Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds

Shiloh Adlar
Writer, Ravenclaw

A few weeks ago, I went back home after finishing my finals to take a small break. During that time, I met a few HOLers, one for the first time, and did some exploration when I went back south to where I normally stay when I head back to Illinois. Given the fact that we were doing a May Flowers activity in the Sett, I decided to head over to St. Louis and visit the botanical gardens there. While this article is not about that, this is where the article begins.

While I was at the botanical gardens, I saw advertisements around the area leading over into Forest Park. I decided to drive over there just to do something before heading home and saw more signs hanging from street posts talking about this exhibit at the art museum. Ancient civilizations have always been of interest to me, and as most of you know, I love Ancient and Classical Greece. While this exhibit is based on a sunken city in Egypt, it has major Grecian connections.

The next day, I decided to check out this exhibit. I went early since it was a Friday and apparently on Fridays the exhibit is free. I was part of the second group in. Needless to say, I spent over three hours in this exhibit studying and reading about each and every artefact on display.

The exhibit displayed findings from the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion. This city was at one time believed to be two cities on the coast of Aboukir Bay in northern Egypt at the western mouth of the Nile River, but after the discovery of a very important stele, pictured here, archaeologists realized the city was actually one. The Egyptians referred to the city as Thonis while the Greeks referred to it as Heracleion. It was a major port city for trade between the Egyptians and Greeks which was lost over 1200 years ago when it sank into the Mediterranean Sea due to rising tides and seismic disruption.

Not only was this an important city for trade where merchants and travelers met up before continuing back on their ways, but it was also a site of sacred religious devotion. This is the city where new pharaohs would have to travel to be granted royal legitimacy by Amun-Gereb, also known as the creator god.

In light of the Greeks that visited, another temple stood closeby and this temple had been dedicated to Khonsu which the Greeks believed resembled their demi-god Herakles (Heracles). Now one can see why the Greeks began to refer to the city as Heracleion.

In this exhibit, religion could be seen throughout in the artefacts that they found. There were many statues or figurines of Khonsu-the-child, which pharaohs were believed to be descendant from, Khonsu-Thoth who was considered to be the keeper of the gates, entrances and passages as his shrine guarded the harbors of Thonis-Heracleion, and Osiris whom we know to be the god of the underworld to the Egyptians. There was also one section dedicated to the Mysteries of Osiris which were finally revealed when all of these treasures were found. If you have not heard about it yet, you really should check it out. It is very intriguing.

This exhibit also showcased the city of Canopus which is important because it was not far from Thonis-Heracleion, being that they were connected by a sacred waterway. This is where the finality of the Mysteries of Osiris was held. However, Canopus was also important for being the home to Serapis which was a hybrid Graeco Egyptian god during the Ptolemaic period.

Serapis was created as a way of unifying the Greeks and Egyptians by Ptolemy I. His identity was influenced by many different gods such as Osiris and Apis, which is potentially where the name came from if you want to go into the linguistics of the name, as well as Zeus, Helios, Dionysus, Hades and Asklepius and the cult of Serapis grew spreading throughout the Roman Empire.