Webinar: The Temples of Ancient Alexandria with Franck Goddio

Maritime archaeologist Franck Goddio was at the Hilti headquarters in Schaan for his annual visit and unveiled his team’s latest discoveries from their 2024 mission. What began with an initial exploratory excavation is now one of the most enduring and successful archaeological projects of our time.

Palaces and temples of ancient Alexandria

Goddio’s work in 2024 focused on the ancient great port of Alexandria with the island of Antirhodos, on which a royal palace for the pharaohs and a temple to the goddess Isis were located. Goddio and his team were able to rediscover both the palace and the temple.

After several excavations on the temple, architectural remains as well as fascinating objects, such as statues, ritual instruments, ceramics, coins, and rich donations, make it possible to reconstruct what was once the personal temple of Queen Cleopatra VII, the last of pharaohs, who considered herself to be the goddess Isis.

The presentation shows, for the first time, this famed sanctuary which was one of the most important of its kind in Alexandria-Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies – the Greek pharaohs - and at the time when the kingdom became a Roman colony.

Hear even more incredible insights from Franck Goddio himself:

A long-lasting partnership

Since 1996, the Hilti Foundation has been supporting the underwater archaeological research of French archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team of the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in the region of Alexandria. This partnership has not only led to the rediscovery of two cities, Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus, which had disappeared from the historical record for many hundreds of years but also to revolutionary scientific findings that have added significant new aspects to the history of the late Pharaonic period.