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City & Village Tours: 0208 692 1133
In 2016 the British Museum will stage its first ever
exhibition of ancient treasures recovered from the seabed.
Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds - the 2016 British
Museum
Blockbuster
will run between 19 May and 27
November 2016. City & Village Tours are offering a day
at The British Museum called
Lost & Found
with a
specialist Blue Badge Guide from our award winning
team.
Lost & Found with a visit to Sunken Cities:
Egypt’s Lost Worlds
will include a fascinating guided
galleries tour highlighting treasures lost for millennia
whose rediscoveries changed our perceptions of the
past as well as a visit to the
Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost
Worlds
blockbuster exhibition. There are an incredible
13 acres of galleries at the British Museum.
Our
Lost & Found
guided tour will take your group
off the beaten track far from the madding crowd and
introduce you to little known wonders of the collection.
Canopus
and
Thonis-Heracleion
were Venice-like
cities that sat on adjacent islands in the Nile Delta until
catastrophic earthquakes caused them to sink without
trace for a thousand years. The lost cities were known
only from ancient texts and legends until they were
rediscovered just twenty years ago since which time
archaeologists have been busy bringing objects to the
surface. Described as an
Underwater Pompeii,
200
artefacts from the sunken cities will be displayed in
London. Visitors to the British Museum will be greeted
by a colossal statue, some 18 feet tall, of Hapy – the god
of the Nile flood and will be thrilled by a beautiful and
rather sexy statue of Queen Arsinoe II, daughter of the
first Ptolemy. There will also be exquisite and intricate
gold jewellery including loans from museums in Egypt
(the first since the Arab Spring) as well as treasures from
the British Museum’s own rich Egyptian collections.
Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds
will tell the story
of the relationship between the Ancient Egyptian and
Greek worlds. Following the death of Alexander the
Great in 323 BC his empire was divided among his
generals. Egypt went to the Greek general Ptolemy who
would become the first of 14 Pharaohs from his family
who would rule Egypt for the next 300 years until it was
annexed by Rome on the death of Cleopatra in 30BC.
All the Pharaohs were called Ptolemy so each was given
a cult name. The second Ptolemy was called Philadelphos
or sibling-lover because he married his sister Arsinoe II -
she of the sexy statue coming to London. Arsinoe II -
succeeded Ptolemy II’s first wife who was called
Arsinoe I because (just to keep everyone on their toes)
all the Ptolemaic Queens were called Arsione, Berenice
or Cleopatra - the one we all know best was Cleopatra
VII although she was only the 6th of that name.
As clear as the mud into which their island cities sunk
this Ptolemy lot!
Streets Paved With Gold
Ancient texts recorded the existence and role of the
two cities as key trading hubs that formed the gateway
to Egypt. Canopus was the principal port for trade with
Greece before the foundation of Alexandra nearby.
No one knows when it began. It’s original Egyptian name
was Pikaut but the Greeks called it Kanobos or Kanopos.
Homeric myth tells us that it was founded by Menelaus,
the King of Mycean Sparta, who was married to Helen
Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds
