Documentary, BBC Ancient Egypt's Greatest Lost City
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#EgyptGreatestLostCity #EgyptLostCity
#AncientEgyptGreatestLostCity #AncientEgyp #GreatestLostCity
#EgyptGreatestLostCity #EgyptLostCity
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00:00Beneath the Mediterranean, forgotten for millennia, an entire city lies buried, a snapshot frozen
00:14in time. Heraklion, a major city, a great port, and one of the most significant in all
00:25of Egypt. Yet this real-life Atlantis seems to have disappeared in an instant, leaving
00:36few clues that it ever existed. Now it's finally revealing its secrets.
00:55Incredible artefacts, perfectly preserved beneath the sea, are at last allowing us to
01:06tell the extraordinary story of this mighty city.
01:10This is so beautiful.
01:13Masterpiece.
01:14It is indeed. Spectacular finds open a unique window into the time of the Pharaohs, and reveal
01:22this lost city as one of the most important in Egyptian history.
01:37Two and a half thousand years ago, the ancient Egyptian city of Heraklion stood here, on the
01:43mouth of the river Nile.
01:49Now it lies submerged off Egypt's Mediterranean coastline.
01:53I'm leaving modern Egypt behind and travelling six kilometres offshore, to where the ancient
02:01shoreline used to be.
02:05It's remarkable to think that this sea was once land, and that all around me was once
02:10a legendary port. This is the place that Helen of Troy and her lover Paris visited before the
02:17Trojan War. It's where the god Herakles first set foot in Egypt. But for centuries this city
02:26lay forgotten, thought to be nothing more than a myth. Until it was rediscovered 13 years ago by
02:39the French underwater archaeologist Frank Goddio.
02:55On the bottom of the seabed Frank discovered a city wall. And behind it, the remains of a vast
03:05ancient Egyptian temple. With ornate stone columns.
03:12We have here one of the columns of the temple. It's made from a stone, and it's absolutely huge.
03:26But the temple was just the beginning. Lying beneath the sea are walls, stone structures, ancient
03:37inscriptions, bronzes, ceremonial vessels, gold, jewels and coins. And the largest collection
03:56of ancient shipwrecks ever discovered. The city of Heraklion was no myth.
04:09As an archaeologist I've worked all over the world, but I've never had the opportunity to
04:14have access to such a fascinating site as Heraklion. Only now is the excavation unravelling
04:21the mystery of this remarkable place. An entire city, temples, houses, public buildings, untouched
04:34for millennia. It's a unique window into ancient Egypt, at a crucial time in its history.
04:42You rarely get the opportunity to study a site that extended for such a long period of time.
04:49Heraklion existed for over a thousand years. It was occupied from the late pharaonic period,
04:55the end of the great pharaohs, through to the arrival of Alexander, the Hellenistic period.
05:01And I'm interested to know what the role of this port city was, and the role it played
05:07in the lives of the people of Egypt.
05:15Frank and his team are painstakingly mapping and surveying the whole site.
05:22Heraklion was built on islands and fractured with waterways and harbours.
05:28How big do you think it was overall? Overall, we have a city of 1.8 km by 1.2 km.
05:36Oh, okay. It's a huge city.
05:39So Heraklion must have been a significant city. But what made this city so important?
05:45A clue may lie in the number of temples discovered here.
05:50We have evidence of a huge ancient temple here.
05:56We have also a small temple here, which is a temple to Khonsutut.
06:02We have another temple, a sanctuary, I would say, a sanctuary to Osiris here.
06:07That's incredible. So where is this modern boat situated in this space?
06:13We are just anchored here, sitting on top of the temple of Famon.
06:17With so many temples, Heraklion was clearly a place of religious importance.
06:24And sitting in a narrow waterway, the team have uncovered something unique.
06:35Want me to hold it while you do a check?
06:39Thanks, Lucy.
06:41Damian Robinson, from Oxford University, is part of the excavation team.
06:47And the compass being a critical bit of kit.
06:50Good, great, yes.
06:51Visibility not being fantastic.
07:00Sacred artefacts have been found throughout this narrow stretch.
07:04And alongside something even more precious.
07:08Okay, so now we're going for a bit of a water.
07:15Lying on the seabed, still perfectly preserved, is an exquisite vessel.
07:25Long and sleek, it is carefully crafted.
07:28It's made of sycamore, a high quality wood, and surrounded by ritual objects.
07:40We can say that the ship sank somewhere in the late 4th century BC.
07:45So this is giving us a nice snapshot of the things that are happening in Heraklion at this time.
07:51The shape of the boat and the quality of the wood suggest that this is something startling, a sacred barge.
08:01There are images of these ceremonial vessels throughout Egypt, but to find the real boat is incredibly rare.
08:07This is the only ritual barge from this period ever to be uncovered.
08:13It's a spectacular find.
08:18Ancient writings describe an important Egyptian ceremony, celebrating the resurrection of the god Osiris.
08:25Now seen for the first time, this could be one of the very barges that led that procession.
08:33The fact that we've found a ship in an archaeological context gives us much more understanding of what the vessel looked like and how it was built.
08:42But importantly, it's also the artefacts that are associated with this boat.
08:46And all around the vessel, you find individual groups of ritual offerings.
08:53And these are things that have been given by individuals, people like you and me, who care about their religion and who are offering up goods to the gods.
09:01And for me, that's what's really incredibly fascinating about this ship.
09:04We have an excavation in the area around it, and this is one of the places where ritual deposits are placed within the water.
09:19So here we can see one of my colleagues excavating.
09:23It's carefully cutting into the clay to gently remove the different layers of clay to reveal the artefacts beneath.
09:34So here we can see the excavation of what looks to be like one of those small offering tape plates.
09:43This simple bowl reveals one individual's act of worship, made on this very spot over 2,000 years ago.
09:51Offerings would perhaps have been put on the bowl and then slid gently into the water.
09:58It's roughly made, carved out of stone.
10:01Now this is an example of everyday ritual.
10:05A thing that the everyday people of Heraclean would have done.
10:08But it's really a beautiful piece.
10:18Other finds brought up from the deep show what kinds of offerings these individuals would have made.
10:23Now in this spot there's a lot of bones.
10:28A tooth, a burnt tooth by the looks of it.
10:31Do you think these are burnt?
10:33Or it could be that it's taken, because when it's in this deeper level, in the anaerobic level, then the soil becomes quite dark.
10:40I mean I'm sure that's what you're experiencing when you're excavating.
10:43So sometimes they get discoloured by the context.
10:45So, but that looks burnt.
10:48Food may have been burnt, sacrificed, then slipped into the waters of the sacred river Nile.
10:54On offering plates, like this one.
10:56Look at that, it's absolutely been grown over enough.
10:59This is on the clay layer, with these bone-like elements closely nearby.
11:06And alongside the humble offerings preserved for millennia, are objects of extraordinary wealth.
11:18Rich and poor alike, offering their gifts to the gods.
11:25The finds in this remarkable city are giving us a unique insight into Egyptian religious practice.
11:32So it's over here?
11:33Yes.
11:34And here, at the excavations laboratory in Alexandria, are further clues to the importance of Heraklion in Egypt's sacred life.
11:43Ladles, bronze ladles, with the end under the form of a duck.
11:51An extraordinary number of these ladles, 70 in all, have been found lying on the seabed, close to the temple.
11:57In Heraklion, we found more of those ladles than all ladles ever found in Egypt, on all sites of Egypt.
12:08It's overwhelming.
12:10It is. Oh, okay. Thank you.
12:11These are important ritual implements, used by the priests to purify offerings, ladling water from the sacred river Nile.
12:21And the finds include an astonishing array of rarely seen votive objects, given as a prayer to the gods.
12:31Those are lead models of the barge of Osiris.
12:34I've never actually seen votive boats, but I've seen images of them.
12:39Images, but here we have them.
12:41Yeah.
12:42And you can see that this barge, here.
12:45Oh, yes.
12:46You see the papyrus.
12:47It is...
12:48Yeah, yes, you can see this.
12:49...represent a barge made of papyrus.
12:50Yeah, yeah, you can see the striations.
12:52And there was a throne here.
12:54Yes.
12:55There was a steering horse here.
12:56Well, that's this.
12:57Yes, you can see it.
12:58And they tear this apart.
13:00So, sorry, sorry, you're saying that they're deliberately destroying them?
13:03Absolutely, to make offering to the god.
13:06These boats were beautifully crafted, but they, just like the animal bones, were sacrificed.
13:13Who was making the offerings?
13:14Who was depositing these objects?
13:16Obviously, the big objects were offerings from the priest.
13:21Right.
13:22The inhabitants of the city.
13:23They were making small offerings.
13:25Votive objects are the physical embodiments of prayers.
13:29A miniature vase.
13:30Their form representing the content of the prayer, or the person who made it.
13:35A small votive anchor, a nice one.
13:38This ancient anchor could be the prayer of a sailor.
13:41Oh, nice.
13:42A small elephant to the god.
13:44And this beautiful elephant, the offering of a soldier.
13:47Yes, because the Ptolemies had a big reliance upon elephants for their warfare.
13:51For the strength, of course.
13:52Yes.
13:53As well as the humble objects left by workers, sailors, and now soldiers,
13:58there are incredibly fine pieces, fashioned at great cost by expert craftsmen.
14:04And here, one of the most extraordinary pieces of the entire collection.
14:11One of the masterpieces of Herakia.
14:15Ah.
14:16It's the pharaoh.
14:17It's the blue crown, which was the crown of the pharaoh fighters.
14:24Yes.
14:25Defending Egypt.
14:27Look at the detail.
14:28This exquisite figure is over two and a half thousand years old, and the supreme quality suggests
14:37that it could only have come from one person, the pharaoh himself.
14:41A masterpiece.
14:42It is indeed.
14:43Of statuary.
14:44Of Egyptian statuary.
14:45Yeah.
14:46So many of these objects are just of the top quality.
14:50Such an object of that quality could be a gift from pharaoh to the temple.
14:56Absolutely stunning.
14:57Do you have favourite objects?
14:58Are we allowed favourite objects?
14:59Is this me?
15:00I don't want to allow favourite objects.
15:01But I have to say that this is one of my favourite objects, an exquisite piece.
15:17These spectacular finds reveal Heraklion as an important sacred centre.
15:24But that's not all it was.
15:29Could Heraklion have been significant for more than just its temples?
15:37What's this large stone at the end here?
15:40This is a marble stone.
15:42Among the religious finds at the lab is one that hints at another, very different role.
15:48You can see an inscription on it.
15:50It's a beautiful Greek inscription.
15:54And it's a text about a young man of 18 years who died at the war and was buried in Heraklion.
16:07The tombstone reads,
16:09Here lies Lukos, son of Lukiskos.
16:12He lived in the city of Praene, the land of his father.
16:15He trembled not in the face of the phalanx, but under the blows of the enemy, he found death on the battlefield.
16:25So this was found in an Egyptian city, right next to a pharaonic temple.
16:30And yes, it's the tombstone to a Greek soldier.
16:37Heraklion sat at the mouth of the river Nile, making it a vital entry point into Egypt, and a place of huge strategic importance.
16:51During the period of Heraklion's life, Egypt was invaded by Persia, conquered by Alexander the Great, and suffered various internal power struggles.
17:03But the most revealing finds are not weapons or spears, but something much smaller.
17:09So what have you been working on today? These are finds that have just come up?
17:18Yes, they're almost fresh from the water.
17:20Marie Armand, the site's chief conservator, is working on one of the hundreds of Greek coins discovered here.
17:27Which is actually a Greek coin.
17:30Is that a whole coin?
17:32What?
17:33It's slightly broken.
17:34Yes, exactly.
17:35You can see here.
17:36Yes, you can.
17:37Big eyes of the owl.
17:38Yeah, big eyes.
17:39Yeah.
17:40Yeah, on all the feathers.
17:43Yeah, the feathers.
17:44And this is not just any Greek coin, but one from Athens.
17:47It's harder to see, but you get the head of Athena with her hair.
17:53At this time, Egypt didn't have its own currency. Trade and taxes were simply taken in goods.
17:59Head.
18:00Yes.
18:01And here you got some Greek letters.
18:02Yes, exactly.
18:03So these coins were used to pay Greeks coming in from Athens. Soldiers, brought in to Heraklion to defend Egypt.
18:13So this kind of coins were probably made in Egypt to pay for Greek mercenaries.
18:20I love the idea of, you know, these things being minted specifically for paying the mercenary.
18:26Reinforces the idea that there's a military presence here and there are people who are being paid specifically to protect the site.
18:34Our Lucas could have been one of these soldiers. And the money that paid him may well have been made here in Heraklion itself.
18:45But there seems to be coins everywhere.
18:47Marie was showing me one that potentially was made here.
18:50Oh, yes. We have two types of coins. One we are sure have been minted here and the other one we suspect.
18:58The one we are sure of is that it's because we found a lead weight with a negative imprint.
19:05Oh, right.
19:06Of that coin showing that they were minting it with...
19:11On the spot.
19:12On the spot.
19:13This stamp could have been used to mint the mercenaries' pieces of silver.
19:27Creating hard currency accepted all over the ancient world.
19:34Heraklion did not merely sit on this vital gateway into Egypt, but helped defend it.
19:44The excavations here are bringing this forgotten city to life.
19:48Heraklion was an important, bustling place thronged with soldiers, sailors and religious devotees.
19:55But this spectacular site still has more to reveal.
19:59The other thing that's really amazing about Heraklion is it has not one, two, three, but 64 shipwrecks.
20:07This is an incredible number of shipwrecks to find in one site.
20:11Particularly at such an early period.
20:14In the Mediterranean you have a huge number of sites from the Roman period,
20:19but never so many from the earlier period and never so many in one site.
20:23So this gives us the possibility to explore different types of ships.
20:28Boats that were carrying cargoes.
20:30Those that were lighter in goods from the larger ships to the shore.
20:34The vessels that were carrying trade goods up river, up the Nile into the delta.
20:40And at the same time the different construction of the vessels gives us an insight into technology.
20:46And technology is obviously an insight into people, into maritime communities and into the life of the city of Heraklion.
20:54Among the boats, wrecked over hundreds of years, is one that is particularly significant.
21:05This is the very front of our ship.
21:09This boat is much, much larger than the ceremonial barge we saw earlier.
21:15A massive 28 meters in length.
21:18The planks themselves are made out of a very local wood.
21:24This is called acacia.
21:25It's a perfect ship building material.
21:28Herodotus describes a type of river boat called a baris on his visit to Egypt.
21:33And we think this is more or less what we've got here.
21:36These craft have never been seen before.
21:47Perfectly designed for this region of the Nile.
21:51Baris were working boats, cargo boats.
21:54It is a very substantially built ship.
22:02Yes, indeed.
22:03But in terms of what it could be used for, it's perfectly adapted for the environment.
22:07So it's got a flat bottom.
22:08And it's probably a cargo boat, I think.
22:10I mean, that's the sort of the, it's wide and wide.
22:13I mean, presumably when you've got this sort of landscape of islands and channels and everything,
22:18you need some way of moving around.
22:20You do, absolutely.
22:21Between the temple and the workshop or whatever it is.
22:25I mean, there's a fabulous ramasside papyrus that talks about a temple fleet.
22:31And the fleet kind of sail around the delta.
22:34And they pick up kind of tithes from various properties that the temple owns.
22:40Collecting their taxes.
22:41They do.
22:42And so I think this could well be involved in either trans-shipping goods from the port down the river.
22:47This boat reveals another face of Heraklion, a working port with fleets of cargo boats.
23:06And below the surface, there is evidence that the trade wasn't simply local.
23:12There are a multitude of anchors littered across the site.
23:16This is from a seagoing vessel.
23:19At the top is a rope hole.
23:21And at the bottom, holes for wooden spikes that would grip into the seabed.
23:25Then there are the objects from Persia and Phoenicia.
23:31Cargoes from Cyprus.
23:33It seems Heraklion was no small local port, but an international one.
23:40And then something spectacular.
23:41A stone covered in hieroglyphs.
23:42A stone covered in hieroglyphs.
23:47This pristine black granite stele stands over two metres high and it is full of information.
23:48This pristine black granite stele stands over two metres high and it is full of information.
24:17A stele is a carved public decree.
24:20And this one was found buried in the heart of the city.
24:24This beautiful block is older than the Rosetta Stone and has survived for over 2,000 years completely intact.
24:31It was commissioned by the pharaoh Nectar Nebo the first and you see him here presenting gifts to the goddess Nate.
24:32And on the right hand side, the date of its commission, the first date of its commission.
24:36The first year of the reign of the reign of Nectar Nebo, which is essentially three
24:41days.
24:4280 BC.
24:43It looks like a religious monument.
24:44But it has another purpose.
24:45Taxation.
24:46Taxation.
24:47Here you see the amount of tax that was made.
24:48It was commissioned by the pharaoh Nectar Nebo the first and you see him here presenting
24:54gifts to the goddess Nate.
24:57And on the right hand side, the date of its commission, the first year of the reign of
25:04Nectar Nebo, which is essentially 380 BC.
25:07It looks like a religious monument, but it has another purpose.
25:11Taxation.
25:12Here you see the amount of tax that was being levied.
25:1610% on materials such as gold and silver and timber and worked wood.
25:24So Heraklion was a major port, charged with collecting customs duties on imports.
25:31All coming in from the sea of the Greeks, imports from the Mediterranean.
25:38Towards the end of the stele, we have specific reference to the port of Heraklion, located
25:45as it was at the mouth of the sea of the Greeks.
25:50Again, referencing the Mediterranean.
25:53These are the symbols for the foreign boats arriving into the port.
25:58And here we have the section of the stele that references the port of Heraklion.
26:03Tahone of Seis.
26:06Tonis, the Egyptian term for Heraklion.
26:10But there is something else incredible about this stele.
26:14The stele that was found at Heraklion was not the only one.
26:18There was a second stele that was found a hundred years earlier at the site of Nakratis.
26:23Nakratis was the great Egyptian centre of trade, where all goods from Greece and the Mediterranean passed through.
26:30It's one of the most important sites in Egypt.
26:33The identical stele tell us something remarkable.
26:39The forgotten Heraklion was the sister port, the equal of this renowned centre of trade.
26:45Essentially, Heraklion and Nakratis, this great Greek emporium, worked in conjunction with each other, feeding the goods of trade through to the capital at Seis.
27:00Our city, the gateway for international trade into Egypt, was more than a legendary port. It was a vital one.
27:13Submerged and forgotten for millennia, Heraklion is revealed as a wealthy city of scale with religious, strategic and commercial importance.
27:31And then Frank found something breathtaking.
27:50Right beside the temple, lying on the seabed, Frank found the head of a colossal statue.
27:57And not just one. Head, torso, legs. Three great statues were assembled.
28:11One, Happy, the god of the Nile floods.
28:31The others, huge stone images of the pharaoh and his queen, each over five metres tall.
28:41They were commissioned by the pharaoh himself, carved inland and then transported at vast expense to Heraklion's temple.
28:56But there is something very unusual and significant about the way this pharaoh is depicted.
29:01And very curiously, he was represented as living temple.
29:10Oh, that's interesting.
29:11Having on his right fist, what we call the mechas.
29:18The mechas was an object that contained the inventory of everything existing on the land and in the sky.
29:25Given to the pharaoh by the gods, it conferred on them the divine right to rule.
29:29And that inventory he just received from the supreme god of the Egyptian Amon.
29:36And he, by receiving this mechas, he was becoming the master of the universe.
29:43So it's really this connection between, you know, the religious power base, reinforcing his power,
29:48which then he's taking back to his capital or back to the rest of them.
29:52That was the war of the universe, as a matter of fact.
29:54He was the master of the universe.
29:56Yes, yes.
29:59And another find suggests that the pharaohs received that right to rule right here at Heraklion.
30:08Less dramatic than the statues, but more significant, is this stone box.
30:12This is the naus, the sacred center of the temple which housed the god.
30:22Inscribed on this holy stone is the description of specific dynastic rites.
30:28Rites that each pharaoh had to perform to legitimize his power.
30:33The pharaoh had to come into that temple to receive from the supreme god Amon the title of their power.
30:41And when they were coming in Heraklion, we have written evidence that there were a special palace to receive them.
30:50So Heraklion was not just an important Egyptian city.
30:54It was the very city where new pharaohs came to receive the divine right to rule and legitimize their kingship.
31:03To understand just how important that was, we need to travel to the place where these rights first came to prominence.
31:12Over 800 kilometers south of Heraklion is the site of the mighty ancient temple of Karnak.
31:20This was the center of power for the kings of Egypt before the power base shifted north to the delta.
31:29The most incredible thing is just the scale of it.
31:33Yeah, and you feel that the moment you start walking in, it's just overwhelming.
31:37Karnak was a precursor to Heraklion, playing the same role in empowering kings, gifting their right to rule from the god Amon.
31:48Elizabeth Frood has been working here for over eight years.
31:53Of course, Amon was, you know, the significant deity in Heraklion.
31:58So can you just tell me a bit more about the role he played here?
32:01Sure, he was a prominent early god, but he only really becomes linked to kingship and the site of Karnak at the beginning of the New Kingdom again.
32:13And he is constantly and consistently bound up with ideas of kingship and what it is to be king and how to renew royal power.
32:23All around us on the columns here are figures of Amon with the king.
32:26This is Amon on the left, yes?
32:28Yes. What's most characteristic and what communicates his identity most clearly is the crown.
32:33He's got this double plumed crown.
32:36All the scenes showing human figures show the king before Amon, offering to him, performing rituals before him.
32:43So anyone who entered an Egyptian temple would have been bombarded with images of kingship.
32:49He gains his legitimacy through that intimate ritualized relationship with the gods.
32:56Just like in Heraklion, we see that an Egyptian temple wasn't simply a sacred space.
33:03It was a place that communicated and legitimized the power of the state.
33:08What I want to know is, who would be looking at these inscriptions?
33:12Who were the people meant to be awed by the power of the king?
33:16Liz has an ingenious way to find out, graffiti.
33:20I mean, I think of graffiti as, you know, when you scratch your name randomly on something.
33:25I mean, is that the sort of graffiti you're talking about?
33:27We definitely have some of that.
33:28So we have lots of scratches and scribbles of scribes and other members of the temple staff kind of scrawling their name entitled on the walls of the temple.
33:37And they also draw little pictures as well.
33:39Let's have a quick nosey in here.
33:42This is amazing, isn't it?
33:43Yeah.
33:44And this is another member of the temple staff.
33:46His name, Nebu Neb, is inscribed here.
33:50And he's an overseer of bakers or something to do with baking.
33:55The title is quite difficult to read.
33:57Over 3,000 years ago, an Egyptian worker sat here and scrawled this picture.
34:02Here we have a picture of Amun, a form of Amun.
34:06And you can see the plumes.
34:09You tend to think about these sorts of workers as being quite invisible.
34:12Yes, exactly.
34:14But through graffiti they've become visible to us.
34:17We will never know why someone carved this here, but he knew.
34:20And it gives you that feeling of a connection with one individual in the past, which is really hard to get sometimes.
34:28No, absolutely.
34:30This graffiti is giving me a real sense of the ordinary people who spent their days in and around this temple.
34:37And the range of jobs they did is encapsulated in this one grand inscription.
34:42Here we have an inscription of the high priest of Amun, whose name is Roma, or Roy.
34:47And in this text he addresses some of the people that were working over here.
34:52He's promising them a new building.
34:54And he talks about greeting the brewers and the bakers and the confectioners
35:00that were all busy in this area producing offerings for the temple.
35:04And these were the people, the priests, the scribes, the bakers and confectioners,
35:10who the pharaoh was speaking to when he declared his relationship with Amun and his right to rule Egypt.
35:15So what we're seeing here at Karnak really makes that connection between ritual, religion and royalty.
35:23And it makes me reflect on how much that continuity can be mapped out in Heraculon.
35:29800 kilometers and 1,000 years apart, and yet so much is still the same.
35:37Amun is still the deity that needs to bestow royal power.
35:41And Heraculon's colossi declare that power, just as the iconography does here in Karnak.
35:47For Egypt's final pharaohs, it was not this mighty temple that played the pivotal role, but Heraculon's.
35:57And that made Heraculon one of the most important cities in all of Egypt.
36:03What we've discovered about this once forgotten city is astounding.
36:17It was a huge city, a sacred center, and the gatepost of Egypt,
36:21where soldiers, ships and trade flowed.
36:26And even pharaohs gained their power.
36:31The reality of this city is far more amazing than the myth.
36:35Why then did it disappear without being missed?
36:43How did this great place come to be forgotten?
36:47Our discoveries so far have given us a clear understanding of the role of Heraculon.
36:53However, what we still don't understand is what happened to Heraculon.
36:58Why and how did it disappear?
36:59And these are the bits of the puzzle that we've still got to fit together.
37:06There are several theories.
37:08Was it destroyed in an earthquake or a tsunami?
37:12Covered by a massive Nile flood?
37:18Or just abandoned as it sank slowly into the sea?
37:21Heraculon was a city of low-lying islands and channels at the mouth of this great river.
37:35And as such, it was subject to flooding.
37:38Before the early 1900s, when my great-great-grandfather helped build the Aswan Dam,
37:43the river would regularly inundate the land, turning roads into rivers and villages into islands.
37:52The Nile was the great bringer of life, flooding the land with fresh water and fertile silts.
37:59But it could also be incredibly destructive.
38:02I've come here to Rhoda Island in Cairo to understand when the Nile was at its most dangerous.
38:11It was really important that the Egyptians understood the position of the Nile over its annual cycle.
38:20And here we can see an example of what was essentially a measuring gauge.
38:24It was called a Nile-o-meter.
38:27It gave the Egyptians an understanding of the point, the level of the Nile over the course of the year.
38:33It was so important to understand the position of the Nile,
38:36that over time these Nile-ometers were improved.
38:40They were made more sophisticated.
38:54So, this was most definitely at the sophisticated end of the Nile-ometer market.
39:15Here you can see one of the three openings for the Nile-rivers to enter.
39:19And for the majority of the year, this area would have been submerged.
39:24So, I'd be under water effectively.
39:28This huge column is essentially the Nile-o-meter.
39:33And each of the different stages is marked off in cubits,
39:37giving an indication of the rising level of the Nile as it extended over the course of the year.
39:45Priests would know exactly what height would lead to prosperity.
39:49To fertile fields and large harvests.
39:53And what would lead to flooding and famine.
39:58And as you work your way up the column, you've got to various critical stages.
40:02Here, 12 cubits would mean hunger.
40:0514 cubits, happiness.
40:07But 16 cubits would mean abundance, rejoicing, festivities.
40:13Climb even higher though, and the rejoicing would stop.
40:16If the flood levels rose above the 16 cubit mark, then we were looking towards devastation across the country.
40:26Priests didn't just measure the changing level of the Nile, they recorded it.
40:31And many of these records still exist.
40:32The data that I'm looking at here is a detailed record of the Nile floods from around 600 A.D. that was recorded here at the Rhoda Island Nile-o-meter.
40:48And here we can see particularly high episodes of flooding, sort of mega floods as you were.
40:54These mega floods happened in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D.
40:58But we know that these did not destroy Heraklion.
41:02Because by the time these monster floods hit, Heraklion wasn't even located on the Nile anymore.
41:07As the Nile River crosses the Delta towards the Mediterranean Sea, it splits into a number of smaller branches.
41:16In ancient times there were seven branches, the westernmost of which was called the Canopic Branch.
41:23And at the silty mouth of the Canopic Branch, the ancient site of Heraklion was located.
41:29I've come to meet geologist Clément Flo, an expert in this region, and on the Canopic Branch in particular, to find out how Heraklion's river disappeared.
41:44Clément, we're here on the Rosetta Branch, which I guess would have been pretty similar to how the Canopic Branch was in antiquity.
41:53Yes, it is. This is where we are, just south of Rosetta.
41:58And this is where was the Canopic Branch here.
42:02The Canopic Branch was in the low-lying Deltaic Sedimentary context, with this kind of humid vegetation which lie in the waters.
42:14The papyri in here.
42:16Over time, silts deposited by the Nile built up, clogging the channel and reducing the Canopic Branch to a muddy stream.
42:23Do we have a sort of a date at which we are fairly sure that the Canopic Branch was defunct?
42:31We have to distinguish between the mouse, which was the first to be silted up.
42:36Probably mainly because of the Alexandria Canal, which is south of the mouse, it diverts waters which used to reach the mouse.
42:45Aha, okay.
42:46So the flow declined at the mouse.
42:48Yeah.
42:49So you think this is as much to do with the sort of human action as it was to do with the natural silting of the Canopic Branch?
42:58Yeah.
42:59Do we have any idea exactly when the Canopic Branch was completely silted?
43:03Not exactly, because it was a really, very gradual process.
43:08Yeah.
43:09It's clear that around the 5th or 6th century AD, the mouse is not existing anymore.
43:15So the mouse seems to have disappeared at this time, the 5th to 6th century AD.
43:22That was 200 years before the recorded mega floods.
43:26When they happened, Heraklion was largely cut off from the river.
43:30It's clear from what Clément says that the idea of a big Nile flood is not the primary reason why Heraklion vanished.
43:39The timing just doesn't add up.
43:41Essentially, by the time of the mega floods, the mouth of the Canopic Branch had already silted up.
43:46We've discovered that the Nile floods are not what made Heraklion sink.
43:52But the movement of the river did, in a very different way, play a part in the demise of this great city.
44:01Its strategic and commercial roles were intimately bound up with its port.
44:06Once the mouth of the Canopic Branch silted, its port was defunct.
44:10But even before this process was complete, Heraklion's commercial power base was being usurped by the great new port of Alexandria.
44:21Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.
44:28Alexander built his harbour here because there was a solid limestone ridge that ran along this coastline.
44:34That created a solid platform for the harbour.
44:38As Alexandria's port grew, Heraklion's diminished.
44:47So even before the city slid beneath the waves, much of its importance and power was taken over by Egypt's new capital.
44:55That might account for why there's no record of its sinking, but it doesn't explain how Heraklion vanished beneath the waves.
45:08If floodwaters didn't drown Heraklion, maybe some other natural catastrophe was to blame.
45:13Frank has carried out a geophysical survey of the site and uncovered something remarkable.
45:23A ship graveyard.
45:25So you've got the main harbour of the city of Heraklion.
45:29In the middle of the harbour there are six, seven, eight shipwrecks.
45:34Which makes you think, well, why are they here? How did they get here?
45:40Are they a product of a simultaneous event or did this happen over a period of time?
45:47I mean, if it was a simultaneous event, then that equates to something fairly catastrophic.
45:53At first glance, this looks like a tsunami.
45:55But Damien has uncovered something rather unusual about these wrecks.
46:09And here is our excavation.
46:12And what we can see here is this long, quite thick stake.
46:18It seems to be going directly down into the planking in this direction.
46:22So one of our hypotheses at the moment is this, this is essentially a stake that has been used to try and pin the ship into position.
46:33This ship wasn't wrecked by a natural event, but deliberately scuttled and carefully positioned.
46:41This section is particularly interesting because what we can see here is the covering of stones,
46:46which was put over the top of the rack in order to secure it to the floor and make sure that it's stayed down.
46:54Lots of the ships in this graveyard also have these stakes around them as well.
46:59And this is how all of the ships are placed exactly where the Egyptians wanted them.
47:05This is truly unusual. If boats are abandoned, they are generally just left, not deliberately placed and fixed into position.
47:11It would appear that the residents of Heraculum were creating some sort of structure.
47:17I've been standing, waiting patiently for you here since we left.
47:22Staking boats on the bottom of the harbour is not normal practice.
47:27And I guess you had to think about, you know, why they were doing that.
47:31That's one of the mysteries that we're trying to think about, you know, obviously you don't sink a ship.
47:36No, it's not really.
47:38Or you don't sink seven or eight ships in the middle of the harbour.
47:41I know already that there's elements of silting that's happening, particularly in the northern part of the site.
47:47Do you think it's something connected with that?
47:48I think it could be. If the northern entrance has been silted up, then you're looking at something like artificial creation of land.
47:57We know that the northern part of the site seems to be, seems to be sinking slightly, so they might be creating a little island.
48:04These boats could be an example of ancient land reclamation.
48:08So I really like the evidence that Damien's just presented to me.
48:14I mean, it's this idea that the ships were deliberately sunk on the base of the main harbour of Heraculum.
48:21And I guess it's not so unusual in the ancient world, but it's particularly uncommon in such an early period.
48:26And Damien suspects that the reason they needed to create more land was because, at the time these ships were scuttled, parts of the site were subsiding.
48:40Heraclion was sinking.
48:47Elsewhere on the site, another ship adds to the mystery.
48:51So Frank, I didn't realise that you had one vessel that you're saying was catastrophically wrecked.
49:00This is a shipwreck 61, south of the temple.
49:03And she was more, most probably close to the temple.
49:09And on that shipwreck, we can see a limestone block from the temple, and even columns from the temple.
49:18Just tumble on it.
49:21Columns from the temple have fallen and crushed the boat.
49:25Some of the ceramics that we are finding on the temple, which is perfectly detectable and in pristine condition, even intact.
49:33We are finding the same layers under, at the bottom of that shipwreck.
49:40Ceramics trapped and crushed in the wreckage can be precisely dated.
49:44And that's just great, as archaeologists, I mean, when you get something like that happening, it's just the ticket with the date, isn't it?
49:52It is. It's that specific point in time.
49:55It's a kind of image, snapshot, of an event which has lasted a few seconds.
50:01Meaning we could be looking at a scene from Heraklion's very moment of collapse.
50:09The ceramics and the other dating evidence is pointing to what sort of time for this event?
50:14We are there at the very end of 2nd century BC, beginning of 1st century BC.
50:21Right.
50:22The fact that the temple wall fell on top of this ship that was moored alongside the temple means that it happened in a single event.
50:33And in amongst the temple debris, on top of the ship, we find pottery remains that give us an exact time as to when the temple fell.
50:41In the 2nd century BC, the building central to Heraklion's remaining power catastrophically collapsed.
50:55But at this time, no major earthquakes or tsunamis are recorded.
51:02So what did destroy Heraklion?
51:10The combination of subsidence and a sudden collapse gives a vital clue.
51:18Frank has worked with geologists to investigate the land directly beneath the city.
51:23Fire it up. We're all set.
51:26Okay.
51:30Taking core samples, they have found that 2,000 years ago, the earth here was a mixture of soft silts, sands and clays, deposited during the annual floods.
51:41To understand exactly what these results mean, I've gone to meet sedimentologist Professor Geoff Peekle.
51:52Hi. Hi.
51:54Beautiful landscape.
51:55Oh yes, absolutely fantastic.
51:58Definitely. And being at the mouth of the estuary, it's quite an interesting comparison in many ways to the mouth of the Canopic branch upon which Heraklion was built.
52:10So I'm interested in learning a bit more about this deltaic environment.
52:12Yes, I mean, deltaic environments are the most active, most peculiar in many ways, environments that we have.
52:19They literally build to a tipping point, at which point sediment fails and it moves off.
52:27And also they're very liable just to erosion and obviously to subsidence.
52:32Deltas are far from static, stable environments. And it's not just the rivers and water channels, but the land itself.
52:40This sort of dynamic tipping point, as you describe it, I mean, is it something that happens instantly?
52:47I mean, what are the triggers for this and how quickly can this happen?
52:50It certainly would be an almost instantaneous effect. Sediment can just fail under its own weight, but it's much more likely to be pushed by some large event.
53:00So either a large river flood or a tsunami or you can have an earthquake in here.
53:07This can cause you to just move beyond that tipping point.
53:11When the land fails, it can subside or erode. But there is also another stranger process, a process that may well have occurred at Heraklion.
53:21I know that the team have taken a number of series of geological cores in the region.
53:27I know you've had a look at these. Can you see anything specifically in that that maybe helps give us a clue as to what happened, you know, particularly at the site?
53:34Yes, I mean, they're very strange to look at because normally when you look at cores, particularly modern ones, you expect to see a series of nice, flat, horizontal layers through them.
53:43And that's because sediments are always deposited almost horizontally in the natural world.
53:50But in the middle of these, you see some that are completely bent and deformed within those.
53:55And this gives us a big clue because this is a sign of liquefaction where you change a solid into a liquid.
54:01At some point, the land below Heraklion didn't simply sink, it liquefied.
54:07This is a simple but nonetheless very effective demonstration of liquefaction.
54:14So it's just a tank that we filled with sand and with water and at the moment is a nice stable environment.
54:20But as we've heard, deltas are inherently unstable environments.
54:26And in order to demonstrate this, I bought a little temple for you to place on top.
54:32That's great. Thanks so much.
54:35So here we are, temple in Heraklion, based on solid ground or what seemingly at this point is solid ground.
54:42Well, we could have a number of triggers here that could transform this solid into a liquid.
54:46But for our purposes here, we're going to simulate a small earthquake using this.
54:53All I'm going to do is actually tap this very gently on the side of the tank.
54:57And we'll begin to see some changes.
55:01Ah, you can already see that you're getting a very dramatic change.
55:06You can see the water coming up to the surface and you can see that our temple is beginning to move.
55:11And what's happening here is that our sand is compacting it.
55:16And as a consequence, it squeezes out water and it locally turns into a liquid.
55:21And as you can see, our temple base has sunk straight into this.
55:25Yeah.
55:26These soft muds and sands need only a minor force to trigger them to sink and spurt out liquid.
55:31It's quite interesting how just a small vibration, a small movement can actually make quite a dramatic impact.
55:39Yes, that's it. I mean, once you've got liquefaction, then you'll see that temples and columns will start to tilt and tip and potentially collapse.
55:46But also you could get larger scale movement. If you've got solid, you can have solid on top of a layer that liquefies.
55:53You have solid on top of a liquid and that can just literally slide off and slump.
55:58So whole parts of the city potentially can sort of move considerable distances during the time that this is a liquid.
56:05Buildings erected on unstable, muddy soils can collapse as if their foundations had been built on quicksand.
56:14So the demonstration that Geoff has just shown me of the process of liquefaction is a really visual insight into how this fairly vulnerable landscape at the mouth of the canopic branch upon which Heraklion was built could have changed so dramatically.
56:32The same thing that occurred in Heraklion in the 2nd century BC occurred in New Zealand in 2011.
56:46Land liquefaction devastated a modern city.
56:51So imagine the impact in ancient times on towering temples, structures with no foundations.
56:58It didn't have to be a major tsunami. It didn't have to be a huge earthquake. It didn't necessarily have to be recorded by the ancient historians. It could have been a minor event, but the impact of that event was devastating.
57:16Heraklion sank to be lost and forgotten for over 2000 years.
57:25In the end, the silts of the Nile, the so-called bringer of life, were too unreliable to build a city on.
57:33No matter how great its power became, Heraklion's reign could only ever be temporary.
57:43Ironically, the silts of the Nile that destroyed Heraklion are also the thing that have allowed its perfect preservation.
57:50And as a result, we are able to rebuild this city piece by piece.
57:57A city of temples.
58:00A military garrison keeping the state safe from invasion.
58:04A vast port linking Egypt to the world.
58:09And a royal city, vital for the continuation of pharaonic power.
58:15Heraklion, sleeping and forgotten for thousands of years, is now revealed.
58:21One of the most important cities in Egypt.
58:24Now on BBC Two, after a wearable tech task, the finger has been pointed, the boardroom battles lost.
58:40And Dara Breen is here next with The Apprentice. You're fired.
58:43The Apprentice. You're fired.
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