Archeologists find Roman shipwrecks off Egypt's north coast

SCI-TECH

Archeologists find Roman shipwrecks off Egypt's north coast

The Associated Press Published Tuesday, November 21, 2017 11:16AM EST

Traffic passes next to the Mediterranean sea on the corniche in Alexandria, Egypt on May 15, 2007. Alexander the Great founded Alexandria to immortalize his name on his way to conquer the world, but his may not have been the first city on the famed site on Egypt's Mediterranean coast. (AP / Ben Curtis, File)

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CAIRO -- Egypt says archaeologists have discovered three sunken shipwrecks dating back more than 2,000 years to Roman times off the coast of the city of Alexandria.

Tuesday's statement from Mostafa Waziri, the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the discovery was made in collaboration with the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology.

Waziri says the archeologists also uncovered a head sculpture carved in crystal and three gold coins dating back to Rome's first emperor, Augustus. Parts of large wooden planks and archaeological remains of pottery vessels were also found, which could have been part of the ships' cargo.

The discoveries were made in Alexandria's Abu Qir Bay. Separately from the Roman-era finds, a votive bark of the pharaonic god Osiris was found in the nearby sunken city of Heraklion.