Scientists recently discovered a 2,000-year-old ancient Egyptian pleasure boat off the coast of Alexandria. The wild part? It was an estimated 115 feet long and 23 feet wide, which was massive for its time. It also matches a description of the first-century Greek historian Strabo, per The Guardian.

Around 29-25BC, Strabo visited the city and observed how these vessels were used.

“These vessels are luxuriously fitted out and used by the royal court for excursions; and the crowd of revellers who go down from Alexandria by the canal to the public festivals; for every day and every night is crowded with people on the boats who play the flute and dance without restraint and with extreme licentiousness,” he wrote.

Archaeologists Discover 2,000-Year-Old Shipwreck Off Egypt’s Coast

Along with the Institut Européen d’Archéologie Sous-Marine (IEASM), archaeologist Franck Goddio led the excavation that uncovered this ancient thalamegos, which was covered in Greek graffiti dating back to the first half of the 1st century AD.

“This intriguing shipwreck could have been used along the canals in Alexandria as Strabo described, but as it was also found very close to our excavations on the temple of Isis on Antirhodos Island, it could well have sunk during the catastrophic destruction of this temple around 50 AD (taking into account its dating),” he explained.

Possible Spiritual Significance?

Goddio believes that the boat might have served a ritualistic/spiritual purpose. 

“It could have belonged to the sanctuary and be part of the naval ceremony of the navigatio iside when a procession celebrating Isis encountered a richly decorated vessel—the Navigium—which embodied the solar barque of Isis, mistress of the sea,” he claims. “This vessel was performing a yearly ritual voyage of the goddess from the Portus Magnus of Alexandria to the sanctuary of Osiris at Canopus alongside the Canopic Channel.”

As Strabo put it in his writings, “they hold feasts in cabin-boats (thalamagoi), in which they enter the thick of the cyami and the shade of the leaves.”

The most well-known of these “thalamagoi” were the Ptolemies’ (Greek dynasty) massive “floating palaces.” Think: Cleopatra VII’s luxurious vessel, which she apparently used to show Julius Caesar the sights of Egypt in 47 BC.

According to Goddio’s website, “Although research on the wreck is still at an early stage, it promises to be a fascinating journey into life, religion, luxury, and pleasure on the waterways of early Roman Egypt.”