CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac on Friday unveiled an exhibition of sunken treasures spanning 1,500 years of Egyptian history. The Sunken Treasures of Egypt show brings together about 500 statues, ceramics and other antiquities excavated from three underwater sites on the Nile delta and off the ancient port city of Alexandria. Mubarak, in Paris as part of a five-day European tour, toured the display at the Grand Palais in Paris in the company of First Lady Suzanne. They were also joined by Mrs Chirac Bernadette. While some of the artifacts, which date back to 700 BC, were slowly swallowed by the Mediterranean as sea levels rose, others sunk during tidal waves. They were recovered throughout ten years of excavation and restoration by the Paris-based European Institute of Submarine Archaeology. Recovered by a team of French underwater explorers, led by the archaeologist Franck Goddio, the 500 pieces lay buried for hundreds of years on the Mediterranean floor, off Egypt s Nile Delta. The centerpiece of the display is a five-meter statue of Hapy, Egyptian god of the Nile, along with statuettes of other deities, coins and everyday objects. The exhibition, which includes several colossal statues in pink granite and stone sphinx and pharaoh heads, runs through mid-March at the recently restored Grand Palais museum. The objects will then be returned to Egypt.
