Helike
Ἑλίκη | |
Location | Achaea regional unit, Greece |
---|---|
Coordinates | 38°13′19″N 22°07′54″E / 38.2220°N 22.1318°E |
Type | Settlement |
Site notes | |
Condition | In ruins |
Helike (/ˈhɛlɪkiː/; Greek: Ἑλίκη, pronounced [heˈlikɛː], modern Greek pronunciation: [eˈlici]) was an ancient Greek polis (city-state)[1] that was submerged by a tsunami in the winter of 373 BC.
It was located in the
History
Helike was founded in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000-2200 BC) as a proto-urban town with large rectilinear buildings and cobbled streets; walls and occupation layers rich in pottery of the Mycenaean period (c. 1750-1050 BC) were also found,[3] becoming the principal city of Achaea. The poet Homer states that the city of Helike participated in the Trojan War as a part of Agamemnon's forces.[4] In the space of a possible little Poseidon temple, beginning around 850 BC, religious artifacts like bronze and clay items such as figurines, clay chariot wheels, iron weapons, and pottery dating to the Archaic period, a bronze snake head, and rare golden necklace were found.[5]
Later, following its fall to the Achaeans, Helike led the Achaean League, an association that joined twelve neighboring cities in an area including today's town of Aigio. Helike, also known as Dodekapolis (from the Greek words dodeka meaning twelve and polis meaning city), became a cultural and religious center with its own coinage. Finds from ancient Helike are limited to two fifth-century copper coins, now housed in Bode Museum, Berlin. The obverse shows the head of Poseidon, the city's patron, and the reverse his trident.[6] There was a temple dedicated to the Helikonian Poseidon. Ancient Greeks would travel to Helike to be blessed by Poseidon and to trade.
Helike founded colonies including
Destruction
The ancient account puts Helike's destruction in 373 BC, two years before the
The catastrophe was attributed to the vengeance of Poseidon, whose wrath was incited because the inhabitants of Helike had refused to give their statue of Poseidon to the Ionian colonists in Asia, or even to supply them with a model. According to some authorities, the inhabitants of Helike and Bura had even murdered the Ionian deputies. An account by Seneca claims the sea destroyed the city after an appearance of a comet.[11]
About 150 years after the disaster, the philosopher
Around 174 AD, the traveler Pausanias visited a coastal site still called Helike, located seven kilometres southeast of Aigio, and reported that the walls of the ancient city were still visible under water, "but not so plainly now as they were once, because they are corroded by the salt water".[13]
For centuries after, its submerged ruins could still be seen. Roman tourists frequently sailed over the site, admiring the city's statuary. Later the site silted over and the location was lost to memory.
Adalberto Giovannini [de] argued that the submergence of Helike might have inspired Plato to end his story about Atlantis with its submersion.[14] Ancient scholars and writers who visited the ruins include the Greeks Strabo,[15] Pausanias and Diodoros of Sicily,[16] and the Romans Aelian[8] and Ovid.[17]
Subsequent events
On 23 August 1817, a similar disaster, an earthquake followed by a
Research efforts
The submerged town was long one of the biggest targets for underwater archaeology. Scientists were divided in their opinions about the exact location of Helike. Numerous archaeologists, historians, professors and explorers wrote, studied and actively searched, trying to discover any trace of the ancient town, with little success. But their work, essays, observations and studies contributed to an important and growing body of knowledge. Among them are the following:
In 1826, François Pouqueville, French diplomat and archaeologist, who wrote the Voyage en Grèce;[19] in 1851 Ernst Curtius the German archaeologist and historian who speculated about its location;[20] in 1879 J. F. Julius Schmidt, the director of Athens Observatory, issuing a study comparing the Aegeion earthquake which occurred 26 December 1861 with an earthquake which might have destroyed Helike;[21] in 1883 Spiros Panagiotopoulos, the mayor of Aegeion city, wrote about the ancient city; in 1912 the Greek writer P. K. Ksinopoulos wrote The City of Aegeion Through the Centuries[22] and in 1939 Stanley Casson, an English art scholar and army officer who studied classical archaeology and served in Greece as liaison officer, addressed the problem.
Other investigators include in 1948 the German archaeologist Georg Karo; in 1950 Robert Demangel, who was from 1933 to 1948 the director of the French School of Archaeology in Athens; in 1950 Alfred Philippson, German geologist and geographer; in 1952 Spiros Dontas, Greek writer and member of the Academy of Athens; in 1954 Aristos Stauropoulos, a Greek writer who published the History of the city of Aegeion;[23] in 1956 the Greek Professor N. Κ. Moutsopoulos; in 1967 Spyros Marinatos, a Greek archaeologist who wrote the Research about Helike[24] and in 1968 Helike-Thira-Thebes;[25] in 1962 George K. Georgalas, the Greek writer; and in 1967 Nikos Papahatzis, a Greek archaeologist who published Pausanias’ Description of Greece.[26]
In 1967 and in 1976, Jacques Cousteau made some efforts with no result. In 1979 in the Corinthian Gulf, the Greek undersea explorer Alexis Papadopoulos discovered a sunken town and recorded his findings in a documentary film which shows walls, fallen roofs, roof tiles, streets, etc. at a depth of between 25 and 45 m.[28] "Whether or not this town can be identified with Helike is a question to be answered by extensive underwater research. In any case, the discovery of this town can be regarded as an extremely interesting find", according to the Greek scientific journal Archaeology.[29]
Rediscovery
In 1988, the Greek archaeologist Dora Katsonopoulou, president of the Helike Society, and
Before Helike was rediscovered, a few false starts came along the way. In 1994, in collaboration with the
Excavations are being carried out in the Helike delta each summer and have brought to light significant archeological finds dating from prehistoric times when Helike was founded up until its revival in Hellenistic and Roman times.[32][34][35][36]
See also
References
- ISBN 0-19-814099-1.
- ^ "Helike Archaeological Site". World Monuments Fund. Retrieved August 4, 2013.
- ^ Archaeological Institute of America, (July 24, 2023),"The Helike Project"
- ^ Homer, Iliad, 2.575
- ^ Archaeology, (August 28, 2023). "Excavation Uncovers Potential Greek Cult Center of Poseidon", Archaeological Institute of America.
- ^ "MK-B | Helike vor 373 v. CHR".
- ISSN 0031-0387.
- ^ a b Aelian ; Scholfield, A.F., trans. (1959) On the Characteristics of Animals [Latin: De Natura Animalium], vol. 2 (in Greek and English), London, England: William Heinemann Ltd. Book 11, Chapter 19, pp. 384–387.
- ISBN 3-515-07252-7.
- ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, 7.25.4
- ^ Seneca, Natural Questions, Book 7, (5.4)
- ^ Strabo, Geography, 8.7.2
- ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 7.24.13
- ISSN 0027-4054.
- ISBN 0674992164.
- ^ Diodorus Siculus ; Booth, G., trans. (1814) The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian. vol. 2, London, England: J. Davis. Book 15, Chapter 5, pp. 36–38.
- ^ Publius Ovidius Naso ; Orger, Thomas, trans. (1814) Ovid's Metamorphoses. London, England: (Self-published) Book 15, lines 293–295, p. 315. From p. 315: "For Helicé or Buris should you seek, Achaïan towns, / o'erwhelmed beneath the waves / You'll find them: boatmen oft are wont to shew / The tottering cities, and their walls immers'd." (Latin: "Si quæras Helicen et Burin Achaïdas urbes, / Invenies sub aquis: et adhuc ostendere nautæ / Inclinata solent cum mœnibus oppida mersis.")
- ^ The 1817 earthquake at Vostitza and its effects are recounted in:
- Leake, William Martin (1830). Travels in the Morea. Vol. 3. London, England: John Murray. p. 402n.
- Reprinted in: Smith, William, ed. (1854). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. 1. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Little, Brown & Co. pp. 1034–1035.
- ^ Pouqueville, F.-C.-H.-L. (1826). Voyage en Grèce (in French). Vol. 4 (2nd ed.). Paris, France: Firmin Didot. pp. 414, 418–419. Pouqueville's guides assured him that they had seen the ruins of Helike and that they could show the ruins to him. However, as Pouqueville neared the supposed site of the ruins, his guides' assurances dwindled. From p. 418: "On m'avait promis de me montrer les ruines d'Hélice; mes guides les connaissaient; il[s] les avaient vues de leurs yeux; vingt personnes m'avaient attesté ce qu'ils affirmaient (5); le Neptune en bronze resté sur son piédestal était la ruine de pécheurs, il déchirait leurs filets; on apercevait les restes des monuments ensevelis sous les eaux. Cependant l'assurance de nos gens diminuait à mesure que nous approchions du terrain, … " (I had been promised to be shown the ruins of Helike; my guides knew them [i.e., the ruins]; they had had seen them with their own eyes; twenty people had attested what they claimed (5); the bronze [statue of] Neptune [which] remained on its pedestal was the ruin of fishermen, it tore apart their nets; the remains of monuments could be seen entombed beneath the waters. However, these people's certainty diminished as we approached the site, … ) Pouqueville finally concluded that the tales of the underwater ruins of Helike were merely fantasies (from p. 419: " … [l]eurs traditions étaient de pures chimères.")
- ^ Curtius, Ernst (1851). Peloponnesos, eine historisch-geographische Beschreibung der Halbinsel [Peloponnese, a historical-geographic description of the peninsula] (in German). Vol. 1. Gotha, (Germany): Justus Perthes. pp. 45–46, 467–468.
- ^ Schmidt, Johann Friedrich Julius (1879). Studien über Erdbeben [Studies of Earthquakes] (in German) (2nd ed.). Leipzig, Germany: Alwin Georgi. pp. 71–72. About the 1861 earthquake, see: "13) 1861 December 26. Das Erdbeben von Aigion (Vostizza)" [13) 1861 December 26. The earthquake of Aigio (Vostitsa)], pp. 68–83. From pp. 71–72: "Das Epizentrum setze ich in den Korinthischen Golf, zwischen Aigion und Itea in 22° 20' Ost von Greenwich und +38° 13' Breite. Als Helike und Bura untergingen, lag dieser Punkt wahrscheinlich östlicher und etwas südlicher; … " (I place the epicenter in the Corinthian Gulf, between Aigio and Itea at 22° 20' east of Greenwich and 38° 13' north latitude. When Helike and Bura were destroyed, this point probably lay more eastwards and somewhat more southwards; … )
- ^ Ξινόπουλος, Π. Κ. (1912). "Το Αίγιο διά μέσου των αιώνων".
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(help) - ^ Σταυρόπουλος, Αρίστος (1954). "Ιστορία πόλεως Αιγίου".
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(help) - ^ Μαρινάτος, Σπύρος (1967). "Έρευνα περί την Ελίκην Π.Α.Α. τ 41".
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(help) - ^ Μαρινάτος, Σπύρος (1968). "Ελίκη-Θήρα-Θήβαι Α.Α.Α. τ 1".
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(help) - ^ Παπαχατζής, Νίκος (1967). "Παυσανίου Ελλάδος Περιήγησις Αχαϊκά-Αρκαδικά".
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: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ISSN 0003-8113.
- ^ "The 1979 film of sunken town discovery"
- ^ Παπαδόπουλος, Αλέξης (1983). "Ανακαλύπτοντας μια βυθισμένη πόλη" (PDF). Αρχαιολογία. 9: 80–82.
- ^ a b Katsonopoulou, Dora; Soter, Steven (January 2005). "Discoveries at Ancient Helike". Helike Foundation. Retrieved August 4, 2013.
- BBC Horizon. Retrieved August 4, 2013.
- ^ ISBN 88-87744-03-3.
- ^ "Discoveries at Ancient Helike". The Helike Project. Retrieved August 4, 2013.
- doi:10.1002/(SICI)1520-6548(199908)14:6<531::AID-GEA4>3.0.CO;2-X. Archived from the originalon 2013-01-05.
- S2CID 140202998.
- S2CID 128735942.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Helice". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.