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TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE IRIA WRECK
Adonis Kyrou
The sea, which clasped within its stormy embrace at Point Iria the little merchantman sailing through the Gulf of Argos 3,200 years ago,[1] has jealously guarded the secret of the wreck until our day. Now that scholars and scientists are studying the finds brought up by the divers of the Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology, this humble Late Helladic III trading vessel has opened up new horizons in the study of this last phase of the Mycenaean world and the condition of insecurity and turmoil prevailing in the region of Argosaronic Gulf at the beginning of the 12th c. BC (end of LH IIIB 2).
No actual remains of the ship have so far been found. The small ship capsized some tens of metres from the precipitous northwest side of the promontory in a sudden tumultuous sea whipped up by the strong west or northwest wind so feared in the region, and known to modern sailors as the ponente or maοstro. Except for a large part of the cargo of utilitarian pots and pithoi for transporting agricultural products, one or two stone anchors and some ballast stones, it left no other indications that might reveal its identity and the circumstances surrounding its final voyage. We must therefore turn to the historical and archaeological evidence about the region of the wreck.
Point Iria, the Strouthous of antiquity (Pausanias 2. 36. 3-4), is a nautical landmark for mariners sailing in the Gulf of Argos (Fig. 1). In the days of the Mycenaean state it formed the boundary between the territory of Asine and those of Hermione and Mases and marked the western coastal limit of the district of Didymia (Papachatzis 1976, 283. Kyrou 1990, 19-23). The locality that interests us in the case of the Iria wreck is the wide bay stretching to the east of the promontory and called Agrioi Limenes in antiquity —in the plural in Greek, because a rocky ridge of hills at right angles to the flat shore divides it into two parts, which are protected from northerly and westerly winds at the west end by the islet of Ipsili (Fig. 2).
Agrioi Limenes, whose name means “wild havens”, and by extension a bleak place, precipitous and inaccessible by land (Liddell & Scott 1901, 30), as indeed it is, was the only outlet to the Gulf of Argos and the sea for the mountainous district of Didymia, which was famous in antiquity for its large olive production and its dairy products from the large herds of sheep and goats that browsed there (Fig. 3). This area was also disputed in the late Hellenistic period (2nd c. BC) by both the Epidaurians and the Hermioneans (Jameson et al. 1994, 596-599). Today Agrioi Limenes has the names Megali and Mikri Vourlia, and it is interesting to recall that it was from this bay, sheltered from the winds, that sections of the British expeditionary force were evacuated in April 1941 after the collapse of the battle front.
The purpose of these remarks is to show that the site of the wreck off Point Iria was not simply a fortuitous point in the sea, where the ship was driven and sunk by high winds and heavy seas, but resulted from the action of the heavy seas breaking against the cliffs of this natural arm of land covering the entrance to a harbour which was well known to sailors of the period, and which may well have been the destination of a ship approaching from the northwest—presumably Asine or Nauplia. A Late Mycenaean fortified site on the summit of the precipitous hill overlooking the shore of Vourlia (Agrioi Limenes) dominates the narrow coastal strip, where other Late Bronze Age remains are visible, chiefly around wells, now dried up, or on mountain passes (Figs. 4, 5, 6).
The crew of the little merchantman would have been trying to fetch this windless bay in the midst of the stormy sea. Serious damage to the mast or steering oar, however, may have left the boat unmanoeuvrable, and it got caught in the backwash of the waves and overturned before it was able to weather the point to the safety of the harbour.
That is the topographical background of the wreck. But what is the historical basis for this nautical calamity? The date of the finds at the end of Late Helladic III B brings us close to 1200 BC, the probable time of the end of the Trojan War. It must also be remembered that according to mythology and history the whole of the southeastern end of Argolis, from Nauplia and Asine to Hermione, Troezen and Eiones (on the eastern edge of Troezen), known by the general name of Acte (Polybius 5. 91. 8. Pausanias 2.8.5), had been settled since the end of the 14th c. BC by rugged newcomers, chiefly farming and herding populations of Dryopes or Dolopes, who had descended from the mountainous regions of N. E. Thessaly and arrived as far as Aigina and Attica (Pausanias 4. 34. 9. Herodotus VIII, 43. Diodorus Siculus 437, 2. Kyrou 1990, 82-87). This Dryopian state, at the soft underbelly of Mycenaean Argolis, quite naturally came into open conflict with the Mycenaean power at a moment when the Mycenaeans were most vulnerable. This must have been at a time when the political and military leadership together with a large part of the army and priesthood were away at the Trojan War. And indeed the archaeological record suggests that a large earthquake, which overwhelmed Mycenae and other Mycenaean centres in Argolis towards the end of the 13th c. (LH IIIB 2), followed shortly after the occurrence of some kind of internal conflict that left clear indications—conflagrations and destruction—in some of the principal buildings of Mycenae at the end of LH IIIB 2 (around 1200 BC). This was then followed by a period of reconstruction and a new flowering, at the beginning of the 12th c. (Wace 1955, 187. French 1963, 50. Mylonas 1983, 247-252. Iakovidis 1986, 259).
This intertribal confrontation in the Mycenaean realm finds an echo in the mythological cycle of the "Curse of the Atreides", which is connected with the atmosphere of internal warfare prevailing in the Argosaronic region at the beginning of the 12th c. BC, resulted in an exodus by many groups of Dryopes from Argolis, Aigina and Attica to the Cyclades and further afield as far as copper bearing Cyprus, with which the Dryopes of pre-Dorian descent maintained close colonial and commercial ties.
During this period of intertribal strife in the waning Mycenaean kingdom (very end of LH IIIB 2), which came in the first two decades of the 12th c. BC, the Dryopian towns in NE Argolis, E Laconia (Thyreatis) and Aigina, as well as those in Boeotia and Attica, which had been isolated by the severing of their land communications by the Mycenaeans, formed a joint defensive political and commercial league in order to defend their sea links against the threat of the powerful Mycenaean fleet from Crete, and also to ensure the maintenance of supplies to the Dryopian coastal centres. Later on, in the middle of the 7th c. BC (Strabo VIII 374), under threat from Pheidon, the well-known tyrant of Argos, seven major Dryopean towns, including Athens, Aigina, Epidaurus, Hermione, Nauplia, Brasiae (or Prasiae: modern Leonidio) and Minyan Orchomenos,[2] formed the defensive Amphictiony of Calauria, with the sanctuary of Poseidon at Calauria (modern Poros) as its religious centre (Fig. 7).
This putative league—as a precursor to the subsequent amphictiony—of the Dryopes of southern Greece in the late Mycenaean period, during the troubled times prevailing at the beginning of the 12th c. BC (end of LH IIIB 2), looked chiefly towards the sea.[3] It is therefore reasonable to suppose, given the farming and herding occupations of the Dryopes, that to handle its maritime needs it attracted ships coming not only from the regions it controlled, but also from more distant places which maintained ties with the warring Dryopes of the Peloponnesian region as a whole. It should also be noted that the decline of Mycenaean maritime power left the Dryopian centres of the Argosaronic region a free field of action, although the threat of the appearance of the Mycenaean fleet from Crete made it necessary to establish defensive posts at points on the coasts and islands along the routes followed by the ships serving the main Dryopian harbours. Well-fortified harbour stations on the islands and islets controlled the sea routes from the Gulf of Argos to the Saronic Gulf and the Cyclades, for example the island of Dokos (ancient Aperopia) and the islet of Modi or Liontari (Eiones?) off the east coast of Poros, for vessels sailing to Aigina and Attica. And for voyages across the open sea to the Cyclades there was Hydra (ancient Hydrea), with its many springs. They testify to the defensive cover of the sea routes and the safeguarding of supplies for the ships of the Dryopian league during the troubled first decade of the 12th c. BC. By contrast, on the more southerly sailing route the islet of Parapola or Velopoula (Fig. 8), on which remains have been found of an important Early Bronze Age (Early Helladic II, ca. 2,300 BC) settlement with evidence of considerable copper working activity—the copper probably came from the neighbouring islet of Falkonera—does not seem to have played much of a role in the Mycenaean shipping trade to the Cyclades and Crete, since no remains of this period have been discovered there (Kyrou 1990, 75-76).
In searching for conclusions it must be recognised that on present evidence it cannot be said with any certainty that the Point Iria wreck was a ship of Cypriot origin, beyond the fact that part of the cargo recovered consists of pithoi and utilitarian pottery made in Cyprus. It is, however, sure that at this time the maritime contacts of the Dryopes of southern Greece extended as far as Cyprus. In this particular instance, leaving aside speculations about its origin, it seems very probable that this small merchant ship, whose length could not have exceeded 10 metres, was on a short voyage, coming from one of the northwestern harbours in the Gulf of Argos, like Nauplia and Asine, with the purpose of taking on a cargo of agricultural products in Agrioi Limenes or nearby Mases.
The ship’s final destination is unknown, whether it would have returned to the harbour it had sailed from, or whether it would have continued on towards the Saronic Gulf or the Cyclades. In the latter case, if it were making for Aigina and Attica, it would have sailed through the Vouporthmos (modern Mouzaki) channel between Hermione and Dokos (Fig. 9), probably putting in for supplies at the fortified harbours of Myti Kommeni on Dokos (Fig. 10) and the islet of Modi, where there are also the remains of a sizable Late Helladic III settlement, possibly the Homeric town of Eiones (Fig. 11). If, again, its destination was the Cyclades, the last stop for taking on supplies on its way out of the Gulf of Argos would have been Hydra. There are imposing remains of constructions for the collection and discharge of spring water at either end of the island: at Cape Zourva to the northeast on the rocky coast of Zoodochos Piyi and at Cape Bisti on the flat coast of Ayios Nikolaos to the southwest (Fig. 12). It was to the existence of these springs that this island at the furthest edge of Agamemnon’s kingdom,[4] which had passed into the hands of the rebellious Dryopes,[5] clearly owed its ancient name of Hydrea. They, indeed, may also have been responsible for the fortification of the Ayios Nikolaos coast adjacent to the water supply system on the hill of Bisti, which was built in the manner characteristic of Dryopean fortifications in the Argosaronic region for the protection of the place against sea raids by the Mycenaeans.[6]
As a final comment it must be said that it is premature, on the present evidence of the Point Iria wreck, to speak of the identity of the ship and the course of its final voyage. Further investigations to locate the possible remains of the sunken vessel are necessary, using modern technological equipment both to locate any possible metal objects —which are so far completely absent—and to continue the excavation down to a greater depth, since it is very probable that this little ship was overturned by the strong wind and backwash of the rebounding waves, without breaking up on the rocks. Had that happened, the cargo would have been smashed and piled up very close to the northwest shore of the point. Only after the whole area of the bottom in the vicinity of Point Iria has been fully explored may we learn more about the wreck and about one of the last dramatic phases in the history of the kingdom of Mycenae, once “rich in gold”.
PHOTO CAPTIONS
Fig. 1. Point Iria, the Strouthous of antiquity, was a nautical landmark in the Gulf of Argos, forming the coastal boundary between the Mycenaean centres of Asine and Mases. The ship capsized near the northwest side of the promontory.
Fig. 2. The Iria promontory encloses on the west the bay of Vourlia, where the ancient port of Agrioi Limenes was situated, the outlet to the sea of the mountainous district of Didymia.
Fig. 3. Plan of the area of Agrioi Limenes (today Vourlia), east of Point Iria. The ship was trying to reach this port when it was capsized by the strong west wind near the tip of the point.
Fig. 4. The fortified Mycenaean site on the hill dominating Vourlia bay (Agrioi Limenes) can be dated to the time of the wreck at Point Iria (end of 13th-beginning of 12th c. BC).
Fig. 5. The ruins of the acropolis and the rest of the settlement on the hill in Vourlia bay mark a LH IIIB site hitherto unknown in Mycenaean Argolis.
Fig. 6. The ruins of the Mycenaean site on the hill of Vourlia in the mountainous area of Didymia near the boundary with Asine can be identified as the Voleoi Lithoi (mound of stones) mentioned by Pausanias (2. 36. 3-4).
Fig, 7. The Calaurian Amphictiony in the 7th c. BC, formed by the Dryopian cities of Orchomenos, Athens, Aigina, Epidaurus, Hermione, Nauplia and Brasiae. The plan also shows the expansion of the Dryopian league in the 12th c. BC.
Fig. 8. The islet of Parapola (Velopoula) in the open Myrtoon Sea, although it lies at a nerve centre for seafaring between Argolis and the Cyclades, does not have any traces of Mycenaean presence in the little harbour, where there are remains of an Early Helladic II settlement (ca. 2300 BC).
Fig. 9. The Mouzaki (ancient Vouporthmos) channel separates the island of Dokos (left) from the coast of Hermione. It has always been a key for seafaring from the Gulf of Argos to the Saronic Gulf.
Fig. 10. On the Myti Kommeni promontory on the north coast of Dokos, a fortified harbour of the Dryopes belongs to the same period as the Point Iria wreck (LH IIIB 2).
Fig. 11. Also contemporary with the wreck is an important Late Helladic IIIB settlement on the islet of Modi, east of Poros (ancient Calauria), where a sacred enclosure was cut into the rock.
Fig. 12. The island of Hydra (ancient Hydrea) played a major role in seafaring from the Gulf of Argos to the Cyclades due to its many springs. An imposing LH IIIB structure on the south coast at Ayios Nikolaos-Bisti ensured the collection and discharge of water.
[6] Strabo III 373, for the tragic fate of Eiones during the intertribal clash of Mycenaeans and Dryopes at the beginning of the 12th c. BC (end of LH IIIB 2).
reproduced, by permission, from:
The Point Iria Wreck: Interconnections in the Mediterranean ca. 1200 BC
Proceedings of the International Conference. Island of Spetses, 19 September
1998. Ed. William Phelps, Yannos Lolos, Yannis Vichos. Athens 1999.
Pp. 268. ISBN 960-86282-1-0
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