Sunken relics may lure tourists to Egypt

“No problem,” the young Egyptian guide said. “You’ll see it all, even the great lighthouse.”

It was a trip through Alexandria’s old harbor. Supposedly, we would be able to gaze into the deep and view sunken remains — Cleopatra’s royal residence as well as a palace she built for liaisons with her lover, Marc Antony, along with remnants of the Pharos lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world), and assorted sphinxes, columns and an obelisk. The half-hour cruise, however, revealed nothing but murky water.

“Well, here’s the new lighthouse,” the tour guide said chirpily, pointing to a lantern set atop a slender rod on a jetty. It’s not one of the Seven Wonders.

After 15 years of hauling priceless relics from in and around its harbor, Alexandria municipal officials and Egyptian antiquity authorities are trying to figure out how to make thousands of artifacts still at the bottom accessible for viewing by the public.

Municipal officials want to create an underwater archaeological park. Proposals under consideration include construction of an underwater bubble auditorium, conversion of the harbor into a giant pool with filters to remove silt and pollution and a submarine on rails to ferry visitors around.

The goal is to push the city into the major league of antique tourist attractions, a club in Egypt long dominated by Cairo, Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel. Alexandria has a Roman amphitheater, a Greco-Roman museum, a combination Pharaonic- Greek-Roman National Museum and assorted columns scattered around town, yet it has never made the splash that, say, Luxor makes with its temples and tombs, much less Cairo, with the pyramids.

Alexandria’s potential surfaced, literally, in the early 1990s when European underwater archaeologists began to pull up stones, statues, pottery and jewelry. Egyptians knew the jumble of relics lay there — the first explorations took place in 1868 — but they thought of the colossal items as part of the environment, like reefs.

“I used to swim around them as a kid,” said Ashraf Sabri, owner of an underwater diving center that guides scuba enthusiasts to the ruins. “The statues were good places to hunt fish. Women used to make wishes over Cleopatra and Antony’s love palace in hopes of finding a mate.”

Last year, Alexandria’s underwater glories burst into international view with a touring exhibition called “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures,” which opened in Berlin, showed in Paris and is currently on display at Bonn’s Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland museum. In 2008, it goes to Madrid.

“We’re finally on the map,” said Ibrahim Darwish, director of Alexandria’s National Museum. When the artifacts return to Egypt, the collection will be displayed at the city’s Maritime Museum, Darwish said.

Alexander the Great founded the city in 331 B.C. Three hundred years later, Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, conquered it while pursuing Antony, a rival after the assassination of Julius Caesar. Both Antony and Caesar were lovers of Cleopatra; she tried using her charms to save Egypt from full domination by Rome and perhaps even make Alexandria the center of the empire.

In any event, beginning in the fourth century A.D., earthquakes threw the city’s temples and palaces into the sea. Alexandria is now part of Egypt’s effort to attract more visitors — tourism is the country’s biggest foreign-exchange earner, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt.

The problem is, Alexandria’s 19th century, French-style waterfront, beaches and outdoor cafes are not considered enough of a lure. “The harbor is important for us,” said Adel Labib, Alexandria’s governor. “We have something unique in our hands and we must exploit it.”

The obstacles are daunting, and Sabri, the dive-tour operator, is skeptical of the plans. Scum forms quickly on glass in the harbor, he said, so an underwater auditorium is impractical. Any construction, either rails or barriers face the dangers of harsh winter storms that have been known to roll even giant stones along the bottom of the harbor, Sabri added.

Nonetheless, Alexandria is at least paying attention to the possible wealth beneath the waves. Until three years ago, the city dumped on its antiquities — sewerage flowed directly into the old harbor. “It was like putting toxic waste by the pyramids,” said Sabri. “So even in an old city like this, things change.”

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