The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey NEH Collaborat

Maritime Landscapes of Southern Crete from the Paleolithic to Modern Times: The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey NEH Collaborative Research Grant Proposal November 2017 Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World Institute of Nautical Archaeology Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities Karl Krusell Brown University STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT Maritime Landscapes of Southern Crete from the Paleolithic to Modern Times: The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey This proposal seeks to gain funding for a major three-year collaborative research project aimed at characterizing the maritime landscapes of southern Crete from the island’s earliest human presence to the expulsion of the Ottomans at the very end of the 19th century CE. The maritime significance of Crete was already established in Greek oral tradition by the time the Iliad and Odyssey were first written down sometime in the 8th century BCE. Clues about the island’s seafaring history derived from such sources as Bronze Age wall paintings and New Testament scripture have provided the basis for much scholarly speculation, but ultimately leave many questions about the long-term development of maritime culture on the island unanswered. A recent debate among Mediterranean archaeologists was prompted by the discovery of lithic artifacts in southern Crete dated to the Paleolithic, which have the potential to push back the earliest human presence on Crete, as well as the earliest demonstrable hominin sea-crossings in the Mediterranean, to around 130,000 years ago. The project team will conduct an underwater survey of the Gulf of Messara, collecting data through both diver reconnaissance and remote sensing in order to ascertain the long-term history of social complexity, resource exploitation, and island connectivity. Located on the Gulf of Messara, which is located at the western edge of the Messara Plain in the center of Crete’s southern coast, are the Roman port of Matala, the Minoan harbor town of Kommos, and the site of Plakias where the aforementioned lithics tentatively dated to the Middle Paleolithic were discovered. Interdisciplinary land-based surveys conducted in the Messara Plain provide a strong basis of interpretation for the social dynamics of the region. The proposed underwater survey, through simultaneous collection of cultural and environmental data, will help clarify processes of colonization and trade, as well as provide a fuller picture of maritime landscapes as they existed in different periods. This project will bring together scholars and professionals from the United States, Turkey, Greece, Canada, and Israel, and will involve collaboration between the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, and the Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology and the Ancient World located at Brown University. Using INA’s newly built Virazon II, the first vessel anywhere in the world to be classed as an Archaeological Research Vessel, the team will collect data of various types, including multibeam sonar data, bathymetry, sub-bottom profiles, and core samples. Our research will contribute to the humanities by investigating the variety of human responses over time to a changing landscape. In addition to producing environmental and archaeological data to that effect, this project will also help contextualize the conception of place in the past by providing possible explanations for depictions in literature of the Gulf of Messara as a hazardous waypoint. The dissemination of our results will target both professionals and the public using both digital and print media. We will share our work with colleagues around the world at various conferences and symposia, submit articles for publication to top peer-reviewed journals, and produce video documentation of our progress over the course of all three field seasons. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Maritime Landscapes of Southern Crete from the Paleolithic to Modern Times: The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey Cover Sheet...................................................................................................................................... i Statement of Significance and Impact ............................................................................................ ii Table of Contents........................................................................................................................... iii List of Participants ......................................................................................................................... iv Project Narrative Substance and Context Justification..........................................................................................................................1 Research Questions..............................................................................................................5 The Survey Area ..................................................................................................................8 Contributions of the Humanities........................................................................................11 Collaborators ..........................................................................................................................12 Methods..................................................................................................................................15 Work Plan...............................................................................................................................18 Final Products and Dissemination..........................................................................................18 Project Budget Budget Form...........................................................................................................................20 Budget Justification................................................................................................................23 Appendices Appendix A: Bibliography .....................................................................................................26 Appendix B: Permitting Procedures.......................................................................................29 Appendix C: Figures...............................................................................................................30 iii LIST OF PARTICIPANTS Project Director Krusell, Karl Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University Project Co-PI Köyağasıoğlu, Orkan Bodrum Research Center, Institute of Nautical Archaeology Project Co-PI Collaborators Goodman, Beverly University of Haifa Geoarchaeological Specialist Lawall, Mark University of Manitoba; American School of Classical Studies at Athens Ceramics Specialist Littlefield, John Bodrum Research Center, Institute of Nautical Archaeology Diving Safety Officer, Archaeological Consultant Theodoulou, Theotokis Non-Independent Office of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, Crete Remote Sensing Specialist, Archaeological Consultant Additional Team Members Gül, Zafer Bodrum Research Center, Institute of Nautical Archaeology Virazon II Captain Snowden-Smith, Susannah Freelance professional Photographer and Videographer iv PROJECT NARRATIVE Maritime Landscapes of Southern Crete from the Paleolithic to Modern Times: The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey Substance and Context Justification Crete, the largest of the Greek islands, separates the Aegean and Libyan Seas, and is in many respects like a miniature continent (Fig. 1). This relatively small land mass contains the full range of Mediterranean topography, including snow-capped mountains, sandy beaches, fertile plains, and arid valleys. Crete’s placement within the Mediterranean has led to its role as a cultural crossroads between Europe, Asia, and Africa for at least the past several millennia. The island also lies at the crossroads of history and myth. When Sir Arthur Evans discovered the oldest known European civilization at the turn of the 20th century, he named the people and their culture Minoan after the legendary king Minos of Crete. The ancient historian Thucydides, writing in the 5th century BCE, reported that Minos, who is mentioned in the Homeric epics (Il. 13.450; Od. 11.321), established the first navy, extinguished piracy in the Aegean, and colonized the Cyclades (Thuc. 1.4). Though this notion of Minoan thalassocracy (i.e. naval supremacy) is certainly exaggerated, evidence exists that the Minoans were trading goods and exchanging skilled craftsmen with the Egyptians,<a href="#5_0">1 </a>and that they were colonizing or at least exporting their cultural traditions and artistic conventions to Thera and other Cycladic islands.<a href="#5_1">2 </a>Our only evidence for 1 Wachsmann 1987; Bietak et al. 2007. 2 Doumas 1992. 1Minoan ships survives in the form of wall frescoes, boat models,<a href="#6_0">3 </a>and the monumental ship sheds at Kommos.<a href="#6_1">4 </a>The discovery of a Minoan shipwreck has long been the “holy grail” for scholars like Shelley Wachsmann of Texas A&M University,<a href="#6_2">5 </a>who directed the Danaos Deepwater Survey Project (2007–2009) which searched along a hypothesized trade route between Crete and Egypt.<a href="#6_3">6 </a>The Danaos Project failed to yield any Minoan artifacts, but the team recorded numerous ceramic vessels on the seabed, both in isolation and as part of supposed trails of jettisoned cargo. While this project was nominally diachronic, its primary goal was to look for evidence of contacts between Crete and Egypt during the Bronze Age, and so it resembled more of a “search” than a “survey.”<a href="#6_4">7 </a>A more recent survey known simply as the Crete Underwater Survey was much more committed to a diachronic research design. It was run by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and surveyed in different areas along the northern and western coasts of Crete, between the city of Heraklion and the island of Dia (2011), and between western Crete and the island of Antikythera (2013). In 2011 alone they discovered eight shipwrecks (five ancient and three modern) as well as three anchorages.<a href="#6_5">8 </a>The former survey area was chosen for three principal reasons: 1) the area of Heraklion had served as the capital of Crete for most of the past four millennia, except for when it was temporarily moved to Gortyn in the south during the Roman period, 2) the area lacked a naturally protected bay and was thus continuously exposed to north winds, and 3) archaeological material had been found in the area of Dia since an expedition 3 Wachsmann 1998, 104–5. 4 Shaw and Shaw 2006. 5 Marchant 2012, 426. 6 Wachsmann et al. 2009. 7 Søreide 2011, 101. 8 Theodoulou et al. 2011. 2in 1976 by Jacques Cousteau, suggesting that a systematic survey would prove fruitful. Our survey area has been chosen for similar reasons: 1) The Gulf of Messara is home to known harbor sites from different periods. Under the Romans, Gortyn became the capitol of the joint province Creta et Cyrenaica, and Matala became its port, supplying Rome with grain grown in the Messara plain. The nearby site of Kommos, which dates to the Bronze Age, is home to monumental ship sheds which would have been used to keep ships protected when not in use. The harbor town of Kommos was part of the so-called Great Minoan Triangle in south central Crete, which also included the palatial complex at Phaistos and the elite villa at Ayia Triada (Fig. 2). 2) The sailing conditions in the Gulf of Messara can be hazardous. The Gulf of Messara has served as the setting for suspenseful seafaring narratives in at least two works of ancient literature, including Book 3 of the Odyssey, in which half of Menelaos’ fleet is broken up against the headland near Phaistos by a strong south wind (Od. 3.285-300), and chapter 27 of Acts of the Apostles, in which the ship carrying Paul was blown off course by a northeast hurricane wind (Gk. typhonikos, cf. “typhoon”) to the island of Gavdos while sailing through the Gulf of Messara from Kaloi Limenes (the so-called “Fair Havens”) to the ancient Cretan port town of Phoenix (Acts 27.8-16). On the other hand, one ancient source suggests that the route along the south coast of Crete was preferable to a northern route through the Sea of Crete (Lucien Nav. 9), suggesting that the area was heavily trafficked. Joseph Shaw, who served as the principal investigator of the Kommos excavations for several decades, suspected that “surely there are deepwater wrecks there that would more than repay investigation, of ships that were beating up 3against the wind, attempting to reach the Matala or Kommos harbors, but were crushed against projecting cliffs.”<a href="#8_0">9 </a>3) Additional material evidence points to diverse maritime activities in the area. In 1955, the British School recorded a Roman period shipwreck near the bay of Ayia Galini which had contained a cargo of bronze statuary.<a href="#8_1">10 </a>More wrecks of this type, as Shaw rightly suspected, could be found in the deeper waters off the Gulf of Messara if surveyed with the appropriate methods and tools. But in recent years discussions about the maritime history of Crete have been dominated by the possibility of hominin dispersals by sea during the Lower Paleolithic and the characterization of different degrees of island colonization.<a href="#8_2">11 </a>This discussion has largely been prompted by the discovery of stone tools from Plakias and Loutro, both sites on the southwest coast of Crete, which possibly date to the Middle Paleolithic or approximately 130 kya.<a href="#8_3">12 </a>Aside from these recent discoveries, the earliest verified evidence for a human presence on Crete comes from the aceramic Neolithic strata at Knossos, which date to the 7th millennium BCE.<a href="#8_4">13 </a>Skeptics have pointed out that the Paleolithic dates for the lithics from Plakias are extrapolated from geologic deposits, and that the quartz from which the tools are made is difficult to evaluate because it does not flake as cleanly as chert, flint, or obsidian. The only way to advance this dialogue is through further study, particularly of the coastal and underwater landscape off southern Crete. 9 Shaw 2006, 59. 10 Leatham and Hood 1958/59, 278–280. 11 Runnels 2014; Leppard 2014. 12 Mortensen 2008; Strasser et al. 2010; Strasser et al. 2011. 13 Broodbank 2008; Broodbank and Strasser 1991. 4Previous land-based archaeological surveys in the Messara region, particularly in the hinterlands of Kommos and Phaistos, have gone a long way toward characterizing the maritime aspects of cultural landscapes.<a href="#9_0">14 </a>But no matter the strength of the data generated by land-based survey and excavation, the picture of the maritime landscape is incomplete without systematic survey data of the underwater environment. The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey aims to shed light on the maritime aspects of social complexity in south central Crete from as far back as the Paleolithic to the modern period. Research Questions This project will employ advanced remote sensing and imaging technologies to corroborate previous library and museum research and to inform future studies and fieldwork. In terms of data collection, the goals of the project are to record the most detailed environmental data to date of the survey zone, including bathymetry and sub-bottom stratigraphy, and to locate and map all discernable cultural material on the seabed, including shipwrecks, cargoes, and associated artifacts. Our team will follow a research plan designed to address the following questions about the survey zone: 1) How has the long-term geological history of the Gulf of Messara affected human activities in the area? The Gulf of Messara is a seismically active area and has been throughout antiquity. Subduction of the Africa plate beneath the relatively small Aegean Sea plate results in shallow-focus earthquakes along the Hellenic arc plate boundary. Historical records and land excavations have determined that two 7.2 magnitude earthquakes centered near Crete occurred in 365 CE and 1303 CE.<a href="#9_1">15 </a>Previous research 14 Blackman and Branigan 1975, 1977; Hope Simpson et al. 1995; Watrous et al. 2004. 15 Fytikas and Vougioukalakis 2005. 5has shown that the western half of the island exhibits between 2–9 m of coastal uplift, while the eastern half exhibits varied levels of subsidence.<a href="#10_0">16 </a>However, the effects of seismic activity and sea-level rise are less clear on the south-central coasts of Crete. Crete has been a “true” island—i.e. separated from the continental mainland—since the Messenian Salinity Crisis between 5.96–5.33 mya, when the Strait of Gibraltar reopened.<a href="#10_1">17 </a>Assuming that the material from Plakias indeed dates to the Paleolithic, researchers much attempt to determine the nature of this demonstrated human presence, i.e. whether it represents maritime activity that was purposeful, organized, and planned or seasonal, episodic, or even accidental. The geological data collected during the proposed survey will be used to reconstruct the ancient coastlines and foreshore environment, including sources of fresh water. In addition to elucidating the relationship between ancient peoples and their environments, these newly-collected geological data will also refine our understanding of the limits of said data. For instance, seabed sedimentation rates are not clearly known for the Gulf of Messara, into which two rivers—the Platis and the Ieropotamos—empty their contents. For these reasons, the ancient seabed may not be exposed enough to yield the archaeological information we seek. It is our hope that the sub-bottom profiler data will help determine how sedimentation and seismic activity have shaped the seafloor over time, and thus inform future studies, both geological and archaeological, of this region. 16 Pirazzoli et al. 1982; Flemming 1978. 17 Krijgsman et al. 1999. 62) Was does the distribution of cultural material below the surface of the Gulf of Messara suggest about ancient seafaring and trade, and how does it relate to other underwater surveys in the Mediterranean? Two famous literary characters, Menelaos and Paul, experienced disaster or near-disaster at sea here, suggesting that the Gulf of Messara was considered treacherous for sailing ships, at least for part of the year. Can we substantiate this reputation with evidence of shipwrecks or jettisoned cargo? Or is the hazardous nature of the Gulf as depicted a literary invention, and the common setting for these narratives a coincidence? It is possible that sedimentation and tectonic shifts of the seabed will mask the ancient seafloor to such an extent that we cannot make a determination. Based on the literary sources and nearby land excavations, we expect to find the greatest amount of material culture from the Roman occupation of Crete. But to what extent will the various ancient populations of Crete—Minoans, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Venetians, and Ottomans—be represented on the seafloor and what will that data reveal about the details of social complexity and cultural contact? What ancient trade networks are discernable from the assemblages? How does the commercial importance of Crete’s southern coast change through time? 3) Does the underwater cultural material from the Gulf of Messara reinforce, contradict, or otherwise complicate the narratives derived from historical sources and land-based archaeological survey and excavation? At least three pedestrian field surveys have taken place in the coastal areas of Phaistos, Kommos, Matala, and Kaloi Limenes. The area south of Matala and directly west of Kaloi Limenes was surveyed between 1971 and 1972 by David Blackman and Keith Branigan.<a href="#11_0">18 </a>The Kommos Survey, 18 Blackman and Branigan 1975, 1977. 7which took place between 1977 and 1979, was associated with the excavation of the Minoan harbor town of Kommos by Joseph and Maria Shaw.<a href="#12_0">19 </a>Most recently, the Western Messara Project undertook an interdisciplinary regional field survey directed by L. Vance Watrous and Despoina Hadzi-Vallianou between 1984 and 1987.<a href="#12_1">20 </a>The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey aims to advance these former studies by shedding light on the maritime aspects of social complexity in south central Crete from as far back as the Paleolithic to the modern period. The Survey Area The Gulf of Messara is formed by a large indentation in the middle of Crete’s southern coast, bounded to the east by the north-south terminus of the Messara Plain and to the north by the east-west coastline of the Rethymno regional unit. To its west and south the Gulf opens up to the Libyan Sea. Moving from east to west along the southern coast of Crete, the shoreline makes a sharp right turn at Cape Lithinos and continues on a roughly north-south axis for about 18 km until, at the small coastal community of Kokkinos Pyrgos, it turns left and resumes its east-west axis until it reaches the small island of Elafonisi in the southwest corner of Crete and turns right again, rounding the western coast of Crete. The eastern boundary of the Gulf of Messara is where the north-west coast of the western Messara plain meets the Libyan Sea and lies approximately along latitude 24°10’ E. This stretch of land, which contains steep cliffs in the south, consists mostly of open beaches. The Gulf’s northern boundary is formed by the east-west southern coastline of the Rethymno regional unit, from Kokkinos Pyrgos to Agios Pavlos. Thus, the Gulf of Messara forms a rough right angle. Situated in the middle of the Gulf’s western boundary are

The Gulf of Messara Underwater Survey NEH Collaborat

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