The annual ancient Egyptian celebration of the Mysteries of Osiris took place in all major cities, including Thonis-HeracleionandCanopus. It was the most important religious event of the year. Osiris, lord of the underworld, was one of the most important and popular gods and all rulers were believed to descend from him. The Mysteries of Osiris were celebrated between the 12th and 30th of the month of Khoiak (mid-October to mid-November), when the Nile retreated, depositing fertile soil ready to be sown. They reenacted Osiris’ murder and rebirth, and culminated in two ritual processions.
The first procession took place on the tenth day of the Mysteries of Osiris (22nd day of Khoaik). Figures of 33 gods accompanied a soil and barley figure of Osiris. Each figure was placed in a papyrus barge measuring 67.5cm. Numerous offering models of these barges have been discovered at the bottom of canals surrounding the Temple of Amun-Gereb at Thonis-Heracleion, particularly the Grand Canal. They range in size from 6 to 67.5cm and are made of lead – a metal associated with Osiris. Their decoration imitates papyrus, mimicking the real boats involved in this ritual. The barges were accompanied by 365 oil lamps illuminating the fleet, one for each day of the year.
The second procession took place on the 29th day of Khoiak. A gilded wooden boat containing both Osiris figures left the Temple of Amun-Gereb for a two-mile journey. It travelled along the Grand Canal from Thonis-Heracleion to the figures’ final resting place in the Osiris temple in Canopus. Standards topped by emblems of a jackal-headed god, either Anubis or Wepwawet (‘he who opens the way’), and the falcon-headed god Horus led the way. The scene is depicted at Abydos, one of the main religious centres for Osiris. The recent underwater finds at Canopus are incredible physical evidence of these celebrations.
During the underwater excavations, numerous ladles, oil lamps, statuettes and other offerings have been found at the bottom of sacred canals. They illustrate the rituals and personal acts of devotion made by participants, including Greeks, along the course of the procession.
The sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion has revealed the largest quantity of bronze ritual equipment ever discovered in Egypt. Metal objects like these were normally melted down in the past, but because the city sank beneath the sea, a vast number of artefacts of unique importance have been astonishingly well preserved. The objects here – ladles, offering dishes and an incense burner – are evidence of the exceptional celebrations that took place.
See spectacular objects excavated from these cities that lay underwater for centuries in the BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds (closing 27 November 2016).
The general Ptolemy founded the Greco-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years after Alexander the Great’s death. The Ptolemies tried to gain the support of Egyptian priests in order to be recognised as legitimate pharaohs. They renovated temples and also built magnificent new ones.
These royal portraits illustrate the determination of the Ptolemaic rulers to present themselves to their Egyptian subjects as legitimate successors to the native pharaohs.
This skilfully executed head shows a Ptolemaic king depicted entirely in accordance with ancient Egyptian traditions. His head is adorned by the rearing cobra (uraeus) protruding from the traditional headcloth of Egyptian pharaohs (nemes).
This royal head originally belonged to the statue of a sphinx, a type of Egyptian sculpture usually seen flanking processional routes into temples. It is another example of the Ptolemies’ determination to draw from Egyptian art and iconography, making them seem less like outsiders.
Find out more about the deep connections between the ancient civilisations of Greece and Egypt in the BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds (19 May – 27 November 2016).
This 2,000-year-old bust depicts Neilos, the Nile river god. Neilos appealed to Egyptians and Greeks alike – he was the Greek version of Hapy, the Egyptian personification of the annual Nile flood that brought prosperity and fertility to the country. Neilos played a significant role in one of the most popular festivals in Egypt, when the beginning of the annual flood marked the Egyptian New Year.
This bust was once mounted into a large decorative shield and adorned a temple in the ancient Egyptian city of Canopus. It was discovered by underwater archaeologists at the base of the wall on which it once hung.
See more incredible objects that have been preserved and buried under the sea for over a thousand years in the BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds (19 May – 27 November 2016).
“Stevens adds, “We don’t know if the lake is ever going to rise this high again, with the climate changes and all that, so maybe there’s an opportunity here for the Navajo people”—an opportunity to take a good look at what was destroyed when the reservoir filled, and what can be saved now, as it empties.”
““This is one of those finds when you are just laughing all the time because you can’t believe it,” says Cau. “This is the sort of thing that happens to you once in an academic lifetime. We will never find anything like this again and that’s what makes it so special.””
Sampling underwater chert quarries in northwest Florida. A few weeks of working in the Wacissa, Aucilla, and St. Marks Rivers is paying off with some awesome new information about submerged prehistoric quarries!
When your project area floods, you have to adapt. The sites are high and dry, but the access roads are swamped due to biblical rains and consequently high rivers. The floodwaters are quickly receding though, and we carry on! This was not quite what I had in mind for underwater archaeological fieldwork…
This is a really nice review of the methods, scope and major discoveries of underwater archaeology across the world. It is entirely about the archaeology of places which used to be above water - this isn’t shipwrecks, but places like Dunwich orDoggerland. It can be a little dry, but kept my interest for all of it except some parts on the legal background (which is probably more me than the book tbf).
I think one of the best points made is that underwater and onshore archaeology need to be integrated - to understand a landscape they have to be understood together, not as separate sites. Unfortunately, the tidal area is one of the most difficult places to deal with archaeologically - but that doesn’t invalidate the need to integrate.
