The World's Oldest Underwater City



Posted: Saturday, October 17, 2009

by
Charleston Perlo

Recently my daughter, whose birthday is today!, went to Greece with a girl friend, for a week's vacation. With her unbridled wit, she observed that since the period between 776 BC (the first Olympic Games) and 323 BC (the death of Alexander), the civilization that many consider the seminal source of the culture, institutions, and ideas of the Western World has pretty much gone down hill.

She and her friend looked at a lot of rock piles, vacant spaces, and poorly done reconstructions. They found much of the culture and the people to be xenophobic, with a love-hate attitude toward visitors.

Paris she loves; Greece? Not so much.



Despite her report, it's hard not to get excited about Pavlopetri, an ancient Greek city that sits off-shore, submerged, its street plan, buildings, and public sites intact, along with courtyards, chamber tombs, and never built over. This city was an important Mediterranean sea port between 1600 1100 BC, a period described by the Greek poet Homer, in the Iliad.



This submerged city may unlock secrets about everything from trade contacts to sea warfare. Estimates are that it was established over 5,000 years ago. And this sunken city, the world's oldest, lies only 9 to 12 feet under the surface and faces threats from souvenir hunts and modern maritime traffic. Dragged anchors have already damaged several building walls. Divers have removed artifacts.

Pavloetri was discovered in 1960, but the site has been closed to researchers and scientists since 1968. Now, an English team, using advanced sonar scanners initially developed for the military, are mounting a full scale effort to survey, interpret, and preserve Pavloetri through a combined effort of science and public relations.

How did the city tip below the city? No one knows. The pottery record indicates it was submerged near 1100 BC.

 
Almost 3000 years before Damali Marie Chou Rhett was born. (Named for Chou En-Lai, an original member of the Chinese Communist Party who survived the Long March, a year long 6,000 mile trek through the world's roughest terrain in the dead of winter; who negotiated with Henry Kissinger, survived six Palace coups, and is the one official most responsible for China's transformation from a feudal society into the world's most rapidly expanding market economy, with both state and private ownership, and with booming manufacturing and natural resource sectors. "Marie" was her great-grandmother, on her mother's side. "Damali" is East African, and means beautiful vision. She is. Happy Birthday, oldest only!)

If the project goes well in Pavloetri, maybe one day Damali Marie Chou will slip on a snorkel, and dive into the history she loves to explore, and be embraced by a country looking haughtily inward and resting too much on its laurels.

Walter Rhett Walter Rhett attended Ohio State and writes from Charleston, SC. He writes about national and global affairs with an eye on Southern history and culture and enjoys listening to his readers.

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