Description

Head of the god Serapis, with curly hair, and a thick beard, and five locks of his hair falling on his forehead, On the top of the head is a horizontal, circular surface, in its center a square hole as a fixing point for the Calathos  which was found further away on the seabed at ancient east Canopus . Its outer wall is decorated with a slight relief of two similar plants with thick stems and short side shoots ending in large leaves. The scale of the sculpture also plays an essential part in its identification, the head with the Calathos are 83 cm tall, the only head that is any larger is that of Crocodilopolis  in the Egyptian museum in Cairo, which is 90 cm tall, therefore it can be assumed that this was a colossal statue of between 4 and 4.5 meters tall, and it is not a simple votive statue.

Serapis

A god invented and introduced into Egypt by Ptolemy I to unite the Greeks and the Egyptians in common worship. He was revered as a healing divinity and the God of the other world. Serapis was portrayed as a man with curly hair and a beard, recognized by the five corkscrew curls on his forehead, wearing the kalathos on his head. His finest temple was the Serapeum  at Alexandria, this temple was considered to be one of the most splendid places of worship ever built on the Mediterranean, the patients would sleep and be visited by Serapis in their dreams, who prescribed the cures for their ailments.

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• Jürgen Bischoff, 2000 ans sous les mers: Les découvertes de Franck Goddio en Egypte, photographs by Christoph Gerigk (Gottingen: Steidl, 2016): 130.
• Arthur Cotterell, The Pimlico Dictionary of Classical Mythologies (London: Pimlico, 2000).
• Jean-Yves Empereur, Alexandria Rediscovered, translated by Margaret Maehler, photographs by Stéphane Compoint (London: British Museum Press, 1998)
• "Serapis" In: Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology. Kennedy, Mike Dixon. England, 2001.
• Franck Goddio, The Topography and Excavation of Heracleion-Thonis and East Canopus, 1996-2006, Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology Monograph 1 (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology. Institute of Archaeology, 2007): 53.
• Franck Goddio and Hélène Constanty, Trésors engloutis: Journal de bord d'un archéologue (Paris: Ed. du Chêne, 2003): 166-167.
• Franck Goddio and Manfred Clauss, eds., Egypt’s Sunken Treasures, photographs by Christoph Gerigk (London: Prestel, 2006): 232-235, 407.
• Franck Goddio and David Fabre, Trésors engloutis d’Égypte, photographs by Christoph Gerigk (Milan: 5 Continents, 2006): 118, 282.
• Goddio, Franck. The Topography and Excavation of Heracleion-Thonis and East Canopus, 1996-2006. Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology Monograph 1. Oxford: University of Oxford. Institute of Archaeology, 2007, p. 53.
• Franck Goddio and Aurélia Masson-Berghoff, eds., The BP Exhibition: Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds (London: Thames and Hudson, 2016): 130.
• Zahi A. Hawass and Franck Goddio, Cleopatra: The Search of the Last Queen of Egypt (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 2010): 76, 86-87.
• Zahi Hawass, ed., Bibliotheca Alexandrina: The Archaeology Museum (Cairo: The Supreme Council of Antiquities, 2002): 108, 111.
• Mona Serry, ed., Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Antiquities Museum, introduction by Ismail Serageldin (Alexandria: Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Antiquities Museum, 2015): 292-293, 338.
  عبد الحليم نور الدين، مواقع الآثار اليونانية الرومانية فى مصر (القاهرة: الخليج العربي للطباعة والنشر، 2006).