Divers Digitally Map World’s Oldest Sunken City Predating the Bronze Age—Here’s Why It Sank

(Aerial-motion/Shutterstock); Inset: (Courtesy of the University of Nottingham)

The sunken city of Pavlopetri is the stuff of myths. Just a dozen feet beneath the sea off the coast of Laconia, Greece, her ruins were thought to have originated from the Mycenaean period, but today are thought to be far older—preceding even the Bronze Age.

Predating even Greek philosopher Plato, who told of the lost city of Atlantis’s sinking beneath the wine-dark sea, Pavlopetri, some have suggested, could have been what Plato meant.

Reports of a lost city surfaced in 1904 when geologist Fokion Negri announced the discovery of Pavlopetri in between southern Laconia’s Pounta coast and the island of Elafonisos—just a stone’s throw from the beach.

Aerial view of the sunken city of Pavlopetri in between Pounta beach and Elafonisos island, Greece. (Aerial-motion/Shutterstock)

The sunken ruins were rediscovered in 1967 by oceanographer Nicholas Flemming of the University of Southampton, who returned in 1968 and conducted an extensive six-week survey. Using just measuring tapes and snorkels—the technology of the day—they mapped an area 980 by 490 feet (150 by 350 meters) using a grid system and identified 15 distinct buildings along with courtyards, 5 streets, and tombs. The ruins also yielded artifacts, such as obsidian and chert blades, pottery, and a bone figurine. All of which lay 9 to 12 feet (3 to 4 meters) below the surface.

Forty years later, in 2009, scientists returned. Using new, highly sophisticated sonar mapping equipment developed by the military and oil prospectors, they conducted a survey that would chart Pavlopetri digitally, in three dimensions, using sound. These means enabled them to map an additional 30,000 square feet (9,000 square meters) of new buildings.

By 2011, technology had made further leaps that allowed the University of Nottingham’s Jon Henderson, alongside the Hellenic Centre for Maritime Research, to embark on a 5-year survey that would build a digital, photorealistic visual model of the city in three dimensions and allow them to explore the ruins through their computer screens.

An underwater view of Pavlopetri. (Courtesy of the University of Nottingham)

A diver examines the ruins of Pavlopetri during a 21st-century expedition. (Courtesy of the University of Nottingham)

Detail of the ruins during an expedition that took place four decades after it was first mapped. (Courtesy of the University of Nottingham)

“We managed to work alongside CGI movie professionals, these are people who normally work on films like ‘Star Wars,’” Henderson told the University of Nottingham shortly after the expedition. “The reason the new technique is so good is because it’s photorealistic, people can look at it right away and go, ‘Oh wow, that’s a submerged city!’”

The team used a technique known as stereo photogrammetry to collect optical information, which would then overlay the acoustical three-dimensional data cloud that had been collected, thus producing an impressive photorealistic picture. As a base-level tool, they employed total stations equipped with lasers—used in surveying for city planning and building highways—to create a vector prism and pin down their position to within 2 inches (5 centimeters). All this allowed them to check the accuracy of their 3D construction.

They would also draw new historical conclusions about the city of Pavlopetri from their research. The buildings themselves had already been dated back to the Mycenaean Period, around 1650 to 1180 B.C., however, newly discovered artifacts from the site pinned the city down to a much earlier era. They were surprised to discover among the ruins pottery fragments from as early as 2800 B.C., with some citing evidence as far back as 3500 B.C., making it some 5,000 years old. Those artifacts, from as early as the Bronze and Chalcolithic Ages, include cups and vessels of not just Mycenaean origin, but also Minoan, which lends credence to the possibility that Pavlopetri’s inhabitants once traded with the Minoans of Crete.

Seaside view of the world's oldest submerged city, Pavlopetri, in Laconia, Greece. (Pit Stock/Shutterstock)

Their survey revealed new structures within Pavlopetri including a large rectangular building lining a previously hidden street, stone-lined graves, as well as a pithos burial—a pottery structure used in preserving human remains before inhumation or cremation. Future exploration could, conceivably, also yield organic material such as rope, baskets, and even food, Henderson stated, as the anaerobic undersea environment slows deterioration.

As for what caused the city’s sinking, scientists can only speculate. Some theorize that tectonic activity—a series of earthquakes—was what ended Pavlopetri, causing it to sink beneath the waves. By certain estimates, that could have happened between 1000 and 375 B.C.

Today, Pavlopetri is considered the oldest sunken city in the world—that we know of. Its heritage predates not only Plato, but also celebrated Greek poet Homer and his legendary heroes, yet it continues to conjure mystery and myth like few places on Earth.

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