News - Recent research and fieldwork

Chryssanthi Papadopoulou taking survey notes from diving archaeologist

Author: Bjørn Lovén

Three building phases have been identified during the research and field work carried out on the Area 1 shipsheds in 2006 (the area also excavated by I. Dragátsis and W. Dörpfeld in 1885).

The earliest phase (Phase I) is defined by rock-cut slots in all probability for transverse timbers found in four ramps. No features can with certainty be related to the superstructure of these ramps, and they could either have been ramps of shipsheds or uncovered slipways.

Phase II is identified as monumental stone shipsheds clearly defined in the sea and indicated on Dörpfeld’s plan and sections. Phase III is the 4th century double shipsheds.

Preliminary research suggests that the Phases III shipshed used the Phase II shipsheds as foundations, and that Phase II was completely overbuilt. No diagnostic finds were found in the few stratified deposits that we have excavated under water in Area 1, but a number of column drums were reused in the dated Phase III shipsheds on land.

We know that shipsheds were destroyed in 404/403 BC at the end of the Peloponnesian War, and the reused column drums could belong to the Phase II shipsheds, or another colonnaded building.

This may indicate that building Phase I and II belongs to the 5th century BC. I wish to make clear that this is very preliminary, but it is fascinating that the triremes that fought in the Peloponnesian War could have been housed in the Phase II shipsheds, and even more fascinating to imagine which ships stood on the Phase I ramps.