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Cleopatra's Lost City

By Ritu Upadhyay

A diver comes face to face with a sphinx. Its face is that of Cleopatra's father.

More than 1,600 years ago, a flourishing royal court full of treasures was swallowed up by the sea. The island of Antirhodos (An-teer-uh-dose), home of Cleopatra, the famous queen of Egypt, sank after the area was hit by a huge earthquake in A.D. 335. Along with it, part of Alexandria, Egypt's harbor city, also disappeared. For centuries the palace buildings and statues lay 30 feet underwater, 31/2 miles off the coast of northern Egypt. The scene was almost perfectly preserved, protected from the sea by a blanket of waste and fine dirt.

In 1996, French explorer Franck Goddio rediscovered the fabled city. He and his team of divers have been working on excavating the site ever since. Last week in London, England, Goddio unveiled the first complete map of the old city. "We realized the ancient quarters of Alexandria were totally different from what had been assumed until now," Goddio told Reuters, a news agency. Until now, every map ever made was based on guesses of what the area looked like. Though the map is now complete, Goddio says, the team "will go on exploring. I am sure we will find plenty more treasures."

This statue of the Egyptian goddess Isis rested under water for 1,600 years, until Goddio's team found it. Isis represents the human cycle of birth and death.

The Ancient City Under the Sea
Over the past few years, the group has uncovered an impressive array of artifacts. "We're looking right at statues from 2,000 years ago that look just as they did back then," says celebrated American explorer Sue Hendrickson, a member of Goddio's team. Along with statues, it has found buildings and temples that are still standing underwater. The team even entered Cleopatra's personal temple, which had two large statues of sphinxes-imaginary creatures with the head of a human and the body of a lion-guarding the doors.

The marine archaeologists working in Alexandria are careful not to disturb the city. "We are just mapping it, cleaning it up and leaving it all as we've found it," says Hendrickson. Sometimes the divers bring up a statue to study or be photographed, but they always return it to its home underwater. Goddio's team hopes that one day the government of Egypt will allow tourists to dive down and experience the splendor of Cleopatra's palace for themselves.

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