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00:03Egypt, home to the greatest ancient civilization on Earth.
00:10A country covered by desert sands.
00:14Yet it has over 1,800 miles of coastline.
00:18And the mighty Nile River flows straight through its center.
00:24Now investigators use pioneering radar technology
00:28to uncover the secrets of Egypt's maritime past.
00:32What we have here is incredible.
00:35Sphinxes, statues of priests,
00:37perfectly preserved for thousands of years,
00:39just sitting underneath the sand of the seabed.
00:42Can new evidence.
00:45It was a very busy harbor.
00:47You can imagine a big fleet being there.
00:51Surprising discoveries.
00:53The Sphinx and the pyramids were part of a waterfront
00:56onto the major Nile harbor of their time.
01:00And a buried riverside city.
01:03There was a lot of ships going in and out of the, of this area.
01:07So it was a very busy place.
01:09Revolutionize our understanding of ancient Egypt?
01:15To solve these mysteries, we'll uncover Egypt's lost harbor.
01:20And rebuild buried ships.
01:25We'll digitally deconstruct ancient shipyards.
01:30Unearth the sunken relics of one of Egypt's greatest lost cities.
01:36And we'll unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt's surprising nautical past.
01:41To reveal how it shapes the rise of this great civilization.
01:55Beneath Egypt's desert sands,
01:57an archeological treasure trove is waiting to be uncovered.
02:02One hundred and forty-five miles east of the great pyramids
02:06lies the ancient settlement of Wadi el-Jarf.
02:10It's abandoned and buried for thousands of years.
02:15Hidden under the sand,
02:17archeologists make a remarkable discovery here.
02:21Thirty-one galleries carved into the bedrock.
02:26Buried inside.
02:29Dozens of storage jars.
02:32Fragments of fabric and wood.
02:36And hundreds of pieces of papyrus.
02:40These are the oldest papyri with written text ever found.
02:45Amongst the hieroglyphs, repeated mention of boats.
02:49Is this evidence of an ancient lost fleet?
02:53A set of clues to Egypt's nautical past?
03:01French archeologist Pierre Talley leads the investigation into these mysterious underground chambers.
03:09For the past nine years, Pierre and his team have been sifting through the sands.
03:15They discover lost wall paintings.
03:18Thousands of broken storage jars.
03:22And tantalizing pieces of rope and wood.
03:28Pierre investigates one of the mysterious caves where they unearth ancient treasures.
03:36Close examination of the walls reveal that these chambers are man-made.
03:43Yeah, those caves are really amazing.
03:45We have thirty-one in this place.
03:47It is the main feature that we have in this Wadi Aljaf place.
03:51They were cut with copper tools and stone tools, but we could imagine that a small team of about maybe
03:58ten men in a few weeks was able to cut the whole cave that you have here.
04:03Like all of the caves here, this one is vast and is constructed with great skill.
04:09It is ninety feet long with high ceilings.
04:13So what are these hidden chambers for?
04:18When they are discovered, explorers believe they are ancient catacombs.
04:23But Pierre's groundbreaking new discoveries provide clues to a very different purpose.
04:30We found ceilings, we found jars, we found roofs, and most of all we have found pieces of wood.
04:38The scale of the new finds here, and the size and shape of the caves, allow Pierre to reach an
04:45extraordinary conclusion.
04:47These wooden fragments are the remains of boats.
04:56The caves themselves are underground boatyards.
05:00They were using very precious wood for the boats, and this is probably the reason why you have those small
05:08walls on the floor of the cave.
05:12They were used to place the beams of wood to avoid the water if the water was entering the cave.
05:19It's a perfect way to store precious wood.
05:24With so many massive caves uncovered, Pierre believes that a whole fleet of ships are stored inside them.
05:31But who puts them here?
05:33Pierre scouts the site for more evidence.
05:38Outside, monumental stone blocks close off the mouth to each cave.
05:44The stones are covered with ancient script.
05:48Pierre immediately recognizes this type of inscription.
05:52What we have here is a control mark exactly the same way we have this kind of marking on blocks
06:00on the pyramids area.
06:02These inscriptions are found on the giant stone blocks of the pyramids at Giza.
06:09Those control marks were used to control the work of the teams, in fact.
06:15They were cutting the blocks, transporting them, and it is a way to prove that they were in charge of
06:22this work.
06:25Could these underground boat storage areas really date to the time of Egypt's most iconic monuments, 4500 years ago?
06:36Pierre decodes the ancient script to find out.
06:40And if you look carefully to this mark, you can distinguish the cartouche of Khufu, which is here, with the
06:48ram.
06:48The mighty pharaoh Khufu's greatest claim to fame is building the Great Pyramid.
06:55450 feet high, it is the largest ever built.
06:59The boats here belong to him.
07:03Pierre decyphers the script to discover more about the king's lost fleet.
07:08The boat is literally, King Khufu brings its two snakes.
07:14And we finally understood that it was a boat that was probably equipped with two snakes on the prowl.
07:23So they have a fleet that was very impressive for people that were seeing these fleets.
07:28This incredible new discovery reveals that Egypt's greatest pyramid builder is also a master of the seas.
07:36It means that the place was of highest interest to the monarchy and the highest administration.
07:42Why does Khufu store a fleet of ships underground in the desert sands?
07:50The Red Sea is over three and a half miles away, but Pierre believes an ancient harbor must be nearby.
07:57He's on a mission to uncover it and heads to the coast.
08:04The sandy beach is almost completely desolate, but something catches his eye.
08:10This place is really fascinating because it's covered of pebbles and rocks.
08:14We are on a sandy beach without any rocks anywhere else.
08:18For Pierre, this unusual collection of rocks is an astonishing find.
08:23If you are looking carefully at the place, you can see that it is a man-made structure.
08:29And it is what remains of the jetty of Khufu.
08:34It's a remarkable discovery.
08:36The oldest harbor ever found in the world.
08:40Pierre's team dives beneath the waves to investigate its size.
08:46They use special pumps to suck away the sand, to reveal more of the harbor.
08:53The jetty stretches an enormous 500 feet out into the sea.
09:01They scour the ocean bed to uncover more evidence.
09:06It is scattered with anchors and thousands of fragments of pottery.
09:13From what had been found inside the harbor itself, anchors, but also big storage jars that we have also finding
09:21nearby the cave,
09:22we can determine that it was a very, very busy harbor.
09:26You can imagine a big fleet being there during the reign of Khufu.
09:31Why does Khufu station such a big fleet here?
09:37In the shelter of his camp, Pierre examines a database of the discoveries.
09:44He analyzes a collection of copper tools.
09:48For Pierre, the copper tools reveal a direct connection between the port and the Great Pyramids.
09:56Here we have the real tools that were used at the time of Khufu to build giant pyramids like the
10:03one of Khufu in Giza.
10:06The ancient Egyptians used copper tools to carve the stone for their most glorious monuments.
10:16But the nearest copper mines are across the sea in Sinai.
10:21So they use ships to transport the copper to and from this harbor.
10:26This harbor shows us clearly that even at the very beginning of the pharaonic culture,
10:33they were trying to get as far as possible to take precious material for the royal projects.
10:41And one of the best ways to connect with the outer world, of course,
10:44is to develop maritime trades and expeditions.
10:49From the time of Khufu, 4500 years ago, ancient Egyptians are clearly masters of the seas.
10:59But how do they get the stone carving tools to the desert plateau?
11:04New evidence suggests they sail them there.
11:07Now, can this revolutionize our understanding of Egypt's most iconic site?
11:23Today, the Giza Plateau, home to ancient Egypt's most iconic monuments, is completely landlocked.
11:31But now, the discovery of an ancient harbor and a lost fleet of ships by the Red Sea suggests a
11:39remarkable new theory.
11:41Do ancient boats sail here and deliver the tools that are used to build the pyramids?
11:50Here on the Giza Plateau, we're four or five miles from the Nile River, where the Nile flows today.
11:56And we're also high up into the desert.
11:58But there are clues that in the time of the pyramids, the water came right up to the base of
12:05the pyramid plateau.
12:09The Giza Plateau may not have always been a parched desert.
12:194500 years ago, this area could have been a port,
12:24bringing the Nile right up to the growing pyramid complex.
12:31Ships could then dock right next to them, transporting building materials right up to the construction site.
12:40Dockside buildings could provide accommodation, administrative space, and storage.
12:46But is there any evidence of this grand harbor today?
12:55Egyptologist Mark Lehner has devoted decades to studying the Giza Plateau.
13:02He hunts for its lost ancient harbor.
13:07The Nile has changed its course, but where the Nile once flowed, there are traces.
13:13You can see scars in the floodplain.
13:17Mark's team maps out the entire site into grids.
13:21Then they drill core samples to look for traces of an ancient riverbed.
13:27In some areas, Mark only has to scratch the surface to reveal the evidence.
13:33What we have right here is a very dark, silty sand,
13:38deposited by the Nile waters during the annual inundation.
13:41It indicates that the Nile was right here,
13:43in fact, lapping up against the lost city of the pyramids.
13:48The entire plateau may be desert today,
13:52but Mark's results are proof that this area is once awash with a vast network of waterways.
13:59The contrast between the lighter colored sand and the darker silt and clay
14:04tells us where they made their ancient waterways, basins, and the structure of their ancient port.
14:12This is how we know where the Nile was filling.
14:15Channels and basins that the pyramid builders themselves dredged into their floodplain.
14:22Every summer, the farmland beside the Nile becomes parched.
14:27So, 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians dig channels to irrigate their crops.
14:34They build gates to control the flow of water, stopping the flow if there's a risk of flooding,
14:40and storing water for times of drought.
14:44They begin to use the channels for transportation,
14:47and engineers dig larger canals to bypass the Nile's shallowest waters,
14:52allowing boats to sail the length of Egypt.
14:55Boats from all over the country can even sail here, into Giza.
15:00Armed with his results, Mark ventures to the highest point on the plateau to survey the extent of the ancient
15:06port.
15:07The results of the survey are amazing.
15:10They show us that the pyramid builders intervened in the floodplain
15:14as dramatically as they built on the high plateau.
15:17We know that they cut off from the main course of the Nile,
15:21about where this big white building is out here,
15:24they cut a huge canal basin that came right to the front of what later became the Sphinx.
15:30This made the lost city site a huge peninsula, like a wharf.
15:35We don't think of it this way, but the Sphinx and the pyramids were part of a waterfront.
15:41A waterfront onto the major Nile harbor of their time.
15:46If the ancient Egyptians used their maritime skills to build their most iconic monuments, the pyramids,
15:54how much more of their culture is shaped by ships and the seas?
15:58Could the discovery of a lost boat buried next to the Great Pyramid itself provide a clue?
16:13The Giza Plateau outside modern Cairo.
16:18Home to Egypt's most iconic ancient monuments.
16:23Now investigators discover they are part of a vast waterfront onto a lost ancient harbor.
16:31Boats dock here with stone and tools used to build the pyramids.
16:39When archaeologists excavate here, they discover a clue to Egypt's nautical past.
16:48Hidden at the foot of the Great Pyramid, they unearth a series of vast limestone slabs.
16:55Beneath them, a deep pit filled with more than a thousand pieces of ancient cedar.
17:03Assembled, they take on a remarkable shape.
17:07These are the remains of a magnificent ship.
17:10More than 140 feet long and 20 feet wide.
17:15It is one of the oldest and best preserved ships ever discovered.
17:20Why is it carefully buried at the base of ancient Egypt's most famous icon?
17:25What can it tell us about the importance of ships in ancient Egyptian culture?
17:33Aissa Zidane is the director of restoration at the new Grand Egyptian Museum and is a leading expert on the
17:41Giza ship.
17:43This is the best boat and complete one have been discovered until now in ancient Egypt.
17:51Aissa Zidane uses his expertise to analyze every inch of this stunning ship.
17:56He believes it's not a simple supply boat, but a boat of great quality worthy of no less than a
18:04pharaoh.
18:05This boat is a wonderful and very special boat because it consists of many special parts.
18:14It has two cabins, one for the captain and one for the pharaoh.
18:20And also this boat has many oars, twelve oars, and the size itself of this boat is very long.
18:28The evidence reveals that this boat belongs to the very pharaoh who builds the Great Pyramid, King Khufu himself.
18:37This is a Khufu boat because of the inscription which we founded it.
18:42And also because it's beside the Great Pyramid of King Khufu.
18:49Why does the powerful king bury such a magnificent ship next to his tomb?
18:56Aissa has a theory.
18:58I am with the opinion which said this is a phenori boat which carries the body of the king to
19:05burial inside the pyramids.
19:08Aissa believes that this boat actually transports the mummified King Khufu from his capital, Memphis, down the Nile to his
19:17magnificent tomb.
19:19And he has remarkable evidence in support of his theory.
19:24When they discovered this boat, the rope, it was not dry.
19:28This means it was full of waters.
19:32And also someone, when investigated the wooden pieces, he found the mud.
19:39This gives us some indicators that this boat used in the Nile.
19:44More evidence reveals that there is another reason why Khufu buries his boat here.
19:50The direction of this boat, the back in the east and the front in the west.
19:57This is according to the rising of the sun because the pharaoh believes after life.
20:03He believes that he will take this boat again after life and he will unite it with the sun, God.
20:14In Egyptian mythology, the sun god Ra travels through the celestial realm on a boat called Atet, providing light to
20:22the world as he sails across the heavens.
20:26Each 12th of his journey forms one of the 12 hours of the day.
20:30At night, he travels through the underworld before emerging again at dawn.
20:37As boats grow in religious significance, small model boats become common grave goods for ordinary ancient Egyptians.
20:49They believe that these models will magically transport them into an afterlife.
20:58As a pharaoh, Khufu can afford to build big.
21:03So perhaps this ship is also a monumental model for his spiritual journey.
21:08From the very beginning, a maritime influence is present in the beliefs and the monuments of the ancient Egyptians.
21:16Even in the heart of the desert.
21:18So how great are their nautical ambitions?
21:22How much do they trade and travel?
21:27Now, can the discovery of Ramses the Great's lost port city reveal the answer?
21:42Ancient Egypt.
21:43New discoveries of buried ships and lost harbors reveal that mastering the Nile and the Red Sea helped forge this
21:54incredible civilization.
21:56Whenever you see an ancient Egyptian civilization building bursts on a colossal scale, you also see water transport infrastructure on
22:07a colossal scale.
22:08Today, investigators hunt for clues to reveal the evolution of Egypt's nautical ambitions.
22:18Egyptologist Irini Forstner-Muller excavates at Tel El Daba, in the northernmost part of Egypt, at the Nile Delta.
22:28The Nile Delta is a very fascinating place. It's the place where suddenly the Nile River, which is in the
22:34very narrow valley of the Nile itself, spreads into several parts, where you have connections to the east, to the
22:42Mediterranean.
22:45Irini investigates the local channels of the river.
22:52She and her team believe that this small waterway is only a shadow of its original size.
23:00They gather soil samples and survey the whole area.
23:04We did the survey across the former river here, transactions. We did a lot of analysis with fence and tilts.
23:11So we could reconstruct the ancient landscape. It was 300 meters and 11 meters deep.
23:17So this survey clearly proves that the Nile was very mighty in this area.
23:22Evidence nearby provides clues to what this area looks like over 3,000 years ago.
23:29In the Nile sands, two and a half miles from Irini's site, teams discover the broken remains of a statue.
23:38Only the feet survive, but their size suggests this is once a towering monument.
23:45Inscriptions reveal that this is Ramses the Great, and hint that this area was once a very different place.
23:53At the time of his reign, this stream is a thundering tributary of the Nile.
23:59Big enough for Egypt's largest ships.
24:03A vast city stands on its banks.
24:07Why does Ramses build a riverside metropolis here?
24:14Irini uses her survey to search for any remains of Ramses the Great's lost city.
24:20Finding evidence here is no simple task. This is prime agricultural land.
24:26The fertile soil and crops hide any clues.
24:31But Irini unearths proof of Ramses' nautical ambitions beneath the foliage.
24:38This is really fantastic.
24:40This is not just ordinary mud, but these are all mud bricks which are part of a huge structure
24:45which goes along all the way in this direction and in this direction.
24:50And you have to imagine the ancient Egyptians.
24:52They used material like that, so this is very typical.
24:57The wall is hidden beneath the undergrowth.
25:00But Irini is amazed by how well it has been preserved.
25:04So you see here the layers of the brick.
25:07The colors are different to the ordinary soil, so it's much lighter, much grayer, and yellowish.
25:15And the whole wall was built with many, many of these structures and layers as you can see here.
25:22This really appears fantastically in this part.
25:25So this is very amazing that it has survived well here.
25:29The scale and shape of this wall and its location suggest it has a nautical purpose.
25:35The survey tells us that the water might have come into this area, so this could be part of a
25:41large basin, the surrounding wall of its basin.
25:46A basin is the part of a port where ships line up before they dock and offload their goods.
25:53This is quite a large basin, and this hints to that there was a lot of ships going in and
25:59out of this area, so it was a very busy place and a very important part of the town.
26:07Irini unearths further evidence that this basin is a hive of industry.
26:12It's really amazing. The ground here is full of pottery fragments, hundreds of them. You can see them all over
26:19the ground.
26:20Irini's expert eyes home in on a clue that suggests this is a massive port in Ramses the Great's time.
26:28This is a very interesting piece. You see the lighter color, it's pinkish. So this is an import from the
26:36Levant, modern Lebanon and part of Syria.
26:40So this shows that the city had a close connection and there was a trade hub between Egypt and the
26:47ancient Near East in this time.
26:51At its peak, Ramses the Great's capital is the Venice of its day.
26:55A thriving riverside city.
27:01Trade along the river drives its success.
27:06Ships export goods such as linen, grain and papyrus from here.
27:14Traders exchange these goods for a variety of imports, including ebony, wild animals and incense.
27:23At its height, Egypt's trade network stretches as far as Rome in the northwest, Afghanistan in the east and Nubia
27:32in the south.
27:35For thousands of years, the remains of this extraordinary maritime operation have been hidden beneath the crops.
27:42Only now can investigators reveal the truth about this lost landscape.
27:48This really changes our picture on ancient Egypt and how the ancient Egyptians lived and worked and traveled.
27:57From its very beginnings, mastery of the water shapes ancient Egyptian civilization.
28:03Over centuries, they extend their reach, navigating the seas.
28:09At the end of their civilization, how do they become a maritime power and masters of the waves?
28:17Can underwater discoveries at Egypt's greatest port city, Alexandria, provide the clues?
28:38From its birth to the height of its empire, ancient writers describe the pinnacle of this maritime mastery as the
28:47port city of Alexandria.
28:51Founded by Alexander the Great and once home to the beautiful Cleopatra.
28:59Today, Alexandria is a bustling modern metropolis.
29:03Does any evidence of its legendary past survive?
29:07A surprising discovery in the city offers clues to the ancient port.
29:15In the early 19th century, investigators discover the remains of two gigantic ancient obelisks.
29:23They excavate one which has fallen and is buried under centuries of sand and debris.
29:30The two obelisks are a matching pair.
29:33Each stands nearly 70 feet tall and weighs almost 200 tons.
29:40They're carved from red granite from the quarries of Aswan.
29:44And are decorated with ancient hieroglyphs on all four sides.
29:50Could these monumental markers give a clue to the location of the ancient port of Alexandria?
29:59Damian Robinson is part of an international team on a mission to unearth Alexandria's ancient secrets.
30:08He hunts for the ancient site of the two obelisks in Alexandria's busy streets.
30:18Today, one obelisk stands tall in London.
30:22The other is in New York's Central Park.
30:26Damian uses photos from the 19th century to help pinpoint precisely where they are found.
30:33This photograph is absolutely fascinating.
30:36It shows the standing obelisk as it was being taken down for shipment to America.
30:41But more importantly, it shows this building.
30:43We can look at the building and we can look at the photograph and compare the two.
30:47So we can be in absolutely no doubt that the obelisk once stood just over here under this building today.
30:53Damian believes the location of the obelisks is the first clue to the location of Alexandria's ancient port.
31:00Knowing the location of the obelisks is really important because ancient texts, they tell us that they were erected at
31:07the edge of the port and that it could be seen from the port.
31:11The ancient port is just a short distance away, sunken beneath the modern bay.
31:17This gives Damian's team a target area to begin their hunt for the ancient port.
31:23To investigate further, they must take to the water.
31:28The mammoth investigation is led by the world's leading underwater archaeologist, Frank Gaudio.
31:35Since 1992, it has been his goal to piece together the evidence of this legendary ancient port.
31:43Armed with sonar equipment and electromagnetic scanners, they begin to survey the entire bay from above the waves.
31:52Searching for a profile of anything that lies on top of the seabed or even beneath it.
32:00Their results are extraordinary.
32:05There are clearly buildings down there. There are clearly waterways.
32:09And this is an incredible view of this landscape that we really didn't see before.
32:14These rectangular shapes on the seabed are clearly man-made.
32:22But what are these mysterious hotspots?
32:25The team gears up to dive to the harbor floor.
32:28They pick a target over the strongest signal.
32:32The water is cloudy and in places 50 feet deep.
32:37But as soon as they reach the seabed, ancient treasures begin to emerge from the gloom.
32:43And Frank comes face to face with something astonishing.
32:49A fully intact sphinx stands upright on the seabed.
32:54And then another.
32:59A life-size figure lies in between the two.
33:05What we have here is incredible.
33:07Sphinxes, statues of priests, perfectly preserved for thousands of years just sitting underneath the sand of the seabed.
33:15When Frank clears the sand away, he reveals a large granite block.
33:20It is covered with ancient script.
33:23It's a real eureka moment for the team.
33:26The first glimpse of a building from the legendary port.
33:36The excavations are just over there on the other side of the bay beyond the boats.
33:40And the sculptures that we found there help us to identify that there's a temple in that location.
33:45The team believes they can give a precise name to this spot.
33:52Submerged for centuries, this is the island of Antirados.
33:57Two granite sphinxes hint at what once stands here.
34:06A grand temple.
34:09Alongside, divers discover a fallen statue of a priest of the goddess Isis.
34:15Proof that this lost temple is dedicated to her.
34:18This is one of the many temples described in ancient texts.
34:23Can this discovery help the team locate and identify the rest of Alexandria's great port?
34:30What we have here are the most amazing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that we can use to interpret this
34:36amazing ancient port.
34:38Frank and his team complete thousands of dives.
34:42Each dive targets a new area.
34:46As they map out the entire seabed, they discover a lost world.
34:52From monumental statues to thousands of pottery fragments.
34:59It's a landscape that's full of palaces, of temples.
35:03So if we look down here at the map, we can see Cape Locias, which is just over here.
35:09Cape Locias is a place of extravagance and wealth.
35:13It's one of the most sumptuous places that was constructed in the classical world.
35:17Next to it, as we can see here, there's another port.
35:20And this opens onto the emporium, the market, the great economic driver of this amazing city.
35:28It's one of the greatest ports in the ancient world.
35:32For the first time in over a thousand years, the grandeur and scale of Alexandria's lost waterfront becomes clear.
35:43The port is built with double entry points for Mediterranean traffic coming from the east and the west.
35:52The western harbor is for commercial shipping.
35:57And handles trade with Egypt's Mediterranean neighbors.
36:02The eastern harbor is a complex of three smaller ports.
36:07It shelters the royal fleet of several hundred warships.
36:14Engineers cut channels through the causeway so boats can transfer between the two.
36:19And they build a canal to the Nile, linking the harbor to the rest of Egypt.
36:25If you need any more evidence that the Egyptians were a great seafaring people, you should look no further than
36:30Alexandria.
36:31It is the center, the port that is the great gateway to the Mediterranean.
36:38Ruled by the last of the country's great dynasties, the Ptolemies, ancient Egypt's power lies in its maritime strength.
36:48At Alexandria, they create one of the largest ports ever seen in the ancient world.
36:54So what happens to it? Why are its treasures now buried beneath the waves?
37:07Alexandria, built 2,500 years ago, home to the greatest port in the ancient world.
37:14Alexandria marks Egypt's pinnacle as a seafaring nation.
37:18From this port, ships sailed out all over the ancient world to trade.
37:22Today, nothing of this ancient port exists above the waves.
37:28What happens to it?
37:31Why are its treasures lying on the seabed for hundreds of years?
37:38World-leading underwater investigator Frank Gaudio dives for clues.
37:44He uncovers a vast stone head.
37:48It's part of a monumental statue, and its features are recognizable to the experts.
37:54This is Caesarian, the son of the beautiful Cleopatra and her Roman lover, Julius Caesar.
38:03Finding the head of Caesarian here is really significant.
38:06The Roman author Strabo tells us that Cleopatra founded a temple to the divine Caesars.
38:11So finding the head here, and in combination with the texts, means that we're probably not so very far away
38:18from that temple.
38:20The statue is an amazing discovery.
38:23But Damien believes it may also be evidence of the fate of the port.
38:28This is a map of the seabed.
38:30It shows the different levels all the finds were discovered at.
38:33One of the interesting things is that the head of Caesarian was found just over here, at a depth of
38:38about four and a half meters.
38:40Now the author Strabo tells us that the temple was built at the edge of the port.
38:47And so finding the head here would suggest that quite a considerable portion of this area has sunk beneath the
38:53waves.
38:54What causes the sea to swallow up the land?
38:58The team excavates the ocean bed, searching for answers.
39:04Beside the Caesarian temple, they discover a row of fallen columns.
39:11There are 20 of them, each 30 feet long.
39:15They once form a grand entranceway.
39:21The columns of the colonnade are really interesting.
39:24They all fell in the same direction.
39:26It looks as if they all fell over, in an earthquake or a tidal wave.
39:30The tsunami pushing all the columns to one side.
39:35The written records and archaeological evidence reveal a highly destructive earthquake hits Alexandria in 365 AD.
39:47The earthquake could generate a powerful tsunami, further devastating the city, as the Mediterranean waters flood inland.
39:57The earthquake could also cause the solid sea floor to turn into a liquid slurry, so the harbor structures literally
40:04sink into the sea.
40:08Together, these devastating forces could be powerful enough to wipe the great port of Alexandria completely off the map.
40:19It's crazy to think that so much of this landscape could now be underwater, but we're really fortunate about the
40:25superb level of preservation beneath the waves.
40:27This has provided Frank and the mission with an exceptional level of detail with which to interpret this sunken landscape.
40:34It's amazing here.
40:37By piecing together the clues, experts have revealed the unknown story of Egypt's maritime past from beginning to end.
40:47The discovery of Alexandria's lost port and boats buried in the deepest desert have transformed our understanding of ancient Egypt.
40:58Throughout its 2,500-year history, its pharaoh's fortunes rely on their mastery of the water.
41:07Controlling the Nile enables them to build the pyramids, it allows cities to flourish, and Egypt's trade empire to grow
41:15from strength to strength.
41:17These lost treasures of the desert reveal the lost maritime past at the heart of the rise of ancient Egypt.
42:03The
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