News - Weekly Report 5: Beans and ships (and dives in the hundreds!)

Fig. 1 Ioannis 'shooting' while Stratos(our supervisor from the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities) attentively observes the work.

Fig. 2 Niels doing his archaeological dive number one hundred!!

Fig. 3 Mads adjusting the last of the three level lines (sections) to be shot during Friday.

Fig. 4 Our assistant director Mette, contemplating the infinite, during a pensive ‘tending’ moment.

Fig. 5 The 2007 Archaeological Diving Olympiad. Discipline: The Zeus/Poseidon “spear thrower” imitation.

Author: Mads Møller Nielsen and Niels Ladefoged Rasmussen

This week we entered the month of Pyanopsion, which is, like any other classical Athenian month, named after a festival. The Pyanopsia, an ancient fruit gathering festival that seeks divine blessings for the autumn sowing. It is primarily in honor of Phoebos Apollo as sun god, but also for Helios (Sun) and the Horai (Hours); all considered vegetation deities. Allegedly, the festival’s name derives from the cooking of bean dishes, which where offered to Apollo: Pyanon epsein means “to cook beans”.

While entering the season of cooked beans we are leaving behind us the month of Boedromion, where the boedromia constituted a sort of ancient Thanksgiving. Here the Athenians had the occasion to show their gratefulness to Theseus for saving the city from the attack by ferocious female warriors – the Amazons. Thus, Boedromia is derived from the verb boedromein, meaning “to hasten to the rescue”. During the Peloponnesian war, no mythical heroes were volunteering to save the city from the might of the Spartan armies. The Athenians had to look to themselves and – not least – to their fleet for help against this only far too real threat.

At this time of the year 424 BC, the harbours of Piraeus must have been in a state of nervous suspense and bustling preparation. The Athenians were planning a major military expedition against Boeotia – ally of Sparta. In this campaign, the Athenian navy would play a crucial role, ensuring that their forces could act with the speed, coordination and timing necessary for success.

These fine points of history serve to remind us, why it is important to uncover the secrets held beneath the murky water covering the vitals of the Athenian naval power. So far, the team has been excavating, surveying and registering the remains of the ancient naval yards at Zea. Work has been hard and not without problems, but all good comes to those who wait. We have finally managed to make the equipment work perfectly; electronic registration of the surveyed structures has now begun in earnest (fig. 1). This week was also a week of hundreds; Friday we not only completed this season’s dive number 100, but our valued super underwater surveyor student Niels Bargfeldt (fig. 2) also achieved his personal 100-archaeological dive jubilee – amounting to about 250-300 hours underwater. Warm congratulations from the rest of the team at Zea!!

Thursday we found evidence of structures of the ancient shipsheds in almost 1.5 m of water, the deepest we have found in Zea so far; we are still going deeper. However, all good must also come to an end, and soon we will be moving to Mikrolimano, the ancient harbour of Mounichia, where the focus is not on the ancient shipsheds. Our main objective will be to achieve a better understanding of the ancient harbour fortifications - not less vital to the military security for the ancient Athenian polis. Next week will bring reports about this work as well as more insights into the Athenian preparations for war in late October 424 BC.