http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/helike.shtml
Helike - The Real Atlantis
BBC Two 9.00pm Thursday 10 January 2002
Dora Katsonopoulou has unearthed a wall from the Greek city of Helike
On a winter night in 373 BC, the classical Greek city of Helike was
destroyed by a massive earthquake and tidal wave. The entire city and
all its inhabitants were lost beneath the sea. What has bewitched
archaeologists about Helike is that it was engulfed just when ancient
Greece was reaching its height; when the philosophy and art that
inspired the western world for thousands of years were invented.
Inspiring the myth
Its destruction was one of the most appalling tragedies of the
classical world and most probably the reality behind the myth of
Atlantis. But now, unlike Atlantis, a team of archaeologists may have
found Helike - a lost city from the heyday of Greek civilisation. If
it is as well preserved as everyone hopes, Helike could be a time
capsule from this crucial time in human development.
For centuries there had been just no sign of it. All archaeologists
had to guide them were obscure and often contradictory ancient texts.
So, despite numerous expeditions trawling the waters off the coast of
Greece and vast amounts of money and technology thrown at the problem,
no one could find anything except two small coins, unearthed over a
hundred years ago.
Not drowned but buried
Then, in 1988 Dora Katsonopoulou and Steven Soter took up the
challenge. Dora had grown up with the legend from childhood and was
determined to find the archaeological treasure on her doorstep.
Together they went back to basics and re-examined the ancient texts.
These said that Helike had sunk into a poros, which everyone had taken
to mean Gulf of Corinthe. But Dora thought that a poros could also be
an inland lagoon. If she was right, the lost city which had inspired
Atlantis might not be under the sea, as everyone thought, but
somewhere inland.
A landscape on the move
The landscape of the Gulf of Corinthe is seismically activeStudying
the geology of the region, earthquake expert Iain Stewart argues that
a large earthquake could well cause an inland lagoon. Small recent
earthquakes in the region have caused ground liquefaction - a
terrifying phenomenon where the ground literally turns to water
beneath your feet. If the same had happened on a much larger scale
then the whole city could have been plunged downwards, taking much of
the city below sea level. But the earthquake in 373 BC could also have
had a second more devastating effect. As well as liquifaction recent
earthquakes have caused chunks of coastline to fall into the sea. If
this happened on a large scale underwater landslides could cause a
large wave, or tsunami. This would race across the Gulf of Corinthe,
ricochet off the opposite bank and come charging back again, to crash
over the sunken plain and fill in the lagoon.
Dora's theory makes sense, except for one thing. There is no lagoon in
the region today. There is, though, a trail of clues that explains
what could have happened. An ancient bridge that is strangely nowhere
near water shows how river sediment coming down from the mountains
changes the shape of the plain - over hundreds of years the lagoon
would have silted up, hiding the lost city beneath solid ground. A
host of boreholes drilled into the plain and a remote cave with the
legend attached to it have helped pinpoint where the now underground
city might lie.
Glimpses of Ancient Greece
The dig has finally found Greek period artefactsSlowly Dora and Steven
have pieced it all together, but there have been several false starts
along the way. The first lot of ruins they found were Roman - a
settlement built hundreds of years after Helike's disappearance to
honour the famous lost city. Next they found ruins that turned out to
be prehistoric - an early bronze age settlement built 2,500 years
before Helike. It wasn't until 2001 that Dora and Steven at last got
their breakthrough.
Whilst Horizon was filming, the team uncovered ruins from classical
Greece. Securely dated by coins and pottery, the team are convinced
they have at last found the city they've been looking for. It will
take years to uncover Helike's riches, but for the first time in
thousands of years, we have glimpses of the lost city that inspired
Atlantis.
Read the complete transcript Jump to the Science message board BBCi's
History site features an article by Iain Stewart, seen in the
programme
Find out more
BBCi History - Ancient Greece
In Echoes of Atlantis, Dr Iain Stewart, who appears in the Horizon
programme, explains more about Helike, Plato and the search for
Atlantis.
The Lost City of Helike, Greece
www.geoprobe.org/helike/index.html
American Museum of Natural History - The road to ancient Helike
www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/features/1100_feature.html
University of Leeds - Drowned, lost, found again
www.leeds.ac.uk/media/reporter/472/s7.htm
Classical Association of Ireland - Ancient Greek resources
www.tcd.ie/Classics/caiteachers/greekresources.html
University of Washington - Soil liquefaction
www.ce.washington.edu/~liquefaction/html/main.html
/end
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Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
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