Archaeologists excavating the underwater metropolis of Thônis-Heracleion in Egypt’s harbor of Abū Qīr unearthed wicker fruit baskets dating from the fourth century BCE.
Presenetljivo je, da kozarci še vedno vsebujejo oreščke in grozdne pečke, sadež afriške palme, ki so ga stari Egipčani imeli za svetega.
"Nič ni bilo moteno," je za Dalyo Alberge iz Guardiana povedal morski arheolog Franck Goddio. "Zelo osupljivo je bilo videti košare s sadjem."
Goddio in njegovi kolegi na Evropskem inštitutu za podvodno arheologijo (IEASM) so posode odkrili v sodelovanju z egiptovskim ministrstvom za turizem in starine. Raziskovalci raziskujejo starodavno sredozemsko pristaniško mesto Thônis-Heracleion od njegovega ponovnega odkritja leta 2001, poroča Egypt Independent.
The baskets were stored in an underground room and may have been funerary offerings reports the Greek City Times. Nearby, the researchers found a 197- by 26-foot tumulus or burial mound, and an extravagant array of Greek funerary goods likely left by merchants and mercenaries living in the area.
“Everywhere we found evidence of burned material,” says Goddio in a statement, as quoted by CNN’s Radina Gigova. “Spectacular ceremonies must have taken place there. The place must have been sealed for hundreds of years as we have found no objects from later than the early fourth century BCE, even though the city lived on for several hundred years after that.”
Drugi predmeti, najdeni na grobu ali okoli njega, so vključevali starodavno keramiko, bronaste artefakte in figurice, ki prikazujejo egipčanskega boga Ozirisa.
»Našli smo na stotine usedlin iz keramike,« je Goddio povedal za Guardian. »Eden nad drugim. To so uvožene keramike, rdeče na črnih figurah.«
Thônis-Heracleion was established in the ninth century B.C.E. Before the foundation of Alexandria about 331 BCE, the city functioned as the “obligatory port of entry into Egypt for all ships arriving from the Greek world,” according to Goddio’s website.
The thriving commercial center peaked between the sixth and fourth century BCE Structures fanned out from a central temple, with waterways linking various portions of the city. Houses and other religious structures stood on islands near Thônis-Heracleion
Once an epicenter for maritime commerce, the city sank into the Mediterranean in the eighth century CE. Some historians attribute the metropolis’ downfall to rising sea levels and collapsing, unstable sediment, as Reg Little wrote for Oxford Mail in 2022. Others posit that earthquakes and tidal waves caused a 42-square-mile segment of the Nile Delta to collapse into the sea, as per CNN.
As the Art Newspaper’s Emily Sharpe reported in 2022, experts once thought that Heracleion, referenced by Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BCE — was a separate city from Thônis, which is the site’s Egyptian name. A tablet found by Goddio’s team in 2001 helped researchers conclude that the two locations were the same.
Vrnitev predmetov iz ruševin Thônis-Heracleiona je naporna naloga zaradi plasti zaščitnega sedimenta, ki jih prekriva.
"Cilj je, da se iz naših izkopavanj naučimo čim več, ne da bi bili vsiljivi," je Goddio leta 2022 povedal za Art Newspaper.
According to the Oxford Mail, other finds at Thônis-Heracleion include more than 700 antique anchors, gold coins and weights, and scores of small limestone sarcophagi holding the bones of mummified animals. Archaeologists discovered a well-preserved second-century BCE military vessel in a separate section of the city last month.
Po mnenju strokovnjakov naj bi v prihodnosti na tem mestu odkrili še več predmetov. Goddio je za Guardian povedal, da so v 3 letih po ponovnem odkritju raziskali le 20 % pokopane metropole.
