Helike
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- "Helice" redirects here. For the crabCrabTrue crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...
genusGenusIn biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
, see VarunidaeVarunidaeVarunidae is a family of thoracotrematan crabs. The delimitation of this family, part of the taxonomically confusing Grapsoidea, is undergoing revision. For a long time, they were placed at the rank of subfamily in the Grapsidae, but they appear to be closest to Macropthalmus and the Mictyridae,...
Helike (ˈhɛlɨkiː; , pronounced heˈlikɛː, modern eˈlici) was an ancient Greek city that sank at night in the winter of 373 BC
373 BC
Year 373 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Third year without Tribunate or Consulship...
. The city was located in Achaea
Achaea
Achaea is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of West Greece. It is situated in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. The capital is Patras. The population exceeds 300,000 since 2001.-Geography:...
, Northern Peloponnesos, two kilometres (12 stadia) from the Corinthian Gulf. The related city of Boura was located nearby.
The city was thought to be legend until 2001, when it was rediscovered in the Helike Delta.
Research efforts
The submerged town was one of the biggest targets for underwater archaeologyUnderwater archaeology
Underwater archaeology is archaeology practised underwater. As with all other branches of archaeology it evolved from its roots in pre-history and in the classical era to include sites from the historical and industrial eras...
. Scientists were divided in their opinions of where the exact location of Helike might lie. 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 the Frenchman diplomat and archaeologist wrote the Voyage en Grèce, in 1851 Ernst Curtius the German archaeologist and historian, in 1879 Julius Smith the director of Athens Observatory issued a study comparing the Aegeion earthquake which occurred 26 December 1861 with the earthquake which destroyed Helike, in 1883 Spiros Panagiotopoulos the mayor of Aegeion city, in 1912 the Greek writer P. K. Ksinopoulos wrote the city of Aegeion through centuries, in 1939 Stanley Casson the Englishman art scholar and army officer who studied Classical Archaeology and served in Greece as liaison officer.
In 1948 G. Karo the German archaeologist, in 1950 Professor Robert Demangel who was from 1933 till 1948 the director of the French School of Archaeology in Athens, in 1950 Alfred Philippson the German geologist and geographer, in 1952 Spiros Dontas the Greek writer and member of the Academy of Athens, in 1954 Aristos Stauropoulos the Greek writer published the History of the city of Aegeion, in 1956 N. P. Moutsopoulos the Greek Professor, in 1967 Spiros Marinatos the Greek archaeologist wrote the Research about Helike and in 1968 he wrote Helike-Thira-Thieves, in 1962 George K. Georgalas the Greek writer, in 1967 Nikos Papahatzis the Greek archaeologist published Pausanias’ Description of Greece.
In 1967 Dr. Harold Eugene Edgerton worked with the American researcher Peter Throckmorton. They were convinced that Helike lies on the seabed of the Gulf of Corinth. Dr. Edgerton perfected special sonar
Sonar
Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels...
equipment for this research but permission to continue was not granted from the Greek Authorities. In 1967 and in 1976, Captain Jacques – Yves 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 exhibits walls, fallen roofs, roof tiles, streets etc. at a depth of between 25 and 45 m. “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 Archaeology magazine.
Dora Katsonopoulou, president of the Helike Society, and Steven Soter
Steven Soter
Dr. Steven Soter, PhD, is an astrophysicist currently holding the positions of scientist-in-residence for New York University's Environmental Studies Program and of Research Associate for the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History...
of the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
rediscovered the city in the summer 2001, near the village of Rizomylos
Rizomylos
Rizomylos or Rizomilos may refer to several places in Greece:*Rizomylos, a village in the Achaea prefecture*Rizomylos a village in the Messenia prefecture*Rizomylos a village in the Magnesia prefecture...
. The World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training....
included Helike in its 2004 and 2006 List of 100 Most Endangered Sites in an effort to protect the site from destruction.
History
Helike was founded in the Bronze AgeBronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
, becoming the principal city of Achaea. Homer also states that the City of Eliki participated in the Trojan War with one ship. Later, following its fall to the Achaeans, Eliki led the Achaean League
Achaean League
The Achaean League was a Hellenistic era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese, which existed between 280 BC and 146 BC...
that joined twelve cities that neighbored an area where today lies the town of Aegeion. Eliki was also known as Dodekapolis (from the Greek words dodeka meaning twelve and polis meaning city) and became a cultural and religious center with its own coinage. Finds from ancient Eliki are limited to two 5th century copper coins, housed in the Staatliche Museum, Berlin. The obverse represents Poseidon's head of the city's patron, Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
, and the reverse his trident. There was a temple dedicated to the Helikonian Poseidon.
Helike founded colonies, including Priene
Priene
Priene was an ancient Greek city of Ionia at the base of an escarpment of Mycale, about north of the then course of the Maeander River, from today's Aydin, from today's Söke and from ancient Miletus...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
and Sybaris
Sybaris
Sybaris was an ancient city in Magna Graecia on the western shore of the Gulf of Taranto. The wealth of the city during the 6th century BC was so great that the Sybarites became synonymous with pleasure and luxury...
in South Italy
South Italy
South Italy is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics , a first level NUTS region and a European Parliament constituency. South Italy encompasses six of the country's 20 regions:*Abruzzo...
. Its panhellenic temple and sanctuary of Helikonian Poseidon was known throughout the Classical world, and second only in religious importance to Delphi
Delphi
Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...
.
The city was destroyed in 373 BC, two years before the Battle of Leuctra
Battle of Leuctra
The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought on July 6, 371 BC, between the Boeotians led by Thebans and the Spartans along with their allies amidst the post-Corinthian War conflict. The battle took place in the neighbourhood of Leuctra, a village in Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae...
. The event happened on a winter night. Several events were construed in retrospect as having warned of the disaster: some "immense columns of flame" appeared, and five days previous, all animals and vermin fled the city, going toward Keryneia
Keryneia, Greece
Keryneia is a Greek village located west of Corinth and Athens, north-northwest of Kalavryta and east of Aigio and Patras. The GR-9 Keryneia (Greek: Κερύνεια) is a Greek village located west of Corinth and Athens, north-northwest of Kalavryta and east of Aigio and Patras. The GR-9 Keryneia...
. The city and a space of 12 stadia below it sank into the earth, and were covered over by the sea. All the inhabitants perished, and not a trace remained, except for a few fragments projecting from the sea. Ten Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
n ships anchored in the harbour were dragged down with it. An attempt involving 2000 men to recover bodies was unsuccessful. Aegium took possession of its territory.
The catastrophe was attributed to the vengeance of Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
, whose wrath was excited 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.
About 150 years after the disaster, the philosopher Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...
visited the site and reported that a standing bronze statue of Poseidon was submerged in a "poros", "holding in one hand a hippocamp
Hippocamp
The hippocamp or hippocampus , often called a sea-horse in English, is a mythological creature shared by Phoenician and Greek mythology, though the name by which it is recognised is purely Greek; it became part of Etruscan mythology...
", where it posed a hazard to those who fished with nets.
Around AD 174 the traveler Pausanias visited a coastal site still called Helike, located 7 km southeast of Aigion, 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".
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.
A. Giovannini argued that the submergence of Helike might have inspired Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
to write his story about Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
.
Scholars who visited the ruins
- The Greek geographer StraboStraboStrabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
- The Greek traveler PausaniasPausanias (geographer)Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
- The Greek historian Diodoros of Sicily
- The Roman writer AelianAelianAelian or Aelianus may refer to:* Aelianus Tacticus, Greek military writer of the 2nd century, who lived in Rome* Casperius Aelianus, Praetorian Prefect, executed by Trajan...
- The Roman poet OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
Recent events
On 23 August 1817, a similar disaster, an earthquake followed by a tsunamiTsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
, occurred on the same spot. The earthquake was preceded by a sudden explosion, like that of a battery of cannon. The aftershock was said to have lasted a minute and a half, during which the sea rose at the mouth of the Selinus, and extended to cover all the level immediately below Vostitza (the ancient Aegium). After its retreat not a trace was left of some magazine
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...
s which had stood on the shore, and the beach was carried away completely. In Vostitza 65 people lost their lives, and two thirds of the buildings were entirely ruined. Five villages in the plain were destroyed.
In recent years, a collaboration of American and Greek scientists excavated trenches on the site, discovering numerous walls and artifacts dating to Classical and prehistoric times.
Rediscovery
Spyridon MarinatosSpyridon Marinatos
Spyridon Nikolaou Marinatos was one of the premier Greek archaeologists of the 20th century.- Career :...
, emphasizing the importance of the discovery of Helike, said that only the declaration of a third world war will obscure the discovery of Helike. He pointed out Helike as an unresolved problem of Greek archaeology in 1960. In 1988, the Greek archaeologist Dora Katsonopoulou launched the Helike Project to locate the site of the lost city. In 1994 in collaboration with the University of Patras, a magnetometer survey was carried out in the midplain of the delta, which revealed the outlines of a buried building. In 1995 this target was excavated (now known as the Klonis site) and a large Roman building with standing walls was brought to light. The city was rediscovered in 2001 buried in an ancient lagoon
Lagoon
A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...
. Since then, excavations have been carried out in the Helike delta each summer.
Continuing excavations have brought to light significant archeological finds from prehistoric times when Helike was founded until its revival in the Hellenistic and Roman times.
External links
- Alexis Papadopoulos, Archaeology magazine issue No 9 November 1983
- Archaeology magazine issue No 9 November 1983
- Helike, the film of the discovery
- Staatlichen museen The one and only coin of Helike
- Official Website of Helike Project
- BBC Science on the discovery of Helike
- 2004 World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites
- Strabo, on Helike