Archaeologists Uncover Massive Naval Bases Of The Ancient Athenians

After archaeologists excavated parts of two of the three militarized harbors built in Piraeus, they found for the first time the 5th century BC Naval bases of Piraeus, including the ship-sheds, the slipways, and the harbor fortifications.

 

Bjørn Lovén, director of the Zea Harbor Project, led the excavations and says that the naval fortifications at one time housed about 400 fast and maneuverable ships called triremes. These vessels were tended to by 80,000 sailors and soldiers.

Lovén and his team most recently excavated the remains of six ship sheds. The sheds stored triremes to protect them from marine woodworms and to keep the hot Mediterranean sun from shrinking their timbers and causing leaks. The sheds were huge—spread between the three ports of Piraeus (Mounichia, Zea and Kantharos), they covered 110,000 square meters or more than 1 million square feet. That is about the size of 17 football fields.

Carbon-14 dating of pottery and wooden foundations placed the ship-sheds between 520 and 480 BC. Those dates are significant because it likely means they housed triremes that took part in the Battle of Salamis in 480, a key event in Greek history.

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