Heracleion was founded around the 8th century BC, before establishing the city of Alexandria. It was located near the Canopus branch of the Nile.
Heracleion-Thonis was a settlement in Egypt, situated at the mouth of the Canopic branch of the Nile, approximately 6 km from the modern coastline of Aboukir Bay and 40 km east of Alexandria.
The city of Thonis-Heracleion was discovered by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology in 2000, in the Bay of Aboukir, after four years of a geophysical survey. The excavators have established that the city comprised numerous small landmasses surrounded by waterways, the largest of which passes east-west through the centre of the city and has been nicknamed the “Grand Canal”.
Initially a frontier post guarding this maritime gateway into Egypt, the port rose to become its most significant emporium in the Late Period where traders from the cities of the Greek world mingled with those from the Achaemenid Empire.
Following the foundation of Alexandria and the transferal of trade there, life in Thonis-Heracleion continued, centered around its temples and their cycles of festivals. Combined with studies of sediments, the walls reveal that the city apparently consisted of different districts, separated by waterways.
This came to an abrupt halt sometime around the end of the 2nd century BC in a natural disaster that destroyed large parts of its main temple, a catastrophe from which the city never recovered as it slipped beneath the rising waters of the Mediterranean. Probably after a severe flood, the ground on which the central island of Heracleion was built succumbed to soil liquefaction.
Despite the passage of thousands of years and the sinking of the entire city, small artifacts have survived as well. Amulets and statuettes depicting both Greek and Egyptian deities were found near the foundations of various buildings, as well as carved wooded naos, or small shrines that held statues or other artifacts.
Heracleion - ancient Egyptian port city
