Thonis-Heracleion

The account

For a thousand years Herodotus' city of Heracleion was thought half-myth. In 2000 a magnetometer found it seven kilometres offshore: temples flattened in the mud, five-metre statues of gods face down, a fleet of ancient ships, gold still scattered in the sediment. The city had liquefied and gone down whole. Most of it, the excavators say nine-tenths, has not yet been touched.

Leads, where the trail points now

• Franck Goddio located the sunken Egyptian port of Thonis-Heracleion in Aboukir Bay in 2000; colossal statues, steles, and dozens of ships have been raised.
• It is an underwater archaeological site worked under Egyptian permit, and only a fraction has been excavated, so much of the city is still in the silt.
• The lead is the unexcavated harbor and temple areas, mapped by Goddio's team.