The Pavlopetri Underwater Archaeological Project Geophysical Survey: Season 2009
Survey: Geophysical survey
We began accurately to record the surviving architectural remains using both a shore-based robotic total station and Sector Scan Sonar (a technique which produces three dimensional digital surveys of submerged features). In addition to recording the buildings first identified in 1968, over 150 square metres of new buildings were discovered to the north. These structures consist of at least 25 cojoined square and rectilinear rooms (built of rough, square limestone blocks as elsewhere on the site) starting some 10 m from the existing shore line, plus a 40 m long street lined with rectilinear buildings with stone foundations. One square (3 × 3 m) building contains the remains of a central pillar-like structure comparable at first sight with the pillar crypts associated with palaces and villas in Minoan Crete. If this is indeed a pillar crypt, it would be the first example from the Greek mainland. Two new cist graves were discovered alongside what appears to be a Bronze Age pithos burial in a corner of one of the newly discovered rooms. One of the most important new discoveries is a large trapezoidal building, c. 34 m long and 12– 17 m wide, containing at least three separate rooms. This is comparable in layout to EBA megara, and its large dimensions imply that it was a building of some importance.
Active in 2009.