An Ancient City Lies Beneath Egypt's Mediterranean Coast — Experts Found a Sunken 'Party Boat' in It
An ancient city now lies submerged beneath Alexandria’s eastern harbor, on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The rising sea levels and earthquakes had engulfed the entire city along with its ports, palaces, and temples. Nevertheless, the ruins of the ancient city continue to hold prominence in archeological studies. The European Institute for Underwater Archaeology, in collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, has conducted various surveys and excavations in hopes of better understanding the ruins underneath. With each survey came discoveries that kept the researchers buzzing. Something similar happened in a recent excavation where they found a shipwreck that could possibly have been an ancient "party boat."
According to The Conversation, the team's recent dives have been focused on Antirhodos Island. They had recently uncovered a temple dedicated to the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis and renovated by Cleopatra VII. Another remarkable recent discovery in the region was that of Timonium, a palace constructed by Cleopatra's partner, the Roman general Mark Antony. The most recent survey has led to the discovery of a thalamagos, a type of Nile yacht infamously dubbed as a "party boat" in Roman literature. This discovery was unusual because these boats were not typically found in busy commercial sea harbors. This prompted the research team to reassess their assumptions about the wreck. The discovery of the wreck was made with a new high-resolution sonar survey of the seabed of Alexandria's Royal Port.
A large amount of data was retrieved from the sonar survey, which helped researchers identify patterns or "signatures" of shipwrecks using a machine learning algorithm. They used the algorithm to conduct targeted excavations beneath the harbor and successfully found the ruins of a small boat and a merchant ship. Therefore, in the 2025 mission, the team was confident of discovering a shipwreck of yet another merchant ship, but continued research and survey proved them wrong. Although the wreck had some common Roman Imperial construction features, several details stood out. It was unlike other cargo vessels found beneath the Royal Port and included Greek graffiti. The structure was bulkier with a flat bottom and boxy hull. It was 92 feet long and 23 feet wide and had asymmetrical stern and bow. The absence of a mast step hinted that the ship wasn't meant to be sailed for long-distance travel but rowed.
Researchers turned to ancient documents—about 500 Ptolemaic and Roman papyri—to find the origin of the distinctly modeled ship. That's when they came across thalamagos, a cabin boat rarely mentioned in the documents but depicted on the Palestrina mosaic, which was a landscape with the boat found in a temple outside Rome. The features matched those of the shipwreck found in the Royal Port and led the team to categorize the latest finding as a thalamagos. Ancient sources suggest that such vessels were linked to royal or elite use. The ship depicted in the Palestrina mosaic was used to hunt hippopotami, a ritual that Pharaohs of ancient Egypt used to partake in. This imagery helps connect the boat to royal and ceremonial use. Researchers said, "While the Ptolemaic royal family did have Nile yachts, and even supersized versions of them, we can assume that vessels the size of ours would have been a common sight on the river."
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