#2: Podcast on Maritime Archaeology with Franck Goddio
Join the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology’s (OCMA) podcast series and dive into the fascinating world of Maritime Archaeology. In this episode, uncover how Alexandria’s Portus Magnus evolved from a modest fishing village into the Roman empire’s most significant trading hub.
Episode 2 - The Portus Magnus of Alexandria: 25 years of underwater archaeological research
Since the early 1990s Franck Goddio and the IEASM, in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the Hilti Foundation, have been exploring the submerged remains of the great eastern port of Alexandria, the Portus Magnus. Through painstaking survey and detailed stratigraphic excavation, an accurate map of the harbor floor has been developed and many of its important buildings revealed. These include the palaces and temples on the Island of Antirhodos and the Poseidium Peninsula where Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra VII used to stay, as well as the commercial infrastructure that crowded its ports.
In this lecture, Franck Goddio presents for the first time a sweeping panorama of his 25 years of work in the Portus Magnus in order to demonstrate its life history from its origins as a small Egyptian fishing village, through the subsequent foundation of the city by Alexander the Great and its years as the lavish centerpiece of the Ptolemaic empire, to its place in the Roman empire as the greatest trading emporium in the whole world.
Start listening now to uncover the secrets of Alexandria’s Portus Magnus!
About the Oxford Institute for Maritime Archaeology
The OCMA was established in 2003 as a collaborative venture by the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford, the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) under the direction of Franck Goddio, and the Hilti Foundation, to create a center of expertise for Maritime Archaeology at the University. By supporting Franck Goddio and the IEASM since 1996, the Hilti Foundation has made a lasting contribution to innovation in underwater archaeological research.