Divers hunting for Alexander the Great's tomb make incredible discovery

Underwater archaeologists working near where the renowned ancient military leader Alexander the Great is believed to have been buried have made an incredible discovery. Experts have uncovered the wreckage of a luxurious ancient Egyptian pleasure barge in the sunken harbour of Alexandria, marking a major first.

Until now, a vessel of this kind, known as a thalamagos, has only ever been described in classical texts and artistic depictions, with no physical examples ever found. However, a team led by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) has now discovered a wreck comprising wooden timbers in remarkably good condition, stretching approximately 92 feet in length. Estimates suggest that the complete barge once measured approximately 115 feet in length and 23 feet in width. The thalamagos was uncovered in the almost 1,000-acre port of Portus Magnus, close to Antirhodos, an island that now lies beneath the Mediterranean in the northern Egyptian city.

The Port of the Royal Island of Antirhodos once formed part of Alexandria's great harbour complex. Before being claimed by the waves, the island featured a Ptolemaic Egyptian palace and remained occupied until the 4th century, when it succumbed to earthquakes and a tsunami following a tremor in the eastern Mediterranean near Crete in the year 365. It now lies at a depth of approximately 16 feet below the surface.

Thalamagos vessels, like the one uncovered, appeared in the writings of Strabo, a Greek geographer, historian and philosopher who visited Alexandria around 29-25 BCE. In one of his texts, Geography, he documented citizens who held "feasts in cabin-boats (thalamagoi), in which they enter the thick of the cyami and the shade of the leaves." An example also appeared in the famous Nile mosaic at Palestrina, filled with men on the hunt for hippos.

Builders of these party boats prioritised width in order to accommodate a central pavilion and ornate cabin. The hull featured a flat bottom with a sharp angle at the bow and a curved stern, as these vessels were designed for calm, shallow waterways rather than open-sea travel. More than 20 rowers would have moved the craft using oars.

Greek inscriptions found on the central structure date the vessel to the first half of the first century AD. The graffiti also confirms the barge was constructed locally in Alexandria. The wreck was found less than 164 feet from the Temple of Isis, which is also an active excavation site.

Underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio hypothesised that the wreck could have sunk during the destruction of the temple of Isis on Antirhodos Island around 50 CE. The same explanation is believed to be behind the disappearance of Alexander the Great's tomb, the exact location of which remains a mystery after his body was moved from Memphis to a mausoleum known as the Soma in Alexandria.

Mr Goddio suggested a "ritual use for the barge", that "it could have belonged to the sanctuary" and been "part of the naval ceremony of the navigatio iside when a procession celebrating Isis encountered a richly decorated vessel - the Navigium - which embodied the solar barque of Isis, mistress of the sea." The ship may have been embarking on a "yearly ritual voyage of the goddess" to Osiris's sanctuary up the coast at Canopus alongside the Canopic Channel.

The team are attempting to link the Temple of Isis to Cleopatra, the last ruler of the Ptolemaic Empire. According to a recent PBS special on the site, "while modern Alexandria stands on the ruins of the ancient city, some of the most significant artefacts from Cleopatra's time lay untouched".