Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T14:45:46.182Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Geoarchaeological evidence for dredging in Tyre's ancient harbour, Levant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Nick Marriner  and
Christophe Morhange
Nick Marriner
Affiliation:
CEREGE, CNRS UMR 6635, Université de Provence, Europôle Méditerranéen de l'Arbois, BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence, Cedex 04, France
Christophe Morhange*
Affiliation:
CEREGE, CNRS UMR 6635, Université de Provence, Europôle Méditerranéen de l'Arbois, BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence, Cedex 04, France
*
*Corresponding author. [email protected] (N. Marriner),E-mail address:[email protected](C. Morhange).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Chrono-stratigraphic data from Tyre's ancient northern harbour delineate extensive dredging practices during the Greco-Roman and Byzantine periods. Radiocarbon dates from four cores consistently cluster between ca. 500 B.C. and 1000 A.D. and indicate rapid rates of sedimentation in the basin, namely ∼10 mm/yr during the Greco-Roman and Byzantine periods, compared to 0.5–1 mm/yr for the period 6000–4000 B.C. Absence of strata between 4000 B.C. and 500 B.C. is not consistent with a natural base-level sediment sink and cannot be interpreted as a depositional hiatus in the high-stand systems tract. Ancient dredging is further corroborated by persistent age-depth inversions within the fine-grained harbour facies. These data support removal of Middle Bronze Age to Persian period sediment strata, with deliberate overdeepening of the harbour bottom by Greco-Roman and Byzantine societies.

Keywords

GeoarchaeologyGeochronologyStratigraphyCoastal geomorphologyDredgingAncient harbourPhoeniciaMediterranean
Type
Short Paper
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 164 - 171
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bikai, P., (1979). The Pottery of TYRE (ancient Near East). Aris and Phillips, Oxford.208.Google Scholar
Blackman, D.J., (1982a). Ancient harbours in the Mediterranean, part 1. The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 11, 79–104.Google Scholar
Blackman, D.J., (1982b). Ancient harbours in the Mediterranean, part 2. The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration 11, 185–211.Google Scholar
Bottema, S., Woldring, H., (1991). Anthropogenic indicators in the pollen record of the Eastern Mediterranean.Bottema, S., Entjes-Nieberg, G., van Zeist, W. Man's Role in the Shaping of the Eastern Mediterranean 231–264.Google Scholar
Brochier, L., (1994). Etude de la sedimentation anthropique. La stratégie des ethnofacies sédimentaires en milieu de constructions en terre. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénistique 118, 619–645.Google Scholar
Brückner, H., (1997). Coastal changes in western Turkey; rapid progradation in historical times.Briand, F., Maldonado, A. Transformations and Evolution of the Mediterranean Coastline CIESM Science Series 188, Bulletin de l'Institut Océanographique, Monaco.63–74.Google Scholar
Brückner, H., Müllenhoff, M., Handl, M., van der Borg, K., (2002). Holocene landscape evolution of the Büyük Menderes alluvial plain in the environs of Myous and Priene (western Anatolia, Turkey). Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie N.F. 127, 47–65.Google Scholar
Coe, A.L., (2003). The Sedimentary Record of Sea-Level Change. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.286.Google Scholar
Fleming, K., Johnston, P., Zwartz, D., Yokoyama, Y., Lambeck, K., Chappell, J., (1998). Refining the eustatic sea-level curve since the Last Glacial Maximum using far- and intermediate-field sites. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 163, 327–342.Google Scholar
Gifford, J., Rapp, G., Vitali, V., (1992). Paleogeography of Carthage(Tunisia): coastal change during the first millennium BC. Journal of Archaeological Science 19, 575–596.Google Scholar
Goiran, J.-P., (2001). Recherches géomorphologiques dans la région littorale d'Alexandrie, Egypte.. Physical Geography PhD, Université de Provence., pp. 240.Google Scholar
Goiran, J.-P., Morhange, C., (2003). Géoarchéologie des ports antiques de méditerranée. Topoi 11, 645–667.Google Scholar
Hesnard, A., (1995). Les ports antiques de Marseille, Place Jules-Verne. Journal of Roman Archaeology 8, 65–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzenstein, H.J., (1997). The History of Tyre. Goldberg Press, Jerusalem.373.Google Scholar
Kraft, J.C., Rapp, G.R., Kayan, I., Luce, J.V., (2003). Harbor areas at ancient Troy: sedimentology and geomorphology complement Homer's Iliad. Geology 31, 163–166.Google Scholar
Laborel, J., Laborel-Deguen, F., (1994). Biological indicators of relative sea-level variations and co-seismic displacements in the Mediterranean region. Journal of Coastal Research 10, 395–415.Google Scholar
Marriner, N., Morhange, C., (2005). Under the city centre, the ancient harbour. Tyre and Sidon: heritages to preserve. Journal of Cultural Heritage 6, 2, 183–189.Google Scholar
Marriner, N., Morhange, C., Boudagher-Fadel, M., Bourcier, M., Carbonel, P., (2005). Geoarchaeology of Tyre's ancient northern harbour, Phoenicia. Journal of Archaeological Science 32, 1302–1327.Google Scholar
Morhange, C., Blanc, F., Bourcier, M., Carbonel, P., Prone, A., Schmitt-Mercury, S., Vivent, D., Hesnard, A., (2003a). Bio-sedimentology of the late Holocene deposits of the ancient harbor of Marseilles (Southern France, Mediterranean sea). The Holocene 13, 593–604.Google Scholar
Morhange, C., Espic, K., Doumet-Serhal, C., Bourcier, M., Carbonel, P., (2003b). The ancient harbours of Sidon, attempt at a synthesis (1998–2002). Archaeology and History in Lebanon 18, 71–81.Google Scholar
Pomey, P., (1995). Les épaves grecques et romaines de la place Jules Verne à Marseille. Compte-Rendus de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres II, 459–482.Google Scholar
Raban, A., (1995). The heritage of ancient harbour engineering in Cyprus and the Levant.Karageorghis, V., Michaelides, D. Proceedings of the International Symposium, “Cyprus and the Sea” University of Nicosia, Cyprus, Nicosia.139–189.Google Scholar
Reimer, P.J., McCormac, F.G., (2002). Marine radiocarbon reservoir corrections for the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. Radiocarbon 44, 159–166.Google Scholar
Reinhardt, E.G., Raban, A., (1999). Destruction of Herod the Great's harbor Caesarea Maritima, Israel, geoarchaeological evidence. Geology 27, 811–814.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Reimer, P.J., Braziunas, T.F., (1998). High-precision radiocarbon age calibration for terrestrial and marine samples. Radiocarbon 40, 3, 1127–1151.Google Scholar
Yasuda, Y., Kitagawa, H., Nakagawa, T., (2000). The earliest record of major anthropogenic deforestation in the Ghab Valley, northwest Syria: a palynological study. Quaternary International 73/74, 127–136.Google Scholar