BREAKING: Colossal Pharaoh Statue Discovered in the Sunken City of Heracleion
In a discovery that is already shattering archaeological records, a joint expedition team has unearthed a colossal granite head of an unidentified Pharaoh in the submerged ruins of Thonis-Heracleion. The lost city, often called the “Egyptian Atlantis,” lies 30 feet beneath the surface of the Mediterranean, just off the coast of Alexandria.
The find occurred early this morning during a deep-sector scan of the western canal zone. Lead archaeologist Dr. Elias Thorne and his dive team were investigating a magnetic anomaly when the currents shifted, clearing the silt to reveal the massive visage.
“It was surreal,” Dr. Thorne reported via comms immediately after resurfacing. “The water cleared, and there he was—a perfect Nemes headdress, the royal beard intact, staring up at the surface for the first time in 1,200 years. The craftsmanship suggests the Ptolemaic era, but the scale rivals the Colossi of Memnon.”
The expedition took a dramatic turn captured on the team’s 8K underwater cameras. As the divers approached the artifact to take initial measurements, a school of bull sharks and reef sharks descended upon the site. In a scene described as “otherworldly,” the sharks did not attack but circled the stone giant in a hypnotic formation, acting as living sentinels to the ancient king.
The images, now going viral globally, show the divers working calmly amidst the sharks, documenting the green-algae-covered stone that stands nearly 15 feet tall on the seabed.
Thonis-Heracleion was once Egypt’s greatest port before it was swallowed by the sea due to soil liquefaction and earthquakes in the 8th century AD. While famous treasures have been found here by the IEASM (European Institute for Underwater Archaeology) over the last two decades, a statue of this magnitude changes the understanding of the city’s religious importance.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has declared the site a “zone of high importance,” and plans are already underway to study whether the statue can be raised or if it should remain an underwater museum piece, guarded by the sharks of Aboukir Bay.