Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the submerged ruins of a palace and temple complex from which Cleopatra ruled, swimming over heaps of limestone blocks hammered into the sea by earthquakes and tsunamis more than 1,600 years ago. The international team is painstakingly excavating one of the richest underwater archeeological sites in the world and retrieving stunning artifacts from the last dynasty to rule over ancient Egypt before the Roman Empire annexed it in 30 B.C. Using advanced technology, the team is surveying ancient Alexandria's Royal Quarters, encased deep below the harbor sediment, and confirming the accuracy of descriptions of the city left by Greek geographers and historians more than 2,000 years ago. Since the early 1990s, the topographical surveys have allowed the team, led by French underwater archeologist Franck Goddio, to conquer the harbor's extremely poor visibility and excavate below the seabed. They are discovering everything from coins and everyday objects to colossal granite statues of Egypt's rulers and sunken temples. The finds from along the Egyptian coast will go on display at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute from June 5 to Jan. 2 in an exhibition titled “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.” Many archeological sites have been destroyed by man, with statues cut or smashed to pieces. Alexandria's Royal Quarters simply slid into the sea after cataclysmic earthquakes in the fourth and eighth centuries. Goddio's team found it in 1996. Many of its treasures are completely intact, wrapped in sediment protecting them from the saltwater. Tuesday's dive explored the sprawling palace and temple complex where Cleopatra lived with Marc Anthony. Alexandria's Eastern Harbor was abandoned after another earthquake, in the eighth century, and was left untouched as an open bay while modern port construction went ahead in the Western Harbor. That has left the ancient Portus Magnus undisturbed below.
