Cities from the deep: Wonders of ancient Egypt go on show for the first time after spending thousand years submerged beneath the Mediterranean

Archaeological wonders that lay beneath the Mediterranean seabed for more than a thousand years are to go on show for the first time, the Daily Mail reports.

Towering statues, golden jewellery and hieroglyphic tablets that were feared to have been lost forever have been reclaimed from the sea and will be go on display in a major exhibition at the British Museum.

The treasures belong to the sunken cities of Heracleion and Canopus, built on the shifting ground of the Nile delta, which are now buried beneath 10ft (3 metres) of silt.

Photographs released today offer a sneak peek inside the highly anticipated exhibition, which opens on Thursday. 

Ancient texts record the existence of the settlements, which were the gateway to Egypt before Alexandria rose to prominence. But the two trading hubs were lost - literally - to the sands of time until a chance discovery in 1996.

Divers in the mouth of the Nile unearthed the treasures, and have spent almost two decades since painstakingly dredging them out of the deep.

Highlights of the collection include a 6ft (1.9 metre) heirogylphic tablet inscribed with a royal declaration from Pharaoh Nectanebo I and a 5.4m statue of Hapy, an Egyptian god who personifies the Nile's floods.

The exhibition, called Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost World, will run from 9 May to November. It will combine items from the Museum's own archives with items on special loan from Egyptian authorities, who rarely let the artefacts leave their country.

Around 300 items will be put on display, most of which were pulled from the sunken ruins. The underwater conditions in which they were kept mean that a large number of the artefacts have been remarkably well preserved.

The exhibition will focus on the mingling of cultures in the Nile delta cities, particularly the interaction between Egypt and Ancient Greece.

Other treasures on display will include a statue of Arsinoe II, a queen in the Ptolemaic dynasty which was founded after Alexander the Great conquered the country.

The exhibition shows how a pioneering European team, led by Franck Goddio in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, made use of the most up-to-date technologies to find the lost treasures.

Franck Goddio, the president of the European Institutue of Underwater Archaeology and a co-curator of the exhibition, said: 'My team and I, as well as the Hilti Foundation, are delighted that the exhibition with discoveries from our underwater archaeological expeditions off the coast of Egypt will be on display at the British Museum.

'It enables us to share with the public the results of years of work at the sunken cities and our fascination for ancient worlds and civilisations.

'Placing our discoveries alongside selected masterpieces from the collections of Egyptian museums, complemented by important objects from the British Museum, the exhibition presents unique insights into a fascinating period in history during which Egyptians and Greeks encountered each other on the shores of the Mediterranean.'