The underwater discoveries behind the exhibition “Osiris, Egypt’s Sunken Mysteries” are the product of the team working in the European Institute of Underwater Archaeology [ IEASM ], under Franck Goddio’s leadership, a dedicated international group including such diverse specialists as archaeologists, Egyptologists, divers, numismatists, ceramic specialists, academics, archaeological reconstructors and conservators, electronic engineers, technicians, artists, cameramen, and photographers… In total, some thirty – and sometimes up to fifty – persons from France, Egypt, Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Spain, Russia and the Philippines work side by side with the excavation director. Generally, the team gathers twice a year, in spring and autumn, on board the support vessel “Princess Duda” to search and excavate the sites of Alexandria as well as those of Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion in the Aboukir Bay.
The Oxford Centre of Maritime Archaeology (OCMA) participates in the missions with post-graduate students and offers them the possibility, thanks to PhD scholarship grants, to focus their research on archaeological material discovered by the work of the IEASM. OCMA also supervises the academic publication of all studies resulting from the excavations.
The archaeological venture is controlled by the IEASM (Institut Européen d’Archéologie Sous-Marine), a non-profit association under French law of 1901, created by Franck Goddio in 1987, and placed under the supreme authority of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, which supervises all archaeological work in the country.
