Posted on 04/28/2005 11:00:05 AM PDT by blam
Mycenaean port of Athens found?
Archaeologists in the capital’s southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens’s first port before the city’s naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus, a report said yesterday.
A rescue excavation on a plot earmarked for development has revealed artifacts and light structures dating, with intervals, from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron — after which the modern suburb was named — was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily.
“This is a port associated with two myths — Theseus and the Argonauts — and an historic event, the Trojan War,” archaeologist Constantina Kaza was quoted as saying. Theseus is believed to have been a Late Bronze Age king of Athens whose successors sent a contingent to fight in Troy.
The site, some 350 meters from the modern coastline, contained pottery, tracks from the carts that would have served the port, and makeshift fireplaces where travelers waiting to take ship would have cooked and kept warm.
GGG Ping.
This kind of thing is always neat, but not exactly a revelation here. Anyone with a history book could've figured out where to find the Mycenaean Era port - so long as you were willing to tear down the buildings to look for it.. As I'm sure you know, Athens is one of those cities where if you dig, you find.
They have a really neat display in one of the subway stations renovated for the Olympics that shows a cross-section of the artefacts uncovered as they dug out the expansion - glassed off where they found them. Once in a while when I'm in Athens, I do wonder what spectacular undiscovered ruin might be lying just beyond the subway walls. :)
But, I thought the ocean was rising.
Silting?
Ur was a seaside town when Abraham lived there. Today, it's almost 100 miles inland.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Where was Abraham's Ur?Abraham was from the city of Ur according to Genesis 11:31. The problem is that there are several places called Ur. It is identified as "Ur of the Chaldeans." The problem with "Chaldeans" is that it is a late word used in the Neo-Babylonian times. It is either anachronistic, or this part of Genesis was written after the Exile.
Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies
There is no debate over where Haran is located, 10 miles north of the Syrian border in Turkey along the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates River. Haran is an important Hurrian center, mentioned in the Nuzi tablets. The moon god, Sin was worshiped here. If Ur were located in Southern Iraq, why would Abraham travel 60 miles way out of his way to go to Haran?
There are two cities not far from Haran; Ura and Urfa. Local tradition says that Abraham was born in Urfa. Northern Ur is mentioned in tablets at Ugarit, Nuzi, and Ebla, which refers to Ur, URA, and Urau (See BAR January 2000, page 16).
The names of several of Abraham's relatives like Peleg, Serug, Nahor and Terah, appear as names of cities in the region of Haran (Harper's Bible Dictionary, page 373). Abraham sent his servant back to the region of Haran to find a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24:10).
After working for Laban, Jacob fled across the Euphrates River back to Canaan (Genesis 31:21). If Ur were in Southern Mesopotamia, then Jacob would not need to cross the Euphrates. Laban is said to live in Paddan-Aram, which is in the region of Haran (Genesis 28:5-7), which seems to be the same area as Aram-Naharaim, Abraham's homeland (Genesis 24:10).
All this evidence taken together seems to indicate that the Ur of Abraham was in the same region as Haran in Northern Mesopotamia, and not the famous Ur in Southern Mesopotamia.
Good old "Theseus and the Argonauts". ;')
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/argonauts.html
Stephen Oppenheimer has supporting data in his book Eden In The East. In fact, he says the coastline was even farther north and Ur was just on one side of the Gulf.
Civ, you are a walking encyclopedia and undoubtedly a real estate mogul. Thanks.
Herculaneum was a seaside town, until Vesuvius happened. ;-)
The idea that there was a gulf, or rather that the existing Persian Gulf used to extend well inland from its current location, used to be the consensus, and based quite logically on the estimates of silt quantities brought down by the rivers. But it has been proved that it isn't true.
;') Well, I am thinking about selling my house. Dunno about an encyclopedia, but "sitting" is more like it. I need to get out and take a walk today.
NEATO Bump
Yeah, it was pretty crazy looking down into the pit that was Herculaneum, to see “where the beach used to be”, and turning around to look for the sea, and realizing it was pretty far away. I pity the Italians if Vesuvius ever decides to really blow its top again. From the summit, Naples looks like a tasty morsel.
Whoops, sorry, I got distracted and plastered in the ping list. This is a pretty old topic, interesting, consider this a re-ping I guess. [blush]
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