Ancient Heraklion was hidden from the surface of the earth by an earthquake of several millennia.10 photos

His discovery surprised scientists. And although Heraklion is not Atlantis (the legend of Atlantis is much older), their stories are very similar

The lost city was discovered under water 1,200 years later.

The main seaport at the mouth of the Nile, Heraklion was a small but prosperous city. Thanks to contacts with foreign merchants and sailors who frequently visited the city on their way to Egypt, its inhabitants were educated people with a broad outlook. The main temple of the city was dedicated to the god Amon .. But in the blink of an eye, Heraklion disappeared. In the first century BC. there was a strong earthquake that flattened the houses, sank the ships in the harbor, killed most of the inhabitants of the city, forcing the rest to flee, leaving all valuable property. For two thousand years, the ruins of the city, hidden from prying eyes by silt and ten meters of water, lay 3 kilometers off the coast of Alexandria in the bay of Abukir. .

But last summer, the French archaeologist Frank Godio announced that he had discovered the remains of a city that, in his opinion, belong to Heraklion: a black granite slab or stele on which it is written the word "la Heraklion", the remains of ten ships in the former harbor, as well as thousands of other items, including jewels, coins, vases and personal items.

Although modern scientists know little about this city, the whole ancient world knew it. The Greek historian Diodorus wrote that Hercules, the son of Zeus, blocked the flow of the Nile and thereby saved the lives of people on the banks of the river. In gratitude, people erected a temple named after him and named the city in his honor. According to another Greek historian, Herodotus, Helen the Beautiful and her beloved Paris fled to Heraklion, fleeing the wrath of her husband Helen, Menelaus, but they were forced to return by Tonis, the guardian of the gates of the Nile. Stesichor.

He says that the Greeks were deceived by the gods about the location of Helen the Beautiful in order to reduce the population of Troy with the help of the war. Actually, Stesichor considers, during the Trojan War Elena was in Heraklion. . Archaeologist Frank Godeau did not find evidence of the presence of Helen the Beautiful here, but his discovery seems fantastic. One of the first was found the great temple of Heraklion.

Remains of thick stone walls indicate the boundary of its territory. Near the destroyed walls, archaeologists found three huge statues of pink granite, which were allegedly defeated during the earthquake. Two statues depict the hitherto unknown Pharaoh and his wife. The third statue — Hapi, the Egyptian god of the Nile spill .. Inside the temple there is a monumental tomb of pink granite, covered with hieroglyphs. Its upper part still presents difficulties for reading, but a preliminary translation of the texts placed on the lower parts shows that this is undoubtedly the temple of Heraklion. A number of scientists, including Manfred Clauss from the University of Frankfurt, believe that the final decoding of the inscriptions on the tomb will give even more.

A two-meter black granite stela makes even greater impression — almost complete copy of the stele found in 1899 in Nokrazhe. This is the first case of duplication of steles in Egyptology. The stela of Nokratzha, which is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, bears the text of the decree of the pharaoh Noctanebus I, founder of the 30th dynasty, who ascended the throne in November 380 BC. This decree introduced a 10 percent tax on Greek artisans and goods in Nokratzhe and Tonis, which was to be sent to build the temple to the goddess Neith.

The text ends with the words: "And his Majesty said:" Let it be carved on a stele erected in Nokratzhe, on the bank of the Anu canal. " The stela found is the same as the first, except for the last sentence, which says: "And His Majesty said:" Let it be carved on a stele installed at the entrance to the Greek sea in Heraklion-Tonis. "

Godot's group also found the place where Heraklion's harbor was located, in which there are now debris of at least 10 ships piled up in a pile. This suggests that they died from a tidal wave that followed the earthquake. Everywhere, where researchers examined the underwater city, they found various subjects. All of them date from the period from the first century BC. and earlier. Most of them — in good condition, despite being under water for 2 thousand years ..

Among the finds — gold earrings, bracelets, hairpins, rings, combs, Beautiful Greek goblet, covered with icing, smoker for aromatic substances, hundreds of coins. All of them have only a slightly scratched surface. And this is only the beginning — major excavations (if this concept can be applied to underwater archaeological work) — ahead.