by Old statues, Roman coins and other artifacts from a sunken city were pulled out of the Mediterranean on Thursday off the coast of Egypt.
The relics come over 2,000 years. The Egyptian authorities said that the terrain in the Abu Qir Bay waters near Alexandria could be an expansion of the old city of Canopus, a prominent center during the Ptolema dynasty, which ruled Egypt for almost 300 years, and the Roman Empire, which ruled for around 600 years.
Over time, a number of earthquakes and rising sea levels dipped into the city and the nearby port city of Thonis-Heraconion and left a treasury of historical remains.
The divers observe how a crane on August 21, 2025 in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria, Egypt, as part of an event organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiques by the waters in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria, Egypt, for the recovery of sunken antiques. / Credit: Khaled Desouki/ AFP via Getty Images
On Thursday, the cranes slowly lifted statues from the depths, while divers cheered from the shore in neoprene suits they had thrown back.
“There is a lot of underwater, but what we can apply is limited, according to strict criteria, it is only a specific material,” said Sherif Fathi, Minister of Egyptian Tourism and Antiques. “The rest will remain part of our sunken inheritance.”
An old artifact will be called on August 21, 2025 from the Mediterranean sea floor in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria, Egypt.
The underwater ruins unveiled by the Ministry on Thursday include limestone buildings, which may have served as places of worship, living rooms as well as commercial or industrial structures.
Reservoirs and felkers carved ponds for the storage of the domestic water and the cultivation of fish were also discovered.
Other remarkable finds were statues from royal characters and sphinxes from the pre-Roman era, including a partially preserved Sphinx with the cartridge from Ramses II, one of the most famous and longest-rated old pharaoh of the country.
Archaeologists have discovered Sphinx statues and marble figures that go back to the Roman and Ptolemaken periods in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria, Egypt. / Credit: Head Hamdy/ Bild Alliance via Getty Images
Many of the statues are missing body parts, including a beheaded Ptolemaic figure made of granite and the lower half of the similarity of a Roman noble cut from marble.
A merchant ship, stone anchor and a harbor crane that goes back to the Ptolemäschliche and Roman epochs were found on the site of a 125-meter dock that the Ministry for Small Boats had used as a port until the Byzantine period.
Old Roman coins are exhibited after they were lifted out of the water in Abu Qir Bay near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt on August 21, 2025.
Abu Qir Bay obtained historical importance in 1859 when Egyptian Prince Grandma Touson, together with fishermen and divers, found old structures, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiques.
In addition to the sunken cities, several shipwrights were found in the bay. The ships include the wrecks of the Napolean fleet from the Battle of Nil from 1798, said the Ministry. The French fleet of Napolean was defeated by a British fleet.
Restored artifacts are exhibited in Alexandria, Egypt, after they were drawn from Abu Qir Bay on August 21, 2025.
Today Alexandria is exposed to the risk of succumbing to the same waters that Canopus and Thonis Hheracionion claimed.
The coastal city is particularly susceptible to climate change and rising sea level and decreases by more than three millimeters every year.
Even in the best scenario of the United Nations, a third of Alexandria will become under water or uninhabitable by 2050.
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