One man’s plans for an extraordinary new museum aim to make sunken ancient Alexandria accessible to visitors, says Andrew Humphreys
Anyone who visits the Egyptian city of Alexandria hoping to take in its ancient monuments is going to be very disappointed. Though the city boasts the richest of histories – founded by Alexander the Great and home to the fabled ancient Library of Alexandria, the fabulous Pharos lighthouse and Cleopatra – there’s almost nothing left to see. Not yet, anyway –and not on dry land.
It seems the sea has done a far better job of preserving the ancient city than man has. Since the early 1990s, two rival French archaeologists have been busy revealing the treasures beneath the waters off Egypt’s second city. Jean-Yves Empereur discovered hundreds of stone blocks on the seafloor, which he subsequently identified as belonging to the Pharos, the prototype skyscraper regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. In the years since, he and his co-workers have recorded more than 3,000 sunken pieces, including columns, sphinxes and obelisks. He estimates another 2,000 objects still need cataloguing. Meanwhile, dives conducted by Franck Goddio, working across the harbour from Empereur, have brought to light more statues, sphinxes and ceramics in an area, he speculates, may be the site of the palace of Cleopatra. Goddio’s team also explored the waters off the village of Abu Kir, west of Alexandria, resulting in the discovery of Canopus and Heraklion, two ancient cities that were believed to be mythical until excavations brought them to light.
A great number of treasures were raised to the surface to be studied and warehoused, and a choice selection has just wrapped up a European tour, under the banner “Egypt’s Sunken Treasure”, that took in Berlin, Paris and Bonn. On the back of the success of this exhibition, there’s a growing call for these antiquities to be placed in a permanent gallery closer to home. Recently unveiled plans aim to bring this about in the most dramatic fashion.
“Four spires will vibrate in unison with the song of nature and the music of men, as they sing their melodies to the four cardinal points,” said Jacques Rougerie, explaining his fantastical designs for a proposed Alexandria Submarine Archaeology Museum. In 2006, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the absolute guardian of the nation’s cultural heritage, in cooperation with UNESCO, the cultural wing of the United Nations, invited designs for what was announced as the world’s first undersea museum; last year Rougerie’s concept was selected as the most unique, innovative and breathtaking.
His scheme takes the form of a belvedere hanging over the water on the seafront from where a tunnel leads underwater to a submerged, circular, glass-walled viewing chamber that looks onto the “statue garden”. The whole thing sits a short distance from the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the city’s spectacular, if surprisingly book-free and under-used, new 21st-century library.
Computer-generated visualisations of the new museum make it look like a flooded soccer stadium, but this is tame compared to some of Rougerie’s other projects. Described as “heir to Jules Verne and Captain Nemo”, the French marine architect – who lives on a boat on the Seine in Paris – has been designing underwater habitats since the early 1970s. Most recently, he introduced the world to the Sea Orbiter, a 51m-tall, semi-submerged floating tower, designed to drift around the world powered by nothing but sea currents and blown by the wind. The slow-moving ship would take two years to circumnavigate the earth while its onboard cargo of scientists studied the ecology of the underwater world. NASA is reportedly interested in sponsoring the scheme.
Alexandria’s underwater museum will be funded by the Egyptian government, with additional money coming from France and UNESCO. Construction is due to begin in late 2009.
Sceptics point out that the city has been here before. This is not the first time an underwater museum for Alexandria has been proposed – the idea has been in circulation since 1995, when the first relics were raised from the seabed. However, since that time, certain measures have been undertaken that make the success of any new museum more likely; specifically, the local governorate has closed three large sewerage tunnels that previously pumped effluent straight into the main harbour, obscuring visibility and causing unsightly pollution.
Asked whether he thought it likely the architect’s futuristic schemes would ever see the light of day, Ariel Fuchs, a spokesman for Rougerie, replies in the most sanguine of ways: “It’s Egypt, the place is full of mysteries.” |
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