A New Propose for Prehistoric Tritonis Lake’s Location based on Apollonius of Rhodes’ description

Abstract. The Argonauts’ trip along the northern limit of the Libyan Desert, from Syrtis Gulf to Tritonis Lake, is described by Apollonius Rhodes’ text ‘Argonautica’. The Argonauts sailed in this lake and located a narrow passage through which they exit to the Mediterranean’s coast. In this work, we followed the ancient text carefully, step by step, in order to find the ‘unknown’ location of pre-historic Tritonis Lake. All the steps of the trip were tested trans-scientifically and found correct in many aspects. Today’s many wadis, sabkhas and oasis, which cover the northern part of the Libyan Desert, are the remnants of numerous older rivers or lakes existing there in the 13^th century BC, when the Argonautic Campaign happened. The current lakes of the Siwa Oasis were part of the Tritonis Lake, which was extended to the east and covered a large part of today’s Qattara Depression. Using modern technology, we found the narrow water passage which led the Argonauts from the Tritonis Lake to the Mediterranean Sea, near El Alamein’s coast. From there, Argo sailed eastwards parallel to the African coast till a promontory, according to Apollonius. This is the Abu Qir Cape in the Canopis Nile Delta. From there, the ship reached eastern Crete, since the sailors had previously seen the mountains of Karpathos Island, as Apollonius notes.