Speakers
Dr Isabelle Hairy
Research Engineer, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Biography:
Isabelle Hairy is a Research Engineer (IR1) at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). She holds a DEA (Postgraduate Diploma) in History and Archaeology from the University of Lyon 2, France (2002), a CEAA in Architecture & Archaeology from the College of Architecture, Strasbourg; and University of Lyon 2, France (1995), and a DPLG Architecture from the Heritage Section, Architecture College of Paris La Défense, France (1991). She was an IR – Architect-Archaeologist with CRES (Pharaonic Worlds) at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and an Architect–Archaeologist in the French Archaeological Mission of Tanis, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Egypt. She wrote many academic articles, including “Les fouilles sous-marines sur le site de Qaitbay”, chronique archéologique des ruines du phare, to be published in 2016, “Alexandrie médiévale: La question de l’eau” (2008), as well as “Mythes et réalité virtuelle: Le cas d’Alexandrie” (2004). She also participated in several academic conferences, symposiums and workshops, such as Réunion des Journées Homère sur les Littoraux in Alexandria (2010) with a paper entitled: “L’apport de l’archéologie à la compréhension de la structure des rides côtières I et II à Alexandrie”, as well as a conference on Water Management in the Mediterranean during the 1st Millennium BCE in Aix‑Marseille University with a paper entitled: “Alexandrie (Egypte): Aménagements hydrauliques et gestion des ressources naturelles à la fin du premier millénaire avant notre ère”.
Abstract:
Underwater Excavations off the Qaitbay Fort: Twenty Years of Work and the Latest Results
The ruins of the Pharos of Alexandria, constructed at the beginning of the 3rd century BCE and destroyed at the beginning of the 14th century CE, lie off the eastern edge of the Pharos peninsula. A series of seismic events, beginning around the 4th century CE, caused the shoreline of the ancient City and the site itself to submerge underwater. After the disappearance of the Pharos, the ruins were forgotten for centuries, only to be revealed thanks to the attempts of the local authorities to conserve the Citadel of Qaitbay, which was constructed in 1477, near the spot where the Pharos had once stood.
The underwater site covers a visible area of at least 13,000 m2, and holds more than 3,000 elements lying between 2.6 m and 8.5 m beneath sea level. The first campaign of salvage excavations began in autumn 1994 under the leadership of Jean–Yves Empereur, then the Director of the Centre d’Études Alexandrines (CEAlex) (1990–2015). Since then, the CEAlex has conducted one or two missions per annum. The initial objectives of the excavation were to establish an overall map of the ancient sunken elements, and to create databases recording the principal characteristics of the charted pieces. Over the past 22 years, these databases have come to list fragmentary and complete architectural blocks and statuary, as well as metal items (bronze, iron and lead), most of which served as architectural fixing elements that provided stability to the now sunken constructions. The highly disturbed nature of the site, in addition to the erosion that has erased all trace of sedimentary or anthropogenic stratigraphy, has meant that the study of the site has principally involved establishing connections between ensembles of elements and their distribution in space, as well as an attempt to reconstitute monuments. Today, we are at a point where we might propose an historical interpretation of the site and partial reconstitutions of the monuments that stood there in Antiquity.