Alexandria.
Since 1992, the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology, together with the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquity,
have performed geophysic surveys and underwater archaeological excavations in the inside of this port,
and the area is defined North by the West and East Breakwaters.
East by Cape Silsileh and South by the present Corniche.
The total area surveyed and on which we work is 268 hectares, which is quite a nice playground for underwater archaeology.
For the geophysic survey, since 1992,
we apply all new types of geophysical equipment.
And we have, as a matter of fact, co-developed with institutions, some of them,
like the nuclear resonance magnetometer with the French Centre for Atomic Energy and also the parametric sub bottom profiler,
which is a prototype that we have, we are experiencing and developing nowadays since four years with German universities.
In order to understand the ancient topography of the Portus Magnus one have to consider
that we have found and discovered land and structures which were emerging in the antiquity, up to 8m below current sea level.
To explain that, you have to take into account that the sea level has risen by about two m in 2,000 years, about ten cm a century.
That also there is a natural subsidence of the ground, which has lowered the ancient ground surface by two m.
Meaning also more or less 10 cm by century.
But above this, we have found that episode of soil liquefaction happened that was triggered by natural disasters such as earthquake and tidal wave,
which caused the collapse of the ancient ground surface up to four ms in places.
But the natural disaster did not concern only the clay ground.
It's also altered the rocky ground places.
Underwater,
important cracks are found on those rocky ground places, and there is evidence that large, rocky plates slid down to adjacent deeper areas,
dragging all existing constructions on them and the heavier the monument on them were, the deeper the rocky plates sank.
Another factor: the sea erosion has lowered ancient ground surface and port structures,
Whether they were already under water or still staying above water in places.
Thus, in order to understand the topography of the ancient Portus Magnus, one must consider that all grounds in and around the present Eastport,
lying under water at less than 6.5m below current sea level, were emerging land in ancient times.
And that all grounds lying under water between 6.5m to eight ms below current sea level,
were dangerous reefs in ancient times, and to illustrate the action of the ground subsidence and of the sea erosion,
look at this representation of the Diamond Rock in 1798.
High protruding rock from the seawater. Nowadays it is there, lying totally underwater.
It has totally disappeared in 220 years.
During 25 years of survey and archaeological underwater excavations,
we have revealed that important stratigraphies resulting from 2300 years of occupation of the Portus Magnus can still be excavated without any problem.
And you see here a picture of one of our excavation in the Portus Magnus, and you see the different archaeological strata here.
We have also faced that important coastal
and Nile sedimentation happened, especially inside the port basin.
We have sometimes up to 4 to 5 m recent sediment at the bottom of the ancient port basin,
and we found also evidence of sea erosion and dredging, which have in some places
unfortunately erased the archaeological strata.
What we can say today is that after several natural disasters, the Portus Magnus was finally totally submerged at the end of the 8th century AD.
Let us go back to our satellite view and let us perform in that area a very detailed multi-beam bathymetric survey.
Here it is. You see on that picture
some relief at the bottom of the water.
The deeper blue is, the deeper the water and the shallower water
are there in yellow and orange. The shape that you are seeing under water here
are like a ghost of the topography of the past.
We have performed thousands of reconnaissance and hundreds of archaeological excavations in order to precise and define the contour of the land,
and to sometimes confirm what we were seeing in the bathymetric map but during those
excavations we have also discovered many structures which were totally hidden
under the sediment.
During the excavation, we also discovered monuments and ancient structures which were lying once upon a time on those sunken lands, now sunken lands.
You have here a full topography of the Portus Magnus
and on the land,
we can now post the major monuments that we have discovered, which are represented in red here,
and also some antique structures which existed at that time, which are in white.
Everything we have discovered confirmed
what we knew from the ancient texts.
And we can put a name now on some of those port structures and even on some of the monuments.
East of the Portus Magnus were the royal quarters, west of the Portus Magnus, were the Navalia.
Let us see and go to the royal quarters.
We have a nice description of those royal quarters by Strabo,
the geographer who lived five years in Alexandria from 26 BC to 20 BC,
and he's telling us that the great harbour, the Portus Magnus, was composed of several ports.
Yes, indeed, there is several ports we can count one, two, three, four and maybe five ports here,
if ever that modern dike is covering an ancient dike called Jabatra in ancient texts.
And he's saying, that all the ports were deep enough in order to allow a big ship to moor at the wall.
And yes, he is right, all the ports are minimum 3m deep.
So this port here being much deeper. Let us go now in
to see them one by one. Let us consider the north port here Strabo is talking about.
He says that, on the Cape Lochias was a palace
and under the Cape Lochias lie a harbour that was dug by the hand of man and is hidden from the view,
the private property of the king. That port, which was a royal port of the galley, covered an area of 7 hectares.
There is here a beautiful dike built of superb limestone blocks and the port is highly protected by a large breakwater
built of mortar and limestone blocks.
Very impressive. It is in that port that we found six m of modern sediments at that spot.
That port was much deeper that you could see here.
The second port we have is going southwards, it is a very big port, 15 hectare.
It is protected by a large breakwater.
And look at this here. You can see the breakwater and you have a close up of that breakwater here.
You can first see that it has been cut in several parts by earthquake unfortunately.
That breakwater is 250 m long, 21 m wide.
And here you see some structures, which allow, of course, to put the chain between this land here and the tip of this breakwater.
Thus, most probably there was a chain closing this military port area.
Third port: the central port. We call it the port of the Emporium, because it's just in front of the Emporium.
It is closed on the north by a beautiful peninsula, towards the west by an island and the north coast.
It has a wide entrance and a second passage here which allows the circulation of the water.
Very well done. But Strabo is describing also an island with a small royal port.
He described: "Antirhodos is an isle lying off the artificial harbour, which has a royal palace and a small harbour."
The harbour of Antirhodos island is very well sheltered by the south west dike here,
and the counter dike to the north here, which is totally buried now under the sediment.
That port is 3 hectare,
whereas the port of the Emporium gives an additional 13 hectares of port structure.
But we have a change during Roman time.
It happened that around 50 A.D. an earthquake struck Antirhodos Island.
The royal harbour of Antirhodos since that time was converted into a trading port and on the second century A.D.
Antirhodos Island was no longer a royal place, and a large breakwater was built by the Romans,
with huge motar blocks, 13m by 3m by 3m,
creating a beautiful, large, vast port of 16 hectares just facing the very famed temple of the Caesarium, the temple of the Caesars.
I propose to you to visit the Portus Magnus.
Please follow the guide. We go first we leave the palace of Cape Lochias,
take the dike and sail at the exit of the port of the galley to that area here.
That area attracted our attention very much, because as you can see here, it is literally covered with limestone blocks of 1 cubic m.
1 cubic m limestone blocks are quite unusual in the construction of building.
You normally build with parallelepipedic blocks, not cubic blocks.
During excavation we saw that those blocks were going down,
with a light slope under the sediment and continuing under the sediment.
Here you have the area which were emerging lands in the antiquity.
And we could, studying this area,
see that there is several inclined planes in different directions towards the south,
a very big one with a slipway, towards the east another one and towards the north,
a large inclined plane. We are there, obviously,
in a dockyard, you know shipyard.
And that royal shipyard is mentioned by several authors.
Caesar says: "..and in the secret Royal dockyards
there were old ships…". Yes we are there most probably in the Royal shipyard of the Ptolemies.
Let us go on with the visit. And from that shipyard, let's consider this area, the central area of the Royal quarters.
If we post all the fragments of the red granite columns on those lands you can see them
here represented as pink dots, there are hundreds of them.
And this gives you an idea of what could look like
the Portus Magnus in the antiquity with all those colonnades or around you have here a representation of all those columns under water.
And it must have looked very much like this representation that is thought to be a representation of Stabiae Port,
with those columns boarding the port basin with statues on them and colonnades here.
Let us first visit this peninsula protruding from the ancient coast.
That peninsula is described by Strabo himself.
He says the Posedium is an elbow of land
projecting from the Emporium and having a temple to Poseidon.
Thus, it's worth visiting that place of the Portus Magnus. Follow the guide.
We will start to swim above this very large paved walkway leading to a large temple there.
That walkway is, as a foundation of mortar and limestone, contained within wooden posts and planking,
and all the ground around is reinforced by wooden posts.
Very interestingly enough, also, among the limestone slabs,
hundreds of different stone anchors, which are used as pavement and under each part of this walkway
are red granite columns. It must have been extremely beautiful.
Following that walkway, we will reach the Temple of Poseidon.
You have here a 3D stereo photogrammetry of the whole area, which is 80 m by about 50 m.
And you can see here the limestone block foundation of a temple with a large area of mortar blocks as foundation and south to it
all the granite columns of the temple which have collapsed towards the south.
As a matter of fact, all the monuments of the Portus Magnus collapsed towards the south.
You have here on a bathymetric map posted in white
all the limestone blocks, which are remaining from the foundation and all
the red granite columns which are here in pink towards the south. In grey
here you have the large mortar blocks.
Facing that temple is a small lake, beautifully built with limestone blocks.
And you have a landing stage, controlled by the tower towards the south.
On the site, all the ground is reinforced with wooden posts,
which has been most probably done after the construction of the temple, during after maybe a small disaster.
You can see here the large limestone blocks and of course, red granite columns everywhere.
The columns must have been about 6 m high.
In the area of the temple we have discovered beautiful artefacts.
This head of a Ptolemaic priest made of granite.
This marble head of Antonia minor
But very interesting, this element bearing
hieroglyphs. It's a fragment of an obelisk
and around that fragment were pieces of granite
proceeding from the same artefact.
Meaning that most probably there was one, maybe two,
we don't know, obelisks posted in front of that temple.
And those obelisks were brought from Heliopolis
and they date back from the time of Seti I, 13th century B.C.
You have also quartzite sphinxes, which are associated with this temple.
Small artefacts have been found on the area, which has been heavily looted anyhow. Ceramic from the 1st BC to the 1st A.D.
The upper strata has been totally eroded and by the sea and is no longer available.
Some jewelry and some nice bronze statuettes.
From the temple let us swim towards the end of this peninsula, in a very interesting area, mentioned by Strabo himself.
He says at the elbow on this elbow of land, the Poseidium, Antony added a mole projecting still farther into middle
of a harbour and on the extremity of it
he built a royal lodge, which he called Timonium.
This is where he was spending days with Cleopatra VII.
We are there, you see the peninsula of the Poseidium.
And here are a large mole. And if we zoom here
you will see the vestiges of a monument there, which is still under excavation.
It's a 30 by 30 m monument. Beautifully built with limestone blocks, the ground being reinforced by wooden posts and planking,
dating back from perfectly the end of the Ptolemaic period.
As you can see in the carbon 14 data that we have done.
This monument has been heavily looted.
And very few things remained.
And we have evidence that it has been on purpose destroyed, and that something has been rebuilt further on that site.
You can see here some of the artefacts, some architectonic element. Amphorae from the end of the 1st century B.C. and some,
gold Aureus dating back from Antinoos and Caracalla.
Very few things, but the excavation is still going on.
From that area let us swim above the ancient coast.
Here the royal ancient coast and moles are beautifully paved
with limestone slabs and it's literally littered by red granite columns everywhere.
Swimming alongside the coast, you will meet some Egyptian gods: Thot, Agatodeimon.
You will encounter sphinxes like this one.
And many red granite blocks bearing hieroglyphs.
Of Course, all those artefacts that you can see now were totally buried
under sediment before the excavations.
From the ancient coast, let us now visit Antirhodos Island.
It's a very important place.
This is what it was seeing the Portus Magnus: "Antirhodos is an isle lying off the artificial harbour, which has a royal palace and a small harbour."
Let us go first, of course, to the main monument of the island on the main branch.
And the site which must have been once upon a time, the palace, of course.
And there, unfortunately, you'll find a chaos of big limestone blocks.
The site has been extremely looted in antiquity.
This monument covers an area of 68 m by 23 m.
Altogether 1564 square m, is not a small monument.
On it very little artefacts.
However, we found some sections of red green columns which has been presented to you during this symposium beautifully by Suzanne Walker.
They all bear inscriptions about the glory of Caracalla, and they were obviously basis for statues of the Roman Emperor Caracalla,
made erected there in the 3rd century A.D. They are 1.05m in diameter.
And you will see. We know now their origin, as you will see later.
Close to the palace there is also some fragment of door jamb, and one of them is interesting.
This one, it bears a hieroglyph, the cartouche of King Apries.
But the door jamb is being cut into two.
And we found the remaining part more than half a km away on the antique coast.
It illustrates the strength of the tidal wave, which struck the Portus Magnus and could break and bring one heavy monument
of several hundred kilo half a km away.
Close to it you will see also a nice statue representing a Ptolemaic queen made of marble, higher than nature
and a Ptolemaic King represented as Hermes, most probably Ptolemy III.
An interesting spot on this island is the north east tip.
There is a remain of a very old, small wooden jetty dating back from before the foundation of the city of Alexandria.
And it has been incorporated during the Ptolemaic time within the island.
Another very interesting monument on Antirhdos Island
is posted here. This monument collapsed on each part of the secondary branch of the Island.
And this was very lucky for us, because everything which is destroyed and collapsed on the land has been later,
of course, recuperated or heavily looted.
But what is falling and collapsing into the harbour are sometimes protected, and this was the case.
We have here all the limestone blocks proceeding from a monument and a large concentration of red granite columns of 1.05m of diameter.
As a matter of fact,
all the columns which fell above land have been recuperated and used as base of statuary for Caracalla in the 3rd century.
But those who fell into the port are still there and could not be recuperated.
Among them we found also some architectural elements.
And also, south to the columns,
we have a very interesting find.
Consisted in a beautiful statue of a priest of Isis
holding Osiris-Canopus, protected by two Ptolemaic sphinxes, one of them is the likeness of Ptolemy XII, the father of Cleopatra VII.
On that temple, which was obviously a temple devoted to Isis, an Iseum,
we found, inside of each part of the Island,
ritual instruments of silver, bronze, lead and beautiful ceramic by hundreds.
We can date back this monument thanks to the architectural element and of the artefacts.
This monument has been founded early 1st century BC and has known
quite a great importance starting from the time of Ptolemy XII, father of Cleopatra.
You have here we found several silver coins, 3 or 4 of them of Ptolemy XII, bronze coins of Cleopatra VII
and gold coins of Augustus here.
Alongside a beautiful portrait made of rock crystal and important bronze statuettes and among other very interesting artefacts.
We can say that life of this temple started before
or at the time of Ptolemy XII and was totally stopped in 50 A.D when it has been struck by obviously, by an earthquake.
There is no artefact among the artefacts fallen into the harbour after 50 A.D.
Let us leave now this centre of glory and power
where Cleopatra VII had a palace
and a temple to Isis, which is very nicely symbolized by these gold ring that we found there, representing
an eagle holding a crown in his beak.
And let us go on the ancient coast just in front of it.
This place was very well known.
In the 18th century, two obelisks, one of them was still standing and the other one fallen, were marking the temple to the Caesars,
the Caesarium. The Caesarium was a temple which was thought to have been built by
Cleopatra VII and terminated and extended by Augustus and his followers.
But there, we have something interesting.
The temple of the Caesars, the Caesarium, was known as maybe the bigger, the most beautiful temple of antiquity.
Just in front of it, are the moles of the ancient Portus Magnus.
But we could prove by archaeological excavations that starting, from the mid first century A.D., or early 1st century A.D.
a vast portion of land has been reclaimed
towards the port. Thus, that temple must have been projected,
must have been planned well before Cleopatra VII, because the land has been reclaimed just in front well before her.
All around this area we found very important statues like this falcon-headed-crocodile sphinx
dating back from the 8th century BC,
with the big ears listening the prayer of the people.
A colossus portrait of the son of Caesar and Cleopatra,
Ptolemy XV, Caesarion. The whole statue
must have been at least seven m high.
The remains of a colossal statue of an Egyptian pharaoh, Merenptah,
brought most probably from Heliopolis,
Pyramidion of a naos bearing the cartouche of a Ptolemaic king.
Red granite altar. And you can see here the material, very beautiful material like this black, green porphyry.
And also those elements here of red granite bearing cartouche of a pharaoh. We found many, many of those.
They proceed from very big fasciculated red granite columns, which have been brought from the temple of Ptah in Memphis.
And fortunately enough we can say now that they have been brought most probably under the rule of Emperor Trajan,
and that they have been brought after 114 A.D, because of a cartouche of Trajan with a special title engraved on it.
I have to say that those fasciculated columns were perfectly fit for the temple of the Caesars,
the temple of the dynasty continuity, as they were proceeding from the temple of Ptah in Memphis,
and they were wearing the cartouche of several pharaohs,
Tuthmosis IV, Merenptah and Seti II.
Let us leave now the royal quarter and let us visit
the Navalia towards the west.
First, we will see that port, very strange port, protected by a dike,
which is not man made, but it's dug into the rock and the port is dug into the rock.
And that dike is connected to the coast by a walkway or by a dike made of limestone blocks,
and wooden posts, which has been dated from the Roman times,
and at the western part of that dike is a small monument with red granite columns here.
Going north we will see very nice docks,
beautifully built and paved.
And their basement is made of wooden post
with limestone blocks, which have been paved above.
They are beautiful. And they all date back from the Roman times. Thus the Romans have extended the port to the north.
Same thing towards the north.
Here we have large mole built of big mortar blocks and supported with a basement reinforced by wooden posts.
There. You have now a vision of the inside of the Portus Magnus.
But one can say: "How did the whole Portus Magnus look like?"
For that you have first to add all lands
which are around the port, and which are nowadays at least 6.5m deep.
They were emerging in the antiquities. Here they are from the bathymetric map.
The nautical chart. Above this, you have to consider the beautiful work done by Goiran and Hesse
on land, doing geophysical surveys in order to determine the position of the Heptastadium,
the dike linking the land to the pharaoh's island.
Here we are.
Then, you have to take away, of course, a modern structure and take into account the bathymetry of that area,
which has been done before the construction of those structures
in the early 20th century. Here we are!
And here you can see a satellite view
done with a satellite in 30 B.C.
And you have a nice overview of the Portus Magnus.
That Portus Magnus is dating back,
this vision or representation of the Portus Magnus dates back from the Ptolemaic time. During Roman time,
we have to add this huge breakwater,
protecting the new port facing the Caesarium, and the new port built here by the Romans.
Let us know look at the connectivity of that port during Ptolemaic time.
In red are the connections for the trading ships.
You have several entrances. The main entrance here between the reefs.
Most probably the Djabatra, this is an assumption because it's covered by the modern dike, but it's mentioned in the antiquity.
And an island and very big reefs here, dangerous reefs here,
this is the central passage, the main passage. And the secondary passage there between Pharos Island and those reefs and the island.
We might have a third one here.
Hypothetical, because here there is a passage, but it's blocked here
by the modern dike. And most probably there was a port there.
This is hypothetical. Thus, the trading ship could enter both passages here,
go towards the port of the Emporium. Go out of this port also
by the second passage if they want, with blowing winds from the northwest and they could
sail to the other port in the west by crossing the two passages in the Heptastadium.
They could go into the Navalia. As for the official boats and the military boats, they could use the two passages,
they had to enter there, cross this entrance closed by a chain here and go into the Military port,
the second port, the port of the galley. And they could also go, of course, to the royal port there.
There has been a change during Roman times. Of course.
Because new areas were devoted to the trade.
The whole port of the Emporium, but also Antirhodos port was a trading port there.
And this is also confirmed by the shipwrecks that we found there.
One of them is the beautiful J3 shipwreck, recently presented by Damian,
during this symposium. And they could leave from there going to the port of the Caesarium there and sail towards the Heptastadium.
For the Military, they could use the same area there.
I think we have a nice view of the most recent
aspect of the Portus Magnus before it was struck and totally destroyed by natural
disaster and natural phenomena like land subsidence and rising of the sea water.
Thank you very much. If you have some question. Thank you very much, Franck, for that fantastic overview of the development of the port.
It really is a kind of monumental project in maritime archaeology.
I was wondering if I might ask the first question,
what is the balance that you have between the detailed geophysical survey, the underwater survey and then the excavation?
How do you sort of decide what to do with each of these?
As a matter of fact, the geophysical survey are still going on nowadays because, of course,
there's new equipment that we are developing, that we are testing.
Thus, there is a combination during every mission, doing the survey and the underwater excavation.
And sometimes the underwater excavation is leading to new survey.
I will give you an example, in the port of the galley we have done the Survey,
but when we started the excavation,
we saw that there were six m of modern sediments and that we had to go much deeper with the parametric
sub bottom profiler, in order to reach what could lie
at the bottom of the port of the Galley. Thus, we have to do next mission a new survey on that area.
because the survey we have done is not... is not sufficient.
And I would say that, each year, we are doing hundreds of dive and excavation hours.
And there is a huge amount of knowledge brought to us at each mission.
So the survey helps you to target where to excavate,
and then the excavations lead to more questions, more Surveys. And leads also to more surveys,
there is a kind of correspondance. It's very interesting, because what we are finding also does fit with the ancient texts.
Sometimes the ancient texts lead us to go somewhere.
Sometimes we bring more to the ancient texts, and sometimes we make the ancient texts understandable,
which were very difficult to understand without what we found there.
Thus, there is a dialogue between survey, excavation and prior knowledge from ancient texts.
And so, have the excavations
revealed, you know, things that you've been surprised about from the ancient texts?
One of the most surprising, I would say, is the Iseum on the island of Antirhodos,
which is highly important, because we have 100% evidence that there was a temple of Isis on Antirhodos island.
And when you consider that Ptolemy XII was a first of the Ptolemy to add to his title Neos Dionysus,
meaning the new Osiris, you know, and that he founded the exact temple to Isis.
And then after, Cleopatra VII was known as the Neos Aphrodite, the new Isis, you know, Cleopatra, who was the new Isis,
had a temple to herself near her Palace on Antirhodos Island.
So it's quite impressive there and also we found out that,
so this port was much bigger, much more, I would say intelligent, much more efficient
than what it was thought to be.
Thank you Franck. We've got some questions from the audience, which I'll go through so that you can see them.
I think one of the first ones is from Diana.
She asks, how do you deal with the conservation of the statues?
The conservation of the statues.
We have two option whether to let them under water or to bring them on land to restore them, to soak them into fresh water
and they will go to museums. But that we have let quite a lot of them under water, because
the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism,
has a project, maybe of an underwater museum in the area of the Portus Magnus.
Thus, it will be important to have in situ important artefact left there.
And a couple of other questions from Bruce.
Who's asked about the pavements with the stone anchors on.
How you know that the stone anchors were part of the pavements?
Because we are obviously on land, you know, the substrate is made of mortar mixed with limestone,
it's totally delimited by wood and plankings.
And the stone anchors are part of the slabs,
in a large area which leads towards
the temple to Poseidon.
So there's a really a nice kind of juxtaposition of anchors with...
Yes, with pavement, with use as pavement.
Yes. Thank you. Then leading us
to another question: Is the broken monument that you showed, the one where half of it was 500m away,
what is the evidence that you have for these tidal waves and for these very destructive events?
And is that textual or is that just archaeological, or? It's textual, of course.
But what is strange, we have a long text about an earthquake dating July 31st, 365, whereas,
ships were found at the top of the temple and tens of thousands of people died from the tidal wave.
But something interesting is that we found also evidence of earthquakes or natural disasters, which are not mentioned in the text.
Like the destruction of the Iseum on Antirhodos Island.
Absolutely, between 50 and 51
this monument that has been struck by a natural disaster, the land collapsed on both parts,
of the island, together with a wooden post which was supporting the land and everything fell and was knocked out on each part of the island.
Thus we have written evidence of a tidal wave
and we have also archaeological evidence of tidal wave and also earthquake, which are not mentioned into texts.
And then there's also, I suppose, the information from the course of Jean-Philippe Goiran...
Absolutely, Jean-Philippe Goiran made a beautiful presentation where he could show the evidence of tidal waves in the Portus Magnus.
Absolutely. We've had a question from Dr. Bob Bianchi who spoke the other night.
Bob says that the architectural fragments and the sculpture that you've discovered are overwhelmingly pharaonic
in their view, giving an appearance that was,
do you think the city scape was pharaonic in its look?
Do you have enough information to create a sort of artistic impression of what the colonnaded walkways may look like?
Well, for the colonnades, yes. Because we found those red granite columns.
We found statues
like the marble statue of Ptolemy III as Hermes, you know, thus it fits perfectly with the representation of the port of that period.
But when you consider, for example, the temple to Poseidion, you know, it's not an Egyptian temple, though they put an obelisk in there.
As Augustus put also two obelisk in the Caesarium, inside the Caesarium, the temenos of the Caesarium.
But this temple is pretty much a Greek temple from its size, from its layout,
and we have the description of the Caesarium, it doesn't fit with the description of an Egyptian temple.
But Bob is right, there is a lot of artefacts, which have been brought from
Heliopolis and from elsewhere, but many from Heliopolis,
which has been from an ancient monuments, which has been used during Ptolemaic and Roman
time in order to adorn and to build the monument and the temple of the Portus Magnus.
So it was a mixture of, of course, Greek
and Egyptian architecture. Absolutely.
There is a mixture there. Very interesting.
And do you think that there's a difference between the side of the port where the Greek and the Egyptian architecture is,
and obviously the Roman development is that much more, much less monumental, more workaday in that way?
Yeah. First, I think that it is the first time that you can see a port with such a layout,
with a breakwater protruding from the land and going towards the sea.
You know, it's not a Kibotos, the Egyptian way, a closed port.
No, I would say it has the layout of a modern port with different port basin zones.
And they used the natural topography in a very clever way in order to extend that port.
And of course, the Romans were less maybe interested in cults there, than in the trade of grain in order to provide Rome with grain.
And they extended the port in a beautiful way.
One of the most exciting parts, for me, was something that I've not seen you talk about before,
is the sort of the slipways and the discovery of the military port.
We've got a question about this who wants to know
whether you've seen any results there of ship sheds or other facilities.
Naval facilities. No. You have to understand that everything which was left on land, you know, has been totally reused, recuperated.
And when we found very important artefacts whether very deep into the strata, or inside the port basin when they collapsed into the port basin.
But in such an area, which is totally, I would say, I cannot say paved, but built
with limestone blocks of one cubic m,
you have no strata under, of course,
and everything which was above has been of course reused, recuperated, unfortunately. Maybe we have a chance,
but we have to do very deep excavation at the extremity of the slipway there...
We will do excavation,
we have some interesting signals, but it will be a hard work to excavate,
ms and m of modern sediment before reaching the archaeological strata.
So there's still lots to do, I think.
Oh there is a lot to do. And the recent surveys that we have done with a parametric sub bottom profiler,
shows us that there is endless work to do on shipwrecks and on these structures.
We've probably got time for another couple of questions. And so I suppose the first one of these is from Julian Putnam,
who asks, whether you have any new insights about the Pharos itself, the lighthouse?
The Pharos by itself, would deserve a whole presentation.
Absolutely. But I would like to show you two slides when you enable me?
Course. This one, together with a text
of Strabo, who was there.
"At the extremity of the island of Pharos is a rock which is washed all around by the sea."
And you have to understand that you have two passages, one main passage and one
secondary passage. I am a sailor and I would absolutely hate,
that there is no signal for me on that island there, with rocks just before hit there.
And on that rocks before the western dike was built, was seen remains of a construction by Mr. Gustave Jondet, who made the whole
bathymetrie of that area before Gustave Jondet was the chief engineer of the port of Alexandria.
And we have a nice bathymetry and a nice description of him, saying, there is an island that must have been island there,
with a construction on it. Interesting.
But anyhow, I would say that my little finger tells me that it means that one day, maybe we have some clue about the lighthouse.
Thank you. So it's there somewhere, I think.
It's there somewhere, yes. I think probably the final question that we probably have time for tonight is from Olga.
She says about the publication of all this material, where is it or
when can we expect it? We have various publications that we have done already, and the publication of this symposium
will result in a three volume book about the Portus Magnus coming soon, I hope, but it will take some time to
edit it but it's written and it will edited in the coming years.
So the overall publication of the Portus Magnus...There will be an overall publication with topography,
history, the context, the topography, the study of the artefacts and what we can detect from this.
And so that's you and your team are working on it at the moment, which. Yes.
Then and you know that we are working together, you know, working on this at the moment.
Also the are various other things.
So if you are interested in Franck's work on the Caesarium, for example, and the material that comes from that,
Franck and I have just edited a book together which is called The Sacred Landscapes of Alexandria in the Northwest Delta.
There's lots of papers in that, which are kind of preliminary reports that are leading towards this
monumental publication of Francks, which will come from that. So I think now it's about 6:10,
that we should thank you very much, Franck,
for this incredibly insightful presentation which has taken us all around your excavations and
the artefacts that you've recovered from it and the interpretations that we can draw from it.
It's a truly inspirational view, I think, into what maritime archaeology can do.
When you invest time and effort and you have a fabulous sponsor
to kind of support the work over this 25 year long period, which is incredible.
So thank you very much. I'd like to thank all of our audience who have watched tonight.
I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. Thank you very much for your questions and everything, so thank you, Franck.
Thank you everybody out there. I'd like to say, good night to everybody.
So good night. Night.