Thonis
Thonis was established under the Egyptian Pharaohs in the twelfth century BC on a chain of islands at the mouth of the Nile River, predating its neighboring city Alexandria by some eight hundred years. The Greeks also believed that the demigod Heracles had once lived in the city, leading them to call the place Heracleion, and Greek historian Herodotus claimed that Paris and Helen of Troy had resided in Thonis for a time before the Trojan War.
Egyptian traders, though, knew of Thonis as a place where a clever merchant could make quite a bit of money. Between the sixth and fourth centuries BC it was one of the busiest ports on the Mediterranean. In fact, all ships entering Egypt from Greece were required to dock in Thonis. After passing through the customs houses, goods conveyed from Thonis’s harbor moved further inland through a network of canals that connected it to the Egyptian mainland and the Nile River.
Within the city, people moved about from island to island over bridges and pontoon that connected the markets, residences, and towers of Egypt’s predominant coastal city. A grand temple to the god Amun and his son Khonsou dominated the Thonis’s skyline demonstrating the opulence of the city during its heyday between the sixth and fourth centuries BC. Following Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt and the construction of Alexandria the importance of Thonis began to wane, but it remained a prominent destination all the same.
Disaster struck Thonis at the end of the second century BC. A massive earthquake on the Egyptian coast rocked the city, liquefying the sandy soil that Thonis rested upon. It was quite literally swallowed up by the sea. For millennia the ruins of Thonis languished on the seafloor until divers discovered a piece of a statue in 2000 and brought it to the surface. Further investigation revealed that this statue was not the only thing hidden beneath the waves. The entire city was still there: temples, priceless artifacts, and burial sites. Thonis was no longer a rumor, it had been rediscovered.