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TWO MONTHS after UNESCO agreed on a design proposed by French architect Jacques Rougerie for the first underwater museum of Egyptian antiquities on the Mediterranean coast in Alexandria, a mission from the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology has begun carrying out a feasibility study to examine the best procedures for its construction.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said the study was being carried out under the supervision of UNESCO, that would also follow step by step all construction work of the planned museum.

According to Rougerie's design, the museum will consist of a three-storey building. One storey will be onshore, another offshore and the third under the waves along with a large open-air terrace to act as a window so that visitors to the museum will be able to view Alexandria's Eastern Harbour. This will be decorated with four tall glass structures resembling the sails of a boat, which, according to Rougerie, will recall the lighthouse of Alexandria that illuminated the library and the world.

The onshore storey will house objects raised from the seabed at several sites on the Alexandria coast, not only in the Eastern Harbour itself. There will be space for further items that are yet to be discovered and cannot be left in situ.

Fibreglass tunnels will help viewers to pass from the onshore area to the underwater section. To solve the problem of the bay's murky waters that might make the monuments difficult to see, builders will probably have to replace the water with an artificial lagoon.

The second storey would contain important items from the sea that might be installed in their original environment and exhibited in aquariums. The third level would be an underwater plexiglass tunnel providing a unique window on the sunken capital of the Ptolemies.

"This level would stretch only a few kilometres along the seabed, or round one area of the sunken city, in an attempt to provide us with a first experience by which we could judge the success of the technology and, if there are any disadvantages, avoid repeating them in further extensions," Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said.

In the case that the feasibility study determines that the underwater museum can be constructed safely, then it will be built over three years. There is yet no data regarding cost of the construction. There are no serious concerns over the water pressure on the walls, since the harbour is only five to six metres deep.

Hosni explained that the projected museum would be one of the world's modern wonders. "I would like visitors to be able to view this marvellous discovery in situ," Hawass said. "It would be the first underwater museum of its kind in the world and I'm sure we can meet the challenge."