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The Corinth Canal is a waterway that crosses the narrow isthmus of Corinth to link the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf...It is believed that Periander, the tyrant of Corinth (602 BC), was the first to conceive of the idea of digging the Corinth Canal. As the project was too complicated given the limited technical capabilities of the times, Periander constructed the diolkós, a stone road which allowed ships to be transferred on wheeled platforms.Later on, Macedonian king Dimitrios Poliorkitis (c. 300 BC) tried to dig the canal, but his team of engineers warned him that if a connection...

After the Battle of Marathon ten years earlier, in 490 BCE, the Athenian statesman Themistocles outlined a military defensive program against the Persian invaders that was based entirely on sea power. As Plato put it, "Themistocles robbed his fellow-citizens of spear and shield, and degraded the people of Athens to the rowing-pad and the oar." Construction work in Piraeus had already begun in 493 BCE (also on Themistocles advice).  Now, recent underwater excavations conducted by ZHP Project, which combines land and underwater archaeology of the ancient Zea and Mounichia harbors in Piraeus, have uncovered naval bases and huge fortifications that...

Danish and Greek archaeologists have discovered the remains of one of the largest building complexes of the ancient world -- a naval base that 2,500 years ago housed Athens's enormous fleet. Featuring massive harbor fortifications and sheds designed to hold hundreds of war ships called triremes, the base played a key role in the most decisive naval battle of antiquity. The remains lay hidden under the water of the Mounichia fishing and yachting harbor in the Piraeus. University of Copenhagen archaeologist Bjørn Lovén, who led the expedition as part of the Zea Harbor Project, identified and excavated six ship-sheds that...

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from Mycenaean times to the fifth century BC, when the port of Phaleron — after which the modern suburb was named — was superseded by Piraeus, according to Ta Nea daily.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 —...

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 —...

The government is set on expediting the privatization of the Piraeus Port Authority (OLP), following an agreement in principle with China’s Ocean Shipping Co (COSCO) for a 224-million-euro expansion of container terminal facilities last week. “We wish to deepen our strategic relationship with China,” Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis told Kathimerini in an interview. He said the government had opted to sell the majority of shares in the facility and a timetable for the tender will be announced soon. Well informed sources, close to COSCO subsidiary Piraeus Container Terminal which has operated two piers at the port since 2009, have...

A neoclassical building in Piraeus was completely destroyed in a fire that broke out in the early hours of Wednesday. The building was situated next to the former Keranis factory in the area of Kaminia. Nine fire vehicles and 27 firemen were fighting to contain the blaze. According to early reports, the fire allegedly broke out as a result of activities carried out by homeless people who were occupying the premises. No injuries were reported.