Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-10-30

Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Submerged ancient harbour excavated west of Corinth

[01] Submerged ancient harbour excavated west of Corinth

The Lechaion Harbour Project involves the Underwater Antiquities Ephorate of the ministry, the SAXO Institute (University of Copenhagen) and the Danish Institute in Athens.

This season's work showed that the ancient harbour ran 911 metres along the modern Corinth Gulf coastline and the entrance channel to the port lay on the harbour's eastern part. The channel is 8.9 metres wide while a western and a middle mole were also found west of it.

At the entrance channel, eight caissons - or watertight retaining structures - were found, filled with small and medium-sized pebbles mixed with mortar made for marine structures. These unique structures, found nowhere else in Greece, point to plans to expand the port by adding another mole.

The excavators worked with the University of Patras on geologic research using what the latter call a "3D parametric sub-bottom profiler", an invention that will process the data to give a detailed map of the stratigraphy in the area, giving a sense of the coastal development throughout time. It may also reveal still-buried sections of the harbour or submerged objects.

The port played a pivotal role in Corinthian history, as it was located about 3 km west of Ancient Corinth and faced the West with its busy sea routes.

Research has been funded in 2014 by the Augustinus Foundation of Denmark and supervised by Dr. Dimitris Kourkoumelis and Dr. Bjorn Loven.

Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article