��to sunken treasures - 20,000 Worlds Under the Sea - discovery of a 2,300-year-old statue in Alexandria, Egypt

In May 1998 the 25-tonne, 11-metre-tall colossus of Alexandria made its first voyage when it was shipped to Paris to be displayed in the square facing the Petit Palais. In Antiquity, the statue stood before the Alexandria lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the world. After six centuries at the bottom of the sea and five years of excavations, it took barely five weeks to assemble the four pieces of granite discovered by archaeologists. The 2,300-year-old statue of the Greek pharaoh Ptolemy II has at last been restored to its original splendour.

Many mysteries lie at the bottom of the sea. The most spectacular of them are shipwrecks. More than four million people have visited the 16th-century English warship Mary Rose since she was raised in 1982. The wreck of the Wasa, the pride of the Swedish navy that sank in 1628, has been Stockholm's biggest tourist attraction since 1961. Last but not least there's the wreck of the Titanic. In 1985 televised pictures of the sunken luxury liner mesmerized audiences around the world, 73 years after she came to rest on the ocean floor.

Many other archaeological discoveries have not made front-page news, but provide valuable information about the past. The excavation of a 14th-century-B.C. trading vessel off the southern coast of Turkey has helped us understand trade in the Mediterranean area during the Bronze Age. Lisbon's National Archaeology Museum has listed 850 ships that have sunk off the Azores since 1522, their holds often laden with precious stones and metals. These wrecks shed new light on trade between Europe, the New World and the West Indies.

The sea usually preserves vestiges of the past better than the earth, but archaeological excavation under water is much more difficult than on land. Chance plays a role in finding sunken treasures, but it is technology that has worked wonders. There is a downside to technology, however. Remote-controlled submersibles and satellites that can scan the ocean floor are available only to those who can pay - mostly modern-day pirates.

Many sites coveted by treasure-hunters may end up suffering the same fate as the wreck of the Dutch-flagged Geldermahlsen that went down in the South China Sea in 1752. Christie's, one of the world's biggest auction houses, sold the cargo for $16 million in 1986, reaping a handsome profit for the salvager. The recovery of the cargo led to the complete destruction of the coral-encrusted wreck and its resting place, wiping out a chapter of history forever.

COPYRIGHT 1998 UNESCO
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