Egyptian antiquities officials brought up artifacts from the Mediterranean seafloor that date back to the country’s Ptolemaic and Roman periods.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the artifacts were recovered this week from shallow waters off the coast of Abu Qir in the north of the country.
“There’s a lot underwater, but what we’re able to bring up is limited; it’s only specific material according to strict criteria. The rest will remain part of our sunken heritage,” Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy said Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse.
The finds included coins and Ptolemaic and Roman statues.
The Ptolemaic period stretched almost 300 years, from shortly after Alexander the Great’s conquests to Cleopatra. The Roman era lasted over 600 years from the fall of the Ptolemaic kingdom and Cleopatra in 30 B.C. to the conquest of Egypt by the first Islamic caliphate in 642.
Officials also debuted an exhibition this week displaying 86 artifacts from those two periods, including some linked to the lost Nile River Delta cities of Canopus and Heracleion, the antiquities ministry said.
