Franck Goddio’s underwater archaeology team, in collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, has uncovered new artifacts at the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion in the Bay of Abukir. This city, once Egypt’s largest port, thrived until it was submerged following earthquakes and tidal waves that caused parts of the Nile Delta to sink into the sea. Rediscovered by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology in 2000, Thonis-Heracleion included the significant Temple of Amun, where important dynastic rituals occurred. During their recent excavations, Franck Goddio’s team made notable discoveries within this temple complex.
More than 200 finds from the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) are currently exhibited, marked on information panels with a hieroglyphic zigzag symbolizing water. These artifacts were previously showcased in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Grand Palais in Paris during 2006–07, but numerous discoveries have been made since then.

Among the exhibits are stone statues depicting deities and rulers dressed in pharaonic or Greek attire. One of the notable pieces is a 5.4-meter statue of Hapy, the god of the Nile inundation, which originally welcomed Greek sailors approaching the mouth of the Nile and now greets museum visitors. Nearby, visitors can explore inscriptions in both hieroglyphic and Greek scripts on stone and gold artifacts, intricate jewelry influenced by Greek styles, and delicate lead models of votive barques used in the worship of Osiris.