The rediscovery in 2000 of the submerged Egyptian-Greek emporion of Thonis-Heracleion (the Egyptian and Greek names, respectively) at the mouth of the Canopic branch of the Nile, caused a sensation for the spectacular finds and extraordinary preservation of architecture, sunken ships, artefacts and stratigraphic deposits. This volume presents papers delivered at a symposium held at Oxford in 2013, representing the efforts of the different groups working at the site to synthesise the current state of knowledge. After an introduction, the book comprises 16 chapters organised into four sections: ‘The religious landscape and gifts to the gods’; ‘The organisation of trade’; ‘Ships at Thonis-Heracleion’; and ‘Trade beyond Thonis-Heracleion’.

The introductory chapter by Robinson and Goddio provides an effective overview and lucid narrative of the main themes and findings, including the basic historical and chronological framework. The site had two main periods of occupation: the Egyptian Late Period (c. late seventh century through to Alexander's conquest in 332 BC) and the Ptolemaic period (c. 332 to the mid second century BC), after which it seems to have been abandoned. In the Late Period, Heracleion played a key role as an emporion and gateway to Egypt and the Nile along with Naukratis, the trade and production centre some 120km upriver. In the Ptolemaic period, Alexandria took over this gateway-role, but Heracleion persisted as a religious centre until its abandonment. Cross-cutting this historical chronology was an environmental episode that had profound implications: a rise in relative sea level that necessitated a shift in settlement focus from the submerging northern part of the site to the Central Island between 450 and 380 BC. The introduction also outlines a conceptual approach to Heracleion as part of the watery “‘small world’ of the northwestern Nile Delta” (p. 1), comprising rivers, islands, artificial channels, ports and seafront, and, simultaneously, as a commercial and religious centre intimately tied to Naukratis, Saïs and, later, Alexandria.

Part I addresses Heracleion's religious landscape. Goddio attempts to reconstruct the temples, deities and activities that constituted Heracleion's sacred topography. A major event in the religious life of the city was the foundation of the great sanctuary of Amun-Gereb on the Central Island in the mid fourth century BC. This sanctuary yielded the site's most spectacular find: the 2m-high black granite Stela of Thonis-Heracleion, in pristine condition, on which is recorded the Decree of Saïs in Year 1 of the reign of Nectanebo I (380 BC), granting the temple of Neith in Saïs one-tenth of the taxes on imports passing through Heracleion, and the same on transactions and local production in Naukratis. This inscription also gives the full Egyptian name of the settlement, and proves that Thonis and Heracleion are one and the same. Just north of the sanctuary, in the so-called Grand Canal, deposits of votive offerings—ladles, ritual vessels, metal statuettes and amulets and lead barque models—attest to the practice of casting objects into the water as part of the celebration of the ritual journey of Osiris. Heinz evaluates the evidence for local workshops producing the more than 300 statuettes and amulets so far discovered. No production centre has been located in situ, but the wide distribution of ingots, wasters and slag across the site indicates a decentralised mode of local production. Masson offers the comparative perspective of Egyptian Late Period metal votives at Naukratis, speculating on the sources of imported copper and lead, and observing that Naukratis was a centre—previously unrecognised—of metallurgical activity.

Part II addresses the economy. Muhs charts the increasing monetisation of the Egyptian economy in the Late Period, illustrated by the growing preference of state and temple to exact taxes in silver at bottleneck locations such as Heracleion and Naukratis. Von Bomhard gives a thorough analysis of the Thonis-Heracleion Stela from economic and palaeographic perspectives, and shows how a nearly identical copy at Naukratis unites these two cities in a network supporting the temple of Neith at Saïs. An analysis by Meadows of more than 1400 identifiable coins yields surprising results: monetisation began late at Heracleion, with no coinage until the fourth century BC, but spiking sharply in the Ptolemaic period before diminishing in Roman times; in contrast, there was a dramatic Roman-period rise in coinage at Naukratis. Corroborating other archaeological and textual evidence, there is a strong spatial focus on the Central Island, and monetary activity contracts suddenly in the middle of the second century BC. Grataloup tracks trends in the pottery of the Late and Ptolemaic periods. The assemblage is dominated by imported vessels until Ptolemaic times, when the ratio is reversed, coinciding with Alexandria's replacement of Heracleion as Egypt's main port. The absence of Eastern Sigillata A supports the mid-second-century BC depopulation scenario. Finally, van der Wilt assesses 156 weights—154 of them metal and 75 per cent of Greek type. Their distribution suggests two kinds of activities: potential locations of marketplaces and votives ritually cast into the water by sailors and merchants.

Part III presents what is known of the more than 700 anchors and 64 sunken ships, concentrated in the Central Port area and dating mainly between the sixth and second centuries BC. Fabre characterises the ships, which are found both singly and in clusters, as mainly Egyptian baris-type vessels, built primarily of local acacia wood. With their flat bottoms and minimal draft, they were ideally suited to the shallow riverine and wetland environment of the Delta. The following two chapters each examine one baris excavated at Heracleion. Belov demonstrates that Ship 17’s construction matches almost exactly with Herodotus’ description of a baris. Robinson uses Ship 43, part of a cluster of vessels, to stress that some ships were sunk deliberately and tethered in place as a “ship graveyard” (p. 211). He rejects the idea that they were sunk for defence, as this makes no sense historically or strategically, but finds it more plausible that they formed the foundation for a pontoon bridge or an artificial island.

The final set of papers in Part IV focuses on other sites in the Delta. They are good stand-alone studies, although there is little attempt to connect them with the main themes concerning Heracleion. Villing challenges common misconceptions by asserting that from its foundation in the late seventh century BC, Naukratis was an Egyptian-Greek port of trade, part of a chain of sites including Memphis and Heracleion that linked Egypt with the Mediterranean world. Thomas reports on two seasons of surface survey, excavation, topographic mapping, geophysics and geology at Naukratis, which has resulted in a topographic map incorporating all visible features from past and present research, including the probable location of the river harbour and associated magazines. The geophysical prospection documents the layout and development of a densely packed urban area that extended well beyond the limits of prior excavations. Bergeron uses the Greek pottery at Naukratis to assess the activities of different Greeks, contrasting the corpora of Corinthian and Chian pottery to characterise the former as sporadic personal offerings, and the latter as representing the ritual activities of a resident community. An impressively detailed survey of rural sites in the western Delta by Kenawi reveals a productive agricultural landscape, which he argues was the real economic stimulus for the commercial activity at ports such as Heracleion and Alexandria. The volume's final chapter by Wilson continues the theme of rural development, moving to the buried sea- and landscapes of the northern Delta around ancient Buto. The interplay of state and religious institutions in the management of land and resources over time from the Ptolemaic to Islamic periods profoundly influenced economic cycles and changing networks.

Thonis-Heracleion in context succeeds as a fine interpretive volume that offers a coherent and highly readable narrative—scholarly, yet comprehensible to the interested layperson. The book is attractively produced with copious colour photographs and line drawings that are uniformly excellent. The reader will come away with a vivid sense of the place, the material world and the rich history of Heracleion in the wider context of the Nile Delta and the Mediterranean.