"The cities of the Greek world," said Cicero, "are located around the Mediterranean Sea, like frogs around a pond." According to the most common hypothesis, the depletion of the already infertile stony soil of Greece, overpopulation, and fierce competition forced many sons of Hellas, already in the most ancient times, to equip sail-and-oar ships and move to other coastal regions of the Mediterranean - to the islands of the Aegean Sea, the coast of Asia Minor, North Africa and the Apennine Peninsula, the shores of the Adriatic, the Ionian, Tyrrhenian seas. Many dozens of ancient cities have been discovered by archaeologists on the Mediterranean coast, and at least 35 of them were under water.
The map compiled in 1968 by the Czech scientist L. Loyda and refined by us shows the cities completely or partially flooded by the sea, not only of ancient times, but also of the medieval and later historical periods. Among them is one of the largest seaports of antiquity, the Phoenician Tire, located in the eastern Mediterranean.
Hence in the X century. BC. King Hiram I sent his warships to conquer the cities of Cyprus and North Africa. From here left the Phoenician seafarers, who, being in the service of the Egyptian pharaoh, around 620 BC. made the first trip in the history of mankind around the African continent. Here in the IV century. BC. the soldiers of Alexander the Great made one of the first "transformations of nature": after a long and unsuccessful siege of the island of Tire, they almost turned it into a peninsula, filling the strait that separated the city from the coast.
The earthen dam filled by Alexander's warriors changed the direction of the coastal current. After that, a simultaneous assault from the sea and land, the troops of Alexander the Great managed to seize the previously impregnable fortress. “Tire was taken by Alexander after the siege,” wrote Strabo, “but he overcame all such misfortunes and rose again thanks to navigation, in which the Phoenicians were always superior to other peoples…”. The same Strabo reported "that Tire had two harbors:" One closed, and the other, called the Egyptian, - open. " As a result of the construction of an earthen dam, the sediments of the Litani River, deposited near the dam from the north, in 2.3 thousand years finally turned the island of Tire into a peninsula by now.
For a long time, Strabo's message was considered the fantasy of an ancient writer, since there were no ancient harbors in the Eastern Mediterranean at that time.
was not found. In the early 30s of the XX century. the famous French scientist A. Pouadebar undertook a thorough archaeological research on the coast of Syria and Lebanon. In the summer of 1934, in the sea near the coastal excavations of ancient Tire, dark spots of regular geometric shape were discovered from an airplane. This was the ancient seaport, flooded with water.
As a result of detailed underwater research, Poadebard established that Tire did indeed have a north and south harbor. From the north, the entrance to the bay was closed by a powerful sea breakwater 8 m wide (on top), which archaeologists found under water at a depth of 3-5 m. The base of the breakwater was rock bottom rocks, the lower part of the structure was composed of large stone blocks measuring 1.0 * 0, 5 × 0.4 m, the top is made of concrete. The protective pier had a length of 200 m and began at the now crumbling square watchtower standing on the shore. In the east, the narrow passage to the Phoenician port was closed by several small islands. In the description of the siege of Tire, it is said that the Phoenician ships lined up in a dense row, closing the passage to the harbor and putting forward their brass-bound ram-noses. Tire's north harbor was a military harbor,while the southern one (large in size) was commercial. Could hundreds have come in here? ships from all over the world.
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After two years of expeditionary underwater work, archaeologists led by Poiadebard found that, like the northern, the southern harbor was separated from the sea by a stone dam up to 8 m wide (in the western part - 10 m) and 750 m long. In the middle of the pier there was a small passage for ships. This entrance to the harbor was modeled after the city gates of the ancient fortresses. On both sides it was bounded by directing dams 100 m long. If the enemy ship had entered this narrow corridor, it would have been under fire from the defenders of the city from both sides and could hardly break into the harbor.
The central passage divided the southern port into two parts: a large western and a smaller eastern. The first had its own passage, which was protected by a watchtower. In the eastern harbor, archaeologists have discovered a semi-submerged dry dock for ship repairs. The bottom of the dock was covered with limestone slabs.
In addition to the main structures of the port itself, at some distance from it in the open sea, the researchers found the remains of additional breakwaters. These structures were laid at a rather great depth and stretched along the entire perimeter of the pier of the Tyrian port.
Another major Phoenician port in the Eastern Mediterranean, Sidon (now Saida, Lebanon), was also submerged. Many parts of its protective and berthing structures, built in the first centuries AD, nowadays protrude slightly above sea level. The earlier building is a large, 14 m in diameter, watchtower guarding the entrance to the inner port. Unlike Tire, the bay of Sidon is protected by rocks from the prevailing south-westerly winds. Therefore, the ancient naval port was covered only from the north by the same pier as in Tire. The pier did not reach the island, leaving a narrow entrance to the harbor. The rest of the water area was covered by a sandbank, which ran from the island to the coast. Divers found here traces of a navigable canal dug in antiquity.
Archaeological research of the port of Sidon was carried out by Poadebar after the Second World War. He also found another, the trading port of Sidon, which was located north of the city and adjacent to a small island.
Here, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in 1957 an American expedition worked from the Sea Diver yacht. She examined in detail the port structures of the biblical Caesarea (Israel), which were at first the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, and then the residence of the Roman governor, which had sunk 2.5 m below sea level. At the bottom of the sea, archaeologists have found stone walls, columns and a huge ancient Roman statue that apparently adorned the entrance to the harbor.
In 1961, scuba divers discovered the ruins of an ancient library on the seabed near the ruins of ancient Caesarea located on the coast. Perhaps it contained scrolls with records made 2 thousand years ago by the famous historian from Judea, Josephus Flavius. Here is what he wrote about the construction of Caesarea: “The king spared no expense and surpassed nature itself, creating a port larger than Piraeus, with a double anchorage for ships … The city is located in Phenicia on the way to Egypt, between Jaffa and Dora - small coastal cities where it is impossible to arrange a port because of the gusty south-westerly winds, which do not allow ships to dock here, merchant ships are usually forced to anchor in the open sea. " Flavius told in detail how to a section of the seashore,where the so-called "tower of Stratope" once stood, the Jewish king Herod the Great arrived and ordered to build a city there with a convenient closed harbor. The builders built a long pier of "twenty fathoms" from huge stones under water. Then, when the structure rose above sea level, breakwaters were built on one side, and a massive quay stone wall with towers on the other. Warehouses and living quarters in the form of large arches were arranged in the wall, and a promenade and a promenade were laid in front of them. At the entrance to the harbor, which was in the windless northern part, there were tall columns. From the side of the sea, on the shallows, three more mooring posts were placed, near which ships could stand, waiting for their turn to enter the port. The builders built a long pier of "twenty fathoms" from huge stones under water. Then, when the structure rose above sea level, breakwaters were built on one side, and on the other - a massive quay stone wall with towers. Warehouses and living quarters were arranged in the wall in the form of large arches, and in front of them was a trade and a promenade. At the entrance to the harbor, which was in the windless northern part, there were tall columns. From the side of the sea, on the shallows, three more mooring posts were placed, near which ships could stand, waiting for their turn to enter the port. The builders built a long pier of "twenty fathoms" from huge stones under water. Then, when the structure rose above sea level, breakwaters were built on one side, and on the other - a massive quay stone wall with towers. Warehouses and living quarters were arranged in the wall in the form of large arches, and in front of them was a trade and a promenade. At the entrance to the harbor, which was in the windless northern part, there were tall columns. From the side of the sea, on the shallows, three more mooring posts were placed, near which ships could stand, waiting for their turn to enter the port. Warehouses and living quarters were arranged in the wall in the form of large arches, and in front of them was a trade and a promenade. At the entrance to the harbor, which was in the windless northern part, there were tall columns. From the side of the sea, on the shallows, three more mooring posts were placed, near which ships could stand, waiting for their turn to enter the port. Warehouses and living quarters in the form of large arches were arranged in the wall, and a promenade and a promenade were laid in front of them. There were tall columns at the entrance to the harbor, which was in the calm northern part. On the side of the sea, on the shallows, three more mooring posts were placed, near which ships could stand, waiting for their turn to enter the port.
The massive quay walls and breakwaters were masonry of hewn boulders connected to each other by metal fixing brackets with molten lead filling the grooves. In addition to natural stone, concrete blocks were also used. The technology of construction of the underwater part of breakwaters, quay walls and breakwaters is interesting. Stone and concrete blocks were installed in two rows with a distance of 20-30 cm between them. Then, over the course of several years, this space was covered with sea sand and pebbles. Thus, artificial masonry began to play the role of external and internal cladding. As a result, a lot of building material was saved, the total volume of which only in the underwater part was about 200 thousand m3.
Separate sections of the breakwaters were made by underwater concreting. To do this, a wooden formwork was towed to the site by water, then it was filled with a mixture of lime, red earth, volcanic pumice and stones. Under the weight of this solution, wooden boxes weighing up to 0.5 tons. sank to the bottom. The concrete mix gradually set, hardened and gained strength.
During the construction of the port of Caesarea, another interesting technical technique was applied, which has not lost its relevance in our time. The fact is that the ancient hydraulic engineers very skillfully used the features of sea currents. The entrance to the man-made harbor is designed in such a way that the threat of the natural process of depositing sand near the coast, and, consequently, silting up the port and reducing navigable depths is completely eliminated here. On the contrary, with the help of bypass channels, laid in the main breakwater, an artificial current was formed, driving sand away from the entrance to the harbor and taking it to the side. The flow rate, head and speed of water flows in the canals could be regulated by sluices. Underwater archaeological research has shown that if there is a layer of siltation at the bottom of the harbor, under which, by the way, pottery was found during the reign of Herod the Great,is only a few centimeters, then on the outer side of the breakwater at the entrance to the port the thickness of the reclaimed sand was estimated at 1.5 m. The most intensive archaeological work on the structures of the sunken Caesarea began in 1975-1980. The Marine Research Center of the University of Haifa, Israel, together with American scientists from Colorado and Maryland and Canadian researchers from the University of Victoria, are working on a 25-year program of onshore and underwater surveys. Many antique and medieval ceramics and other household items have already been found at the bottom of the former harbor. One of the most interesting finds is a fragment of a memorial stone slab, on which the name of the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate "tious Pilatus", who sentenced Jesus Christ to death, is carved. Scientists believe that this stone stood in the wall of one of the seaside temples, in which, as you know,and was the residence of the Roman military leader.
No less valuable finds of sunken port cities in the eastern Mediterranean were made in the 30s - 40s of this century by one of the founders of underwater archeology Honor Frost and other scientists. These are the ancient cities of Arwad, Sidon, Atlit and many others.
In 1958-1959. in Libya, under the leadership of the famous English archaeologist from Cambridge N. Flemming, interesting archaeological research was carried out in Apollonia, the seaport of the former ancient Greek colony in North Africa of Cyrene. Founded in the VII century. BC. Apollonia was especially elevated during the period of Roman rule in the 1st century. BC, when North Africa became one of the main suppliers of bread for the Roman Empire.
Archaeological research has shown that almost half of the entire city is at the bottom of the sea. All port facilities, the remains of buildings, defensive walls, warehouses were under water. The oval bay of Apollonia was enclosed by natural capes and islands, between which there were narrow passages for ships. The coast of the harbor was fortified with thick supports. nye walls on which defensive structures towered. There was also an outer, more open harbor, which had berths for foreign merchant ships.
Archaeologists have found the remains of docks for repairing ships, an embankment, quarries, a suburban Roman villa and other structures. West of Apollonia, in the southern Mediterranean, the ancient Ptolemais and Tauhira partially sank, and further to the west: Taps - in Tunisia, Iol (another Caesarea) - in Algeria.
In 1952, near the southern coast of France, near the town of Saint-Marie (near Marseille), a vast sunken area was discovered with structures and cultural layers of soil from the medieval period. More in 1696, the Arlesian monk Pierre Louis de San Ferro noted that the sea had captured about 2 km of land here. In the XVIII century. an attempt was even made to save San Marie from being flooded by the sea using an earthen dam.
Ruins of large structures with ceramics of the 1st century. AD and individual architectural details were found in the Gulf of Saint Gervaise at a depth of 1-5 m. The same finds were made in the regions of ancient Antibes and French Olbia. In 1950, the Alpine Underwater Club conducted an archaeological survey near the town of Tauromentum, washed away by the sea and collapsed into the water sections of the coast. In the vicinity of Port de Bou in 1951-1952 at a depth of 13 m, under a three-meter layer of bottom silt, scuba divers discovered details of ancient Greek columns, a relief made of the famous Carrara (Italic) marble, as well as fragments of a Corinthian capital and a Greek sarcophagus.
During the work in San Tropez in the fall of 1951, 13 fragments of marble columns with a diameter of 2 m were lifted from the sea day with the help of a crane. It is believed that these parts were carried by a ship from Italy in the 1st century BC. AD and they were intended for the construction of the famous temple of Augustus at Narbonne (Galia). In the Bay of Fo, also located in the south of France, ancient walls were discovered under water, near which lay shards of Aretim, Campanian and Gallo-Roman ceramics, an elegant head of a goddess made of ivory, and other objects of art. A corroded bronze figurine of a panther was recovered from the bottom of the sea off the coast of Monaco.
The remains of sunken ancient settlements were also found off the coast of Italy. So, near Pozzuoli in the Gulf of Naples, submarine archaeologists examined the flooded area of the ancient Roman resort of Bayev, a famous place of entertainment and revelry of wealthy Romans. Fragments of monumental buildings were found at a depth of 10 m from sea level. They are made of typical Roman flat bricks with mortar. There, near Pozzuoli, is erected in 105 BC. the half-flooded temple of Jupiter and Serapis, the base of which is now located at a depth of 2.5 m from the surface of the water. Written sources of the Middle Ages report that in the XIII century. here the tops of antique columns protruded from the water. At a later time, there was some rise in the bottom of the bay and in 1748 the temple was already entirely on land, and then the bottom sank again,which led to a new immersion of the temple in the water. Today, tectonic movements of the coast continue here.
Column drums, parts of a capital and other marble blocks with a total weight of 3.5 tons were found and examined off the southern coast of Sicily and at Cape Passero at a depth of 7 m.
In 1910, the French scientist G. Jonde conducted extensive underwater research of a large ancient seaport, which sank off the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea west of Alexandria. Fragments of very elaborate masonry were examined at a depth of 8-9 m from sea level at the bottom of the bay.
An artificial harbor was built in the eastern part of Alexandria by order of its founder Alexander the Great. An earthen bulk pier, which was named after its seven-stadium length Gepsa-stadium, connected the coast with the Faros bstrove. Here he was the ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy II, was installed in the III century. BC. the famous Pharos lighthouse - one of the seven wonders of the world.
Rising 120 meters above the sea, this three-tiered tower served for many centuries to mark the narrow entrance to the eastern harbor of Alexandria. Only in the XIV century. The Pharos lighthouse, which until then gradually sank into the depths of the sea, finally collapsed after a strong earthquake that swept the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. A resident of Alexandria Kamel Abu al-Sadat in 1961 found a stone colossus at the bottom of the former eastern harbor - a statue of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis. In 1963, she was delivered to the shore, and in 1968, with the participation of Honor Frost, divers raised 17 more items from the bottom of the sea, which, like the statue of Isis, were obviously directly related to the Pharos lighthouse.
Another antique statue of Caesar was found under water off the coast of Algeria near the town of Cherchel. Once there was one of the largest naval ports of ancient Rome, which had no equal in the entire southern Mediterranean, from Carthage to Gibraltar. The lead in the discovery of this sunken city, like many other seaports in North Africa, belongs to the diver from France, Philippe Diola.
A large number of sunken ancient cities were discovered near the very cradle of Hellenic culture - Greece, as well as the islands of the Aegean Sea. So, near Cape Tenar, the ancient Greek Gythion is visible under water, the defensive walls of which are 2 m thick. On the coast of the Gulf of Corinth, the city walls of Calydon, flooded by the sea, were discovered. Perhaps their ruins are related to the ancient Greek cities of Buru and Gelika, which, according to legend, sank somewhere here 2500 years ago. And the sea breakwaters of the most ancient port of Corinth are located at a depth of 3 m below sea level. Near another port city of Piraeus, on the seabed, there were ancient burials - crypts and tombs of ancient times. Crypts sunken to a depth of 2 m were also found on the southern coast of Crete, as well as on the island of Milos. In the coastal strip at a distance of 200 m from about. Egonne also buried ancient defensive walls by the sea. At the bottom of the Gulf of Aegion in Kencher lie the ruins of a basilica of the 4th-5th centuries. AD The half-sunken ones are Mochlos and Chersonesos in Crete, Salamis on the eastern coast of Cyprus.
Near the coastal Greek city of Katakolon, at the bottom of the sea, details of columns, fragments of ceramics, fragments of sculptures were found. Scientists believe that these are traces of an ancient Fairy who died as a result of the failure of the earth.
In the Western Black Sea region, off the coast of Bulgaria in the 30s of the XX century. the remains of another Black Sea Apollonia (now Sozopol) were examined. Here ceramics, a tombstone and other objects were found, showing that this is only a part of the settlement. Fragments of the city wall of ancient Messembria are visible near Ne-Sebra at a depth of 1-2 m. A submerged pier was found in Varna (ancient Odessa). Structures of Istria and Toma (Constanta), where Ovid was in exile, were discovered near the Romanian coast.
Interesting discoveries have been made in the Breno Gulf of the Adriatic Sea. In Tikhaya Bay near the Yugoslav coastal town of Cavtat, submariners discovered an ancient sunken city, almost entirely at the bottom of the sea. It turned out to be Epidaurus of Illyrian, founded by immigrants from the Greek Epidaurus, located in the northeast of the Peloponnesian peninsula near Corinth and Mycenae. At the beginning, the Adriatic Epidaurus, like other northern colonies, played an important role for the whole of Greece in the trade in cattle and grain, which was supplied by the Illyrian tribes surrounding it. Then came the era of Macedonian rule. Philip of Macedon, Alexander's father, conquered Illyria and greatly contributed to its prosperity. A century later, the Romans came here and the famous Illyrian wars of 229 and 219 began. BC. As the seat of the Seventh and Ninth Legions, Epidaurus (Epitaurum in Roman) became a recruiting point.
It is known that even many emperors of Rome were the sons of Illyrian officers. The great Byzantine emperor Justinian was also Illyrian in origin. In Epidaurus, he placed his fleet and from here fought against the Visigoths.
However, in the middle of the VI century. AD Epidaurus, like most other cities of the Roman world, fell under the blows of the barbarians, was plundered and burned. True, only part of it was destroyed, left over from another terrible catastrophe: in the mid-60s of the 4th century. there was a sudden sinking of land. A large coastal part of the city with a shopping center, market, artisan workshops and residential buildings sank to the bottom of the sea. This was reported in 1876 by the English archaeologist Arthur Evans, who discovered the Minoan civilization. Having made archaeological excavations in Cavtat, he remarked: "They say that in the neighboring bay of St. Ivan (Tikhaya - GR), the walls of Roman buildings buried at the bottom of the sea are clearly visible, probably due to the sinking of the land." Later, in 1947, German prisoners of war discovered the ruins of a wall that went under the water, and in its niche was a deposit of ancient coins.
Detailed underwater research of the ancient city was carried out by a group of scuba divers from the Pagan ship, led by Australian Ted Falcon-Barker now living in England. Subsequently, he wrote an interesting book about this, "1600 years under water" (published in the USSR in 1967), in which he spoke about his sensational discoveries at the bottom of Tikhaya Bay. The direction of the search was shown by traces of ancient Roman roads and an offshoot of the aqueduct, which approached the Cavtat harbor and ended at the very coast. The scientists' hopes were fully justified. At the bottom of the sea, walls, foundations of houses are well preserved, near them amphoras, Greek and Roman coins, jewelry and other household items.
“In total we managed to find eleven walls,” wrote Falcon-Barker. "In some places they rested on a bed of dark gray clay, covered in places with only a thin layer of sand." Some of these walls, 1.5-7.0 m long, were built of hewn and neatly fitted stones 2 m wide, others were built of flat red bricks with lime mortar. At some distance from the former center of the ancient city, scuba divers discovered a second group of walls, between which there were 10 large bridge slabs. “Our other group,” wrote Falcon-Warker, “explored the bottom near the place where we dug our very first test trench. They also found three walls, which seemed to be the walls of one house. One of them is located from east to west, but the other two - from north to south. The more the research area expanded, the clearer it became,that this whole area was once closely built up with buildings that began immediately outside the city gates. " Apparently, it was a suburban village.
As a result of underwater measurements of flooded structures, which were cleared with the help of an ejector, as well as after the study of architectural details and household, craft and cultural items, important conclusions were drawn. The ruins of a necropolis, a temple, an amphitheater, ancient Roman baths, an aqueduct, a villa, a staircase, workshops and other engineering and civil structures, which were previously studied on land, were only a small part of the city.
The main territory of Epidaurus was under water. “Now the plan of the ancient city,” wrote Falcon-Barker, “began to emerge in basic detail. We more or less accurately knew the location of the outer walls: they stretched 50 meters from the coast, going down to a depth of 15 m.
In addition to Epidaurus, the waves of the Adriatic Sea also hide the Etruscan city of Espina, an important trade center, described by Pliny the Elder.
What is the reason for the flooding of the ancient cities of the Mediterranean?.. There are almost no reliable written or any other reports about the tragic events of that time, except for the vague and contradictory stories about floods, floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. For example, we can cite the message about some kind of earthquake that occurred in Epidaurus. This is stated in the anonymous Italian historical essay "Annalee Ragusini anonimi", which was published in 1883. From it we learn that Epidaurus was partially destroyed as a result of an earthquake that occurred immediately after the death of the Roman emperor Julius Apostata, i.e. presumably in 363 AD
“This year,” writes an unknown author (apparently a priest), “there was an earthquake all over the world shortly after the end of Julia Apostata. The sea left its shores, as if our Lord God again sent a flood to the earth, and everything turned back to chaos, which was the beginning of all beginnings. And the sea washed up the ships and scattered them over the rocks. When the inhabitants of Epidaurus saw this, they were afraid of the force of the wave and were afraid that mountains of water would rush to the shore and that the city would be destroyed by them.
It goes on to say that the townspeople turned to God with a prayer for mercy, and he, taking pity on them, stopped the earthquake. After that, the sea stopped advancing on land and the rest of Epidaurus was saved. She has survived to this day.
Underwater finds in the Mediterranean are not limited to the historical period. There are traces of very distant times on the shelf.
After all, the Mediterranean Sea, the cradle of civilization, once served as a kind of bridge over which, which appeared one and a half million years ago, the so-called "East African man", crossed to Asia and Europe. As you know, during the Ice Age, the level of the World Ocean was much lower than the modern one, the shelf of the Mediterranean Sea allowed mankind to freely settle in the vast expanses of the Northern Hemisphere. Land roads ran in a wide isthmus that stretched along the current Suez Canal and the southern tip of the Red Sea. In the eastern Mediterranean in the 70s of our century N. Flemming on the continental shelf found irrefutable evidence of the existence of life on it. At a depth of about 10 m below today's sea level, paleo-and Neolithic sites of ancient tribes were found,wandered here for a huge period of time: from 40 to 6 millennia BC. Thus, throughout the Stone Age and almost until the beginning of the Bronze Age in the Near and Middle East, ancient man used the present continental shelf of the Mediterranean Sea to move from Africa to the north.
Less compelling, but also interesting, is the evidence for the migration of ancient people in the middle and western Mediterranean. In the area of Gibraltar and off the coast of the island of Malta below sea level, there are caves in which traces of human settlements have been found. And it has been reliably established that land "bridges" in the Ice Age stretched along the line Tunisia - Sicily - Italy, as well as Morocco - Spain.
G. A. Razumov, M. F. Hasin