Photos show 2,000-year-old artifacts pulled from waters off Egypt's coast

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Ancient statues, Roman coins and different artifacts from a sunken metropolis were pulled from the Mediterranean Sea disconnected the seashore of Egypt Thursday.

The relics day backmost implicit 2,000 years. Egyptian authorities said the site, located successful the waters of Abu Qir Bay adjacent Alexandria, whitethorn beryllium an hold of the past metropolis of Canopus, a salient halfway during the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt for astir 300 years, and the Roman Empire, which governed for astir 600 years.

Over time, a bid of earthquakes and rising oversea levels submerged the metropolis and the adjacent larboard metropolis of Thonis-Heracleion, leaving down a treasure trove of humanities remains.

On Thursday, cranes dilatory hoisted statues from the depths, portion divers successful wetsuits, who had helped retrieve them, cheered from the shore.

"There's a batch underwater, but what we're capable to bring up is limited, it's lone circumstantial worldly according to strict criteria," Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathi said. "The remainder volition stay portion of our sunken heritage."

Ancient Sphinx Statues and Marble Figures Recovered from Abu Qir

The underwater ruins revealed by the ministry connected Thursday see limestone buildings that whitethorn person served arsenic places of worship, residential spaces and commercialized oregon concern structures.

Reservoirs and rock-carved ponds for home h2o retention and food cultivation were besides uncovered.

Other notable finds were statues of royal figures and sphinxes from the pre-Roman era, including a partially preserved sphinx with the cartouche of Ramses II, 1 of the country's astir celebrated and longest-ruling past pharaohs.

Egypt recovers caller artefacts submerged successful the Mediterranean

Many of the statues are missing assemblage parts, including a beheaded Ptolemaic fig made of granite, and the little fractional of a Roman nobleman's likeness carved from marble.

A merchant ship, chromatic anchors and a harbour crane dating backmost to the Ptolemaic and Roman eras were recovered astatine the tract of a 125-metre dock, which the ministry said was utilized arsenic a harbour for tiny boats until the Byzantine period.

Abu Qir Bay gained humanities value successful 1859 erstwhile Egyptian Prince Oma Touson, on with fishermen and divers, recovered remains of past structures, according to Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

In summation to the sunken cities, aggregate shipwrecks person been recovered successful the bay. The ships see the wreckage of Napolean's fleet from the 1798 Battle of the Nile, the ministry said. Napolean's French fleet was defeated by a British fleet.