Some drowned, some buried

Artefacts immersed in the Nile at Aswan and a 19th-Dynasty funerary collection in Luxor are the most recent discoveries in Egypt, as Nevine El-Aref reports

It is surely in the quiet and relaxing city of Aswan that the Nile is at its most beautiful. The river flows through an amber desert, past granite rocks and round emerald islands smothered in palm groves and tropical plants. This peaceful scene, however, was disturbed last week by archaeologists shouting and yelling at one another from their moored yacht while they carried out the delicate task of hoisting a decorative object from the bed of the river where it had lain for more than 2,500 years.

From Al Ahram Weekly (link to full article)

This is heartening to see. I have long wondered why underwater archaeology hasn’t been deployed in the Nile. And now, at long last, it is. The potential of underwater archaeology in the Nile is obvious. Barges carrying cargos of every sort used the Nile under the auspices of every single ruler from Narmer to Nectanebo II. Ships sink, cargos come loose… And of course, river levels change, as the portico of Khnum shows us clearly. So let us hope that this is the first of many such missions, and that more resources can be secured to retrieve these finds already made in the future.