The submerged city of Pavlopetri () is found in Vatika Bay, off the coast of southern

Laconia Laconia or Lakonia (, , ) is a historical and Administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece located on the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti (municipality), Sparta. The word ...

Peloponnese The Peloponnese ( ), Peloponnesus ( ; , ) or Morea (; ) is a peninsula and geographic region in Southern Greece, and the southernmost region of the Balkans. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridg ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It is about 5,000 years old, making it the oldest submerged city known in the world. Pavlopetri is unique in having an almost complete town plan, including streets, buildings, and tombs.

Name

Pavlopetri (or ''Paulopetri'') literally translates to ''Paul's stone'' and is a direct reference to St. Paul.

Discovery and location

Discovered in 1967 by Nicholas Flemming and mapped in 1968 by a team of archaeologists from

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, Pavlopetri is located between the islet of Pavlopetri and the Pounta coast of

on the

peninsula. The site is northeast of the village on the island of Elafonisos. The archeological site as well as the islet and the surrounding sea area are within the region of the Elafonisos Municipality. In antiquity, Elafonisos was a peninsula known as ''Onou Gnathos'', according to Pausanias. While Pavlopetri was inhabited, Elafonisos would have been connected to the Peloponnese by the means of Pavlopetri. Since then the sea level has risen and earthquakes have pushed the city down, making the gap between Elafonisos and Peloponnese larger. In

Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...

' "

History of the Peloponnesian War The ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' () is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), which was fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and the Delian League (led by Classical Athens, Athens). The account, ...

", it is suggested that Elafonisos was connected to Peloponnese. There are also incisions on the north side of Elafonisos in the rock that were used for transporting goods with carts.

Origins

Originally, the ruins were dated to the

Mycenaean period Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainla ...

, 1600–1100 BCE but later studies showed a much earlier occupation dating back to 3500 BCE, so it also includes artifacts from the Final Neolithic Age,

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

Age,

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, and middle

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and Minoan art, energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan pa ...

and transitional material. It is now believed that the town was submerged around 1000 BCE by the first of three earthquakes that the area suffered. The area never re-emerged, so it was neither built-over nor disrupted by agriculture. Although eroded over the centuries, the town layout is as it was thousands of years ago. The site is under threat of damage by boats dragging anchors, as well as by tourists and souvenir hunters.

Exploration

The fieldwork of 2009 was largely to map the site. It is the first submerged town digitally surveyed in three dimensions. Sonar mapping techniques developed by military and oil prospecting organizations have aided recent work. The city has at least 15 buildings submerged in of water. The newest discoveries in 2009 alone cover . Four more fieldwork sessions were planned in October 2009, in collaboration with the Greek government as a joint project aimed at excavations. Also working alongside the archaeologists (from the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

) are a team from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, who aim to take underwater archaeology into the 21st century. Several unique robots have been developed to survey the site in various ways. One of the results of the survey was to establish that the town was the centre of a thriving textile industry (from the many loom weights found in the site). Also many large pithari pots (pottery jars) from

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

were excavated, indicating a major trading port. In 2010, a team from the Hellenic Centre for Maritime Research used the stereo-photogrammetric data collected from the surveying of the site to reconstruct what the shoreline around the site would have looked like. This included the

geomorphology Geomorphology () is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth's surface. Geomorphologists seek to understand wh ...

of the area between the now island of Elafonisos and the beaches of Pounta in Vigklafia. The reason that this research was done is because they wanted to find out how the site became submerged as well as the time period in which it occurred. They hypothesized that the site would have been slowly lowered over time by three or four different earthquakes. The rising of the sea level over the past 5000 years has also affected the submergence of the site. When Pavlopetri was built in the

4th millennium BC File:4th millennium BC montage.jpg, 400x400px, From top left clockwise: The Temple of Ġgantija, one of the oldest freestanding structures in the world; Warka Vase; Bronocice pot with one of the earliest known depictions of a wheeled vehicle; Kish ...

, it would have been about two or three meters

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

which was normal for that time period and area. In 1200 BC, Pavlopetri was coming close to its demise and the sea level had risen about two meters since its initial inhabitance and at this point it was only about one meter above sea level. This would have made the town susceptible to

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civi ...

explaining their complex water system. Sometime between the years 480-650 AD the site was pushed down by tectonic activity which would have been one of the earthquakes. This earthquake pushed the site down about 3 meters and along with the sea level having risen about 1.5 meters since 1200 BC, the site would have been submerged.

Noteworthy discoveries

During excavation in the 2011 season, the team from The University of Nottingham discovered some original deposits that give them some information about the site. These deposits displayed evidence that the people of Pavlopetri had trading relations with the nearby island Crete, inhabited by Minoans. In 1968, the team from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

found something important as well. They discovered two different types of graves indicating a gap in social status. There were two

chamber tomb A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave (burial), grave. Built from Rock (geology), rock or som ...

s recognized and nearly forty cist graves. They also identified 15 buildings, with up to 12 rooms inside each. There is evidence that Pavlopetri served as a trading hub. Pavlopetri is noteworthy due to its age; it is the oldest known submerged city to date.

Dangers to the ruins

The site has faced many problems since its discovery in 1967. One of these problems is sediment shifting and damaging the ruins. Small boats travel above the site and move sediment on the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as seabeds. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

that slowly damages the site. Large ships in Vatika Bay are a problem as well. These ships discharge

waste Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor Value (economics), economic value. A wast ...

that damages the archaeological ruins and is also bad for the environment. There is also

ballast water Ballast is weight placed low in ships to lower their centre of gravity, which increases stability (more technically, to provide a righting moment (physics), moment to resist any Heeling (sailing), heeling moment on the Hull (watercraft), hull). I ...

which is water that is used to keep a large ship from

capsizing Capsizing or keeling over occurs when a boat or ship is rolled on its side or further by wave action, instability or wind force beyond the angle of positive static stability or it is upside down in the water. The act of recovering a vessel fr ...

. It does this by either taking in, or releasing water from its

ballast tank A ballast tank is a Compartment (ship), compartment within a boat, ship or other floating structure that holds water, which is used as ballast to provide hydrostatic stability for a vessel, to reduce or control buoyancy, as in a submarine, to co ...

depending on the weight of the

cargo In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in cas ...

being transported. Ballast water is harmful because it can transport sediment and

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic scale, microscopic size, which may exist in its unicellular organism, single-celled form or as a Colony (biology)#Microbial colonies, colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen ...

s such as,

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

microbes A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen microbial life was suspected from antiquity, with an early attestation in ...

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

e of different species, etc. Some of these organisms can also be invasive. Large ships are also cleaned with an assortment of

chemicals A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

to clean different parts of the ship. These chemicals damage the ruins and the environment.

Looting Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

has also been a problem in the past as the site does not have any form of protection around it. The final danger to Pavlopetri is a nearby

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

and the construction of a

gas pipeline A pipeline is a system of pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries around the world. The Un ...

that runs from the island of

Preservation efforts

After Pavlopetri gained more attention after the research done from 2009-2013 and it was announced that it is in danger, many people decided to get together and try to stop the pollution and damage that was being done. One thing that they are trying to stop is the approving of a certain port regulation that would let large ships anchor in Vatika Bay. They would like to create a safety net of sorts made out of

buoy A buoy (; ) is a buoyancy, floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. History The ultimate origin of buoys is unknown, but by 1295 a seaman's manual referred to navig ...

s. These buoys would encircle the site and protect it from any ships. They would also like to put up signs around the area that tell people what the site is, what the significance of the site is, and why it needs to be protected. It also had its first ever World Monument Watch Day in 2016. The Watch Day helps bring attention to the damage being done to the site and reaches towards communities across the world to help out. Since then, the Watch Day takes place every year during the summer. Ever since the Watch Day in 2016, there have been guided underwater tours led by professional archaeologists. These tours are offered because of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and the Greek Ministry of Culture.

UNESCO site

The city of Pavlopetri is part of the underwater cultural heritage as defined by the UNESCO in the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. All traces of human existence underwater which are one hundred years old or more are protected by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This convention aims at preventing the destruction or loss of historic and cultural information and looting. It helps states' parties to protect their underwater cultural heritage with an international legal framework.

In popular culture

*The work of the British-Australian archaeological team was assembled in an hour-long

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

documentary video, "City Beneath the Waves: Pavlopetri", broadcast by

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

in 2011. *The site and its history are featured in the "Secrets of the Sunken Empire" episode of the

Science Channel Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, manu ...

TV program ''Unearthed'' (season 8, episode 7), originally broadcast on January 3, 2021. *The ancient site and its underwater mapping is featured in "Drain the Oceans: Legends of Atlantis" (season 1, episode 5), by

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

airing on June 25, 2018."Drain the Oceans: Legends of Atlantis"
'IMDB''

References

{{reflist Populated places in ancient Laconia Bronze Age sites in Greece Mycenaean sites in the Peloponnese (region) Former populated places in Greece Underwater ruins Helladic civilization 1967 archaeological discoveries