After being stuck in port by the rough weather, we steamed from the Bay of Abu Kir back to Alexandria’s Eastern port today after almost a month off shore. It was still a bit lumpy when we departed, and the ship wallowed in the swell, but the sea had turned a magnificent color that I couldn’t stop taking pictures of.
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Maddie asked me if there are any women on our underwater archaeological expeditions in Egypt. I am happy to say, absolutely.
As I write this post, we have 5 women on board playing very important roles in the excavations that Franck Goddio is directing. Marie is our Conservator of Artifacts, which might be the hardest job of all on the team. Ania and Katia are divers, archeologist, and doctoral candidates from Oxford University (The Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology) Elsbeth and Sanda are archeologist and doctoral candidates from Oxford, and assisting with the conservation and study of artifacts. (You can find out more about the women from Oxfordon the OCMA website.) Susan Hendrickson is not on this mission, but says that she can’t wait to join us again soon as an archaeological diver. (If you want to find out more about Susan, check out her site; http://sue-hendrickson.net/ )In the past we have also had Egyptian women who are members of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities on board to assist with conservation of artifacts too. So, Maddie, there is plenty of work for everybody on board, maybe you can come and join us on an expedition some day! Annie, who is one of Mrs. Boll’s more fastidious Latin students, wants to know if we come across a lot of modern trash while diving and doing archaeological excavation on the Alexandria’s Sunken Royal Quarters. Is the harbor polluted? Do we ever find any gross things? Do you have to take a disinfecting shower after a dive?
Alexandria is a bustling city with millions of inhabitants, so I can understand why you would think that the water nearby might be an awful place to dive. You might be surprised to hear that, although there is a lot of litter on the seafloor where we work, the majority of it was dumped in the sea 2000 years ago. Alexandria’s Eastern Harbor is covered with broken amphoras that were tossed away during the ages of Ptolemy and Caesar, and are still rolling around everywhere. And as far as sea life goes, we are often surrounded by crabs, shrimp, and schools of fish, so much so that there is a real possibility of getting caught up in the net of one of the many fishermen around us. You can see some sea life in the underwater photos on franckgoddio.org In the deeper parts of the harbor there is more evidence of modern pollution, and a lot of plastic litter floats close to the shore, but we rarely work in those places, so we don’t have to worry about “Disinfecting”after a dive, and it is not unusual during good weather to see people swimming nearby the shore. Plans are in the works to improve the water quality to the point that an underwater museum could be established, so that everyone could visit the site where Cleopatra’s Palace once stood. Below is a picture of Ali in our local fishing port. Kelly Boll, a friend of mine and Archaeologist from Yale University who also teaches Latin, has introduced her students to this blog and the Franck Goddio Society Website about the excavations, and so I look forward to more questions coming from that quarter.
One of her questions was about how the weather impacted our excavation schedule while diving on the sunken cities in Egypt. When People hear that we are excavating in Egypt, people often assume that it is always swelteringly hot, but for us on the Mediterranean coast you might be surprised to hear that it is often cool, and sometimes even stormy. Our excavation seasons are usually in the spring and fall, because in the summer the water near the shore is often opaque and visibility poor, and in the winter it can be very rough on the sea, and even downright cold. But the late spring weather is usually perfect conditions for us, though at the beginning of a mission we might be still wearing a jacket in the evenings, and not too excited to strip down and climb into a damp wetsuit in the early morning. By the end of the mission it can be calm, windless, hot, and with breezes from the land bringing out all kinds of flying insects and sand to cover the ship. This year our mission cam in the Autumn, and today the weather was quite comfortable, the water warm, and just cool enough in the evening that I put on a sweater while I sat with the Oxford divers on the bow of the ship and had animated discussion of ancient seafaring under the stars. All of the IEASM excavations in Heracleion, Canopus, and Alexandria are based on our support ship, the Princess Duda. But we also have a couple of little inflatable speed boats and a small fleet of local Egyptian vessels that we use, called Felucca’s.
The Felucca’s are used to ferry people and gear back and forth to shore, to take the divers to their individual work sites, and to support the pumps and equipment for the various excavations. Sometimes in the morning there are so many little boats gathered around the mother ship, she looks like she has a litter of puppies attached. Our Egyptian friend Abunos is the master of all these support vessels, and makes sure that the are all working well and efficiently. I got this question from a 7th grader from New Jersey. Sarah asks “How do you know where to search underwater?”
Good Question Sarah, because you can’t just jump in the water anywhere and expect to find a sunken city or shipwreck. If you are searching for something that disappeared a long time ago in history, there are 3 steps you should take first to improve your chances: Step 1, The Historical Search; Read everything you can about the subject, especially eye witness accounts of when your target went missing. This step could keep you busy for years! When you know everything that history can tell us about how it was lost, you can narrow down the search area to a reasonable size. Step 2, The Electronic Search; Use all the technology available to try to collect information from the bottom of the sea. You can tow a many different types of sensors behind a boat, back and forth until you have enough information to make a map of the bottom. To try to visualize what the clues tell you. This part can go on for a long time, but you want to have all the information you can because putting divers in the water takes a lot of resources. Step 3, The Diver Search; Get your boat and dive team together, make sure to have all the equipment and food to stay on site for a long time, and then Dive in! This part is the most difficult and costly of the steps, but also the most rewarding. Now you get to find out if all the information you gathered before is correct. Good Luck! Whenever we tell people we are excavating sunken cities in Egypt, the first question the have is, "Why did it sink? Here is the answer I gave Kelsey when she asked “How did the city of Alexandria get underwater?”
Well Kelsey, as you know that the whole surface of the earth is moving all the time. It’s mostly too slowly for us to notice, except when something dramatic happens, like an earth quake. All of the coast of North Africa, Egypt included, has been pushing northward bit by bit, in geological time and sinking under the Mediterranean Sea. In the last 2 thousand years people have recorded numerous earthquakes and the destruction that followed, (including tsunami waves), and we know this happened several times in Alexandria, causing the portion of the city that included the Royal Quarters, and the location of Cleopatra’s Palace, to sink beneath the sea. Here is a picture from our ship, anchored over the Ancient Royal Quarters, with Modern Alexandria very close at hand. |
My Name is Eric and My Job is Scientific Exploration.
That means I'm lucky enough to join expeditions to excavate sunken cities, climb volcanoes, find missing bombs, and Sail old research vessels, while searching for the mysteries of the natural world. Categories
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