Land in the area of Canopus was subject to rising sea levels, earthquakes, tsunamis, and large parts of it seem to have succumbed to liquefaction sometime at the end of the 2nd century BC.

[9] Early Egyptological excavations some 2 or 3 km from the area known today as Abu Qir have revealed extensive traces of the city with its quays, and granite monuments with the name of Ramesses II, but they may have been brought in for the adornment of the place at a later date.

Through an old misunderstanding, the name "canopic jars" was applied by early Egyptologists to the vases with human and animal heads in which the internal organs were placed by the Egyptians after embalming.

[13] The emperor Hadrian built a villa at Tivoli, 18 miles away from Rome, where he replicated for his enjoyment architectural patterns from all parts of the Roman Empire.

[11] The Egyptian town of Abu Qir ("Father Cyrus"), honoring two Christian martyrs, is located a few kilometres away from the ruins of Canopus.

On 25 July 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte destroyed there a Turkish army 18,000 strong; and on 8 March 1801, the French garrison of 1,800 men was defeated by 20,000 English and Ottoman Turks commanded by Abercromby.

Three kilometres (2 mi) east of Canopus was the famous Pharaonic temple of Manouthin, afterwards destroyed by monks, and a church on the same spot dedicated to the Four Evangelists.

St. Cyril of Alexandria solemnly transported the relics of the holy martyrs Cyrus and John into the church, which became an important place of pilgrimage.

It was here that St. Sophronius of Jerusalem was healed of an ophthalmy that had been declared incurable by the physicians (610–619), whereupon he wrote the panegyric of the two saints with a compilation of seventy miracles worked in their sanctuary (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LXXXVII, 3379–676) Canopus formed, with Menelaus and Schedia, a suffragan see subject to Alexandria in the Roman province of Aegyptus Prima; it is usually called Schedia in the Notitiae episcopatuum.

[19] Underwater archaeology at the eastern portion of Canopus, 16 mi (26 km) northeast of Alexandria in Abu Qir Bay, has provided numerous important discoveries including the following: Attribution: