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Lost cities #6: how Thonis-Heracleion resurfaced after 1,000 years under water

Shenker, Jack
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/15/lost-cities-6-thonis-heracleion-egypt-sunken-sea

Publisher:  The Guardian
Date Written:  15/08/2016
Year Published:  2016  
Resource Type:  Article

Ancient Egypt's gateway to the Mediterranean – submerged and buried under layers of sand – is an eerie reminder of how vulnerable cities are to nature's forces. Thonis-Heracleion is returning to the surface once again.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Unlike Babylon, Pompeii or mystical Atlantis, few people today have heard of Thonis-Heracleion. Indeed, until the remarkable finds of recent years, there was a danger that the waves of the Mediterranean would consign to history not only the city’s physical remnants, but even its memory as well.

And yet if you were a European merchant in the fifth century BC – an importer of grain, perfume or papyrus perhaps, or an exporter of silver, copper, wine or oil – then Thonis-Heracleion loomed large on your horizon. The same was true if you were a Carian mercenary, an educated Greek, a professional sailor, or a member of the Pharaonic court. Scattered across a series of interlinked islands, sand and mudbanks, Thonis-Heracleion – part aquatic marshland, part urban sprawl – was ancient Egypt's bustling, cosmopolitan gateway to the Mediterranean, and thus its nexus with the western world.

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