Speakers
Dr Christos REPAPIS
Secretary General, The Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences
Biography:
Christos Repapis is a participant in the underwater archaeological and geophysical surveys of the Greek Mission in Alexandria, Egypt (1998–2016). He was Associate Professor at the Department of Meteorology, University of Ioannina, Greece; and Director of the Research Center of Atmospheric Physics and Climatology of the Academy of Athens (1985–2005). In addition, he was Secretary-General of the Board of Directors since the establishment of Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for Environmental Sciences in 1993.
Christos Repapis is born in Cairo, Egypt. He graduated from the Physics Department, Athens University. He obtained his Master’s degree in Meteorology from Athens University, and PhD in Meteorology, Climatology. He attended post-doctoral studies and research at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in Boulder, Colorado, University of Minnesota, USA; and also at the University of Birmingham, UK. He published several papers in the International Scientific Journal; and scientific reports in Meteorology, Climatology and Physics of the Atmosphere.
Abstract:
The Underwater Archaeological and Geophysical Surveys of the Greek Mission in Alexandria, Egypt (1998–2016)
Christos Repapis
Harry Tzalas
In 1997, the Hellenic Institute of Ancient and Medieval Alexandrian Studies obtained from the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt a concession for an archeological underwater survey of the Eastern Coast of Alexandria. The following year, the Greek Mission conducted its first survey on a site extending eastwards of Al-Silsilah Promontory. Twenty-nine surveys have been conducted, in cooperation with the Department of Underwater Antiquities of Egypt. Nowadays, the area of the concession extends up to the Bay of Mandara. The 2014, 2015 and 2016 campaigns were jointly conducted with the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for Environmental Sciences and focused on a better understanding of the process that lead to the uneven subsidence of the littoral of Ancient Alexandria. The most abrupt submergence was noted between the El Hassan Reef and the tip of Al-Silsilah Promontory.
The Corniche recent widening obliterated most of the findings at Ibrahimieh and Sporting, while the dumping of concrete blocks modified the aspect of the submerged remains of a necropolis extending from Bir Maasoud to Gezireh Gabr el-Khour at Sidi Bishr.
The most important findings are in the area of Akra Lochias, east of Silsileh, and include numerous architectural remains of the Graeco-Roman times, some attributable to the Temple of Isis Lochias neighboring the Mausoleum of Cleopatra VII. Eight large blocks with pharaonic inscriptions have also been found. Important structures, as well as, artifacts scatter on the seabed at Chatby.
A large ancient stone quarry was surveyed at Ibrahimieh just in time before its disappearance under the reclaiming material and the concrete blocks dumped for the widening of the Corniche. Other important remains of ancient structures were surveyed extensively before their partial disappearance under the concrete blocks at Sporting.
An excavation on Gezireh Gabr el-Khour Islet brought to light a hypogeum tomb and some 70 stone anchors have been found, most on a reef off Ibrahimieh; they date to Islamic times; over 50 were raised and conserved. The main components of a large composite Late Hellenistic/Early Roman anchor, as well as an iron anchor dating to Late Roman or Early Byzantine times, were raised and conserved.
All those findings have added important information to the topography of the Eastern part of the Baseilia, the Royal Quarters, as well as of the extended suburbs Extra Muros known as “I pros Eleusini Thalasa”, Mare Eleusinium, Nicopolis, Juliopolis and later as Ramleh.