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Sunken City · Research only

Thonis-Heracleion

Sank ~2nd c. BC, 8th c. AD · found 2000, Abu Qir Bay, off Alexandria, Egypt
PROTECTED
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

Thonis-Heracleion: still unexplained.

Colossal gods, gold coin, sixty-plus ships, Egypt's drowned gateway

The law of this ground: Egyptian antiquities waters, closed to recreational diving; recovered treasures tour the world's museums.
The subject
developing the photograph…
The manifest
Colossal gods, gold coin, sixty-plus ships, Egypt's drowned gateway
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.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

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.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 31.300°, 30.100° (approx.) View on the Map