Superbe
exhibition in Grand-Palais : fifteen centuries of the history of Egypt,
through
489 objects that Franck Goddio and his European Institute of underwater
archaeology fished out off Alexandria and from Aboukir. This is
the history of another Egypt, less known, which however lasted
nearly fifteen centuries: conquest of Alexandre and the installation of
Ptolémée on arrival of Islam, while passing by
the Roman domination, then Byzantine Christian woman. But this Egypt is
not that of the Nile, it is that of the Mediterranean, cosmopolitan by
nature and its history, and whose vestiges largely disappeared at sea
in consequence of a conjugation from natural phenomena. It is this
wasted time and partly found, marrying the civilization of the Pharaons
to the influence come from Greece, then of Rome and Byzance, that
Franck Goddio, most famous and most media of the underwater
archaeologists “private”, presents to us : 489 objects found at sea
“and belonging all to Egypt”. “Absorbed Treasures of Egypt”
crowns ten years of work of Franck Goddio
and his team, since in 1996 it had the intuition that it was at the
edge of the current port of Alexandria that formerly the capital of
Ptolémées was spread out, ploughed up at the time of the
seism of year 375. This year, its plungers discovered a piece of wood
revealing the presence of a ship of Cléopâtre. Since then,
its research ceased, neither in Alexandria even, nor in bay close to
Aboukir, where it was to discover two disappeared cities, Canope
(Pegouti of the Egyptians), with 35 kilometers of Alexandria, half
covered by the current town of Aboukir, and Hérakleion
(Thônis), attested by the texts, but completely immersed with 7
kilometers with the broad one. The exhibition presents these three
sites, in a very evocative
scenography - films of archaeologists in diving projected on the walls,
continuity studios revealing the various phases of the rescue
operations, the whole plunging the rooms in a light and a lapping of
sea-beds which contrasts with the black of the ogee mouldings and the
gantries.
What strikes, from the start, it is disproportion between the coins
presented, between the gigantic statues kings, queens and gods and the
tiny mirrors and earrings of gold, between the monumental steles and
the currencies, oil lamps, equivocal ritual and other objects of the
everyday life found in these Egyptian towns of Ys.
Canope, initially. This city, largely former to the foundation of
Alexandria (331 before our era), delivered the most beautiful statuary:
splendid heads of Sérapis, this hybrid, semi-Zeus god,
semi-Osiris, invented by the pink or gray granite Greeks), with the
soft hellenistic curves, a naos (small vault) engraved of an Egyptian
calendar, going back to Nectanebo, last Pharaon before the arrival of
the Macedonians. And especially marvellous Arsinoë, left foot
ahead, arm along the body,
but of which the “clothing wet” mould sexy forms as on the
Greek “korê”. Christian crosses point out also the presence of a
Byzantine monastery, that of Metanoia.
Herakleion then. Thônis of the Egyptians, created into 800 before
J. - C., passage obliged of the Greeks who - already - traded with
Egypt, was regarded as lost. “Our discoveries, known as Franck Goddio,
in particular that of the large temple of Amon and its liturgical
furniture, of the monumental statues of a ptolémaïque queen
in Isis, a king and a Hâpy god (of believed of the Nile), stele
of Nectanebo, made it possible to answer the question of Strabon, into
27 before J. - C., which wondered whether there was a relationship
between Herakleion and Thônis. Yes, it is well the same city.”
Remain Alexandria, the prestigious one, the enigmatic one, the
Alexandria polemic, where Jean-Yves Empereur, of Ifao (French Institute
of oriental archeology) now reconciled with Franck Goddio - always
seeks his headlight, while the IEASM works in the port. “Curiously, the
plan of the city was not orthonormé, as it was of setting among
Greeks, but radiant.” The excavation of the port delivered maritime
complexes installations, but the exhibition chose to show moving
testimonys especially: enormous blocks of stone, barrels of columns and
engraved steles, pointing out the massacres whose Caracalla went guilty
to put at the step this critical city.
