Occupation horizons found in the search for the ancient Greek city of Helike

Abstract

In 373 B.C. an earthquake and seismic sea wave destroyed and submerged Helike, the principal Greek city on the southwestern shore of the Gulf of Corinth. Our sonar survey of the seafloor in the area where ancient sources located Helike, southeast of Aigion, showed no evidence of a submerged city. We concluded that the site must now lie in the alluvial deposits of the adjacent coastal plain. Accordingly, we used bore hole drilling and geophysical techniques to look for buried occupation horizons on land. The bore hole cores yielded numerous ceramic fragments and remains of walls, ranging from near the surface to about 15 m deep, concentrated in an area of some 2 km2 on the upper part of the delta between the Selinous and Kerynites Rivers. Ceramic and organic samples from the cores yielded ages ranging from Byzantine to Early Helladic times. A shallow auger hole brought to light a superb fragment of an architectural terracotta statue from an Archaic building, ca. 600 B.C. Near the center of the ceramic-bearing area, we discovered by magnetometry a large Roman building and began its excavation. It may belong to a Roman settlement that Pausanias visited at the site of Classical Helike. The deeper layers of the excavation yielded black-glazed vase fragments from the 5th century B.C. and potsherds from Protogeometric and Mycenaean times. The overall results suggest that most of the Roman to Classical horizons lie within about 6 m of the surface, whereas Bronze Age horizons range down to 15 m. While we have yet to determine by excavation whether the occupation horizons include the center of a city, this area appears to be a strong candidate for the site of ancient Helike. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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