Underwater heritage in Alexandria
Bloomberg (Daniel Williams)
After 15 years of hauling priceless relics from in and around its harbor, Alexandria municipal officials and Egyptian antiquity authorities are trying to figure out how to make thousands of artifacts still at the bottom accessible for viewing by the public.
Municipal officials want to create an underwater archaeological park. Proposals under consideration include construction of an underwater bubble auditorium, conversion of the harbor into a giant pool with filters to remove silt and pollution and a submarine on rails to ferry visitors around.
The goal is to push the city into the major league of antique tourist attractions, a club in Egypt long dominated by Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel. Alexandria has a Roman amphitheater, a Greco-Roman museum, a combination Pharaonic- Greek-Roman National Museum and assorted columns scattered around town, yet it has never made the splash that, say, Luxor makes with its temples and tombs, much less Cairo, with the pyramids.
See the above page for the full story.
- In The Field: More Re Raising Pylon In Alexandria
drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass) Last Thursday, I went to Alexandria in order to remove an important artifact from the water of the harbor. This was the tower of the pylon, likely from the Ptolemaic temple of Isis in the area known as Chatby. I had been convinced...
- The Ptolemies Through Plexi-glass
Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine el-Aref) On the seabed of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour lie the royal quarters of the Ptolemaic dynasty complete with temples, palaces and streets. Queen Cleopatra's Palace and Antirhodos Island, now near the centre of...
- Underwater Museum Planned For Egypt's Alexandria
National Geographic Cleopatra's palace sank long ago into the Mediterranean, but visitors to Alexandria, Egypt, may eventually view the complex's remnants via the world's first underwater museum. In early September the United Nations cultural...
- Unesco Backs Plan To Build Underwater Museum In Alexandria
Xinhuanet The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced Thursday that it would help Egypt build an underwater museum in the Bay of Alexandria on the Mediterranean. The idea for a museum, located by Cleopatra's Palace...
- Underwater Museum For Alexandria?
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/803/hr1.htm"Setting up an offshore, submarine archaeological site anywhere is not an easy task, let alone in a city with the water pollution problems of Alexandria. Yet the remarkable discoveries made by underwater archaeologists...