One of the world's most remarkable ruined places is the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion.

Once a thriving hub of the ancient world, the city was devastated by a series of environmental disasters, & now lies 6.5km off the coast in the blue waters of the Egyptian sea.

The story of its discovery began in 1933, when an RAF pilot flying off the coast of Alexandria reported a strange sight in the water.

He claimed to have seen massive ruined structures below the waves: buildings, squares & streets, a whole city lost beneath the ocean.

Divers set out to explore the spot, but they were unable to learn much or corroborate the sighting in the silty water of the Egyptian coast.

They found something, though: an enormous head of stone, larger than life, thought to be part of a statue depicting Alexander the Great.

These ruins would remain a mystery for another 70 years, until 1999, when a group of archaeological divers were exploring Egypt's shallow Abu Qir Bay.

They were searching for the warships of Napoleon’s fleet that were sunk by Admiral Nelson during the 1798 Battle of the Nile.

While mapping the area & searching through the detritus of the 18th century, the cannons, buttons & living utensils, they stumbled upon something else. Something much older.

It was a stone head, half-buried in the silt & sand.

Some of the most remarkable lost artefacts from the ancient world were the titanic wrecks of the Nemi ships.

In their 1st century heyday they held gardens, palaces & baths in a floating wonderland. But barely a decade after their recovery, they were lost forever.

For centuries, the fishermen who sailed in the placid waters of Lake Nemi, 30km south of Rome, knew a secret.

It was said that the rotting timbers of a gigantic ancient wreck lurked below the water's quiet surface.

(📷 Kleuske; Google)

But the lake was tiny, with an area only 1.6km².

And with no other body of water connected to it, what would a vessel of that size be doing there?

(🖌️Lake Nemi, George Inness, 1872)

Still, the stories about the gigantic ship persisted. Fishermen even used grappling hooks to bring up ancient artefacts from the supposed wreck to sell.

In 1446 a young Cardinal & nephew of the Pope, Prospero Colonna, decided to investigate the rumours.

Sailing over the vast wreck, Colonna confirmed that it did indeed exist, a sprawling lattice of wooden beams just visible at a depth of 18.3 meters (60 ft).

His men tried to tear off planks with hooks, but didn't succeed in bringing up anything else.

(🖌️Joseph Wright, 1790)