Alexandria rises from the seabed

This statue of a pharaoh was part of the discovery by Franck Goddio, a Frenchman nicknamed "The Indiana Jones of the sea". Picture / Reuters

It is as significant as Pompeii, yet its discovery began just a decade ago in polluted waters four miles off the Egyptian coast. Now, the priceless remains of the ancient port of Alexandria and its predecessor cities, Heracleion and Canopus, are being exhibited for the first time in Berlin.

Discovered by a party of divers using probes and underwater sonar "sledges" in 1996, an array of priceless artefacts from the forgotten empire, likened to the legendary lost city of Atlantis, have been hauled to the surface over the past ten years.

The divers had struck upon the remains of a vast metropolis and series of ports capable of harbouring a fleet of 300 ships that was also home to a half a million-strong population of Egyptians, Jews, Nubians, Greeks and Romans from around 332 BC until the time of Queen Cleopatra some three centuries later.

"In beauty, greatness and wealth, Alexandria surpasses all other cities," wrote the Greek historian and chronicler Diodor at the time of the city's heyday in around 100 BC.

The divers' underwater treasure amounted to thousands of artefacts including ancient astronomical calendars, jewels, gold coins, vases, the remains of ancient temples, a monumental five ton and five-metre-high granite statue of the Egyptian fertility god Hapi and the first verifiable gold images of Queen Cleopatra herself.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his German counterpart Horst Koehler were present in Berlin last week as just part of the sensational haul, comprising 500 artefacts, went on show for the first time at the city's Martin Gropius exhibition hall. The collection will later transfer to Paris and then London before being put on permanent display at a specially designed site in Alexandria.

The discovery of "Cleopatra's sunken treasures" is the work of Franck Goddio, a 59-year-old Frenchman, nicknamed "The Indiana Jones of the sea" who more than 12 years ago decided to pack up a comparatively mundane career as a financial consultant to the UN to devote more time to his passion for undersea archaeology.

His collection sheds light on more than 1500 years of ancient history beginning with the conquest of the Nile metropolis by Alexander the Great in 332 BC.

For the next three centuries the port city was governed by a succession of barbaric kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Their rule ended with Cleopatra's failed attempts to enlist the support of Caesar and Marc Antony in building a Greek empire with Alexandria at its centre.

The city's demise was finally sealed by Octavian during the naval battle of Actium in 31 BC.

Yesterday, Mr Goddio insisted that there was far more on the seabed near Alexandria that was waiting to be brought to the surface.

"It has been astonishing to discover and handle artefacts that have been touched by Cleopatra herself," he said.

"But so far we have only managed to investigate about two per cent of the undersea area that needs to be explored."

One of the team's most significant finds was an 80-drachma gold coin which casts considerable doubt on Queen Cleopatra's legendary reputation as a beauty. The coin, which bears the head of the Egyptian queen, was subjected by Goddio to computer tests and discovered that Cleopatra had a hooked nose and fat cheeks.

"In all likelihood Cleopatra seduced Caesar and Mark Antony with charm rather than looks," he said.

Goddio started his search using 19th century maps and the findings of an early archaeological survey of the area conducted by Prince Omar Tousson. Scale models of the city complete with its famous lighthouse - once one of the seven wonders of the world - were built in an attempt to create an exact reproduction of the port which was destroyed over centuries by a series of earthquakes and flooding of the Nile delta.

Alexandria's treasures

* Ancient astronomical calendars
* A 5m-high granite statue of the Egyptian fertility god Hapi
* The first verifiable gold images of Queen Cleopatra

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