Abstract
According to the historical literature, the ancient Ηelike was a city-state in Achaia, North Peloponnese, Greece, which disappeared completely after a strong earthquake in 373 BC. The verification of the exact location of ancient Ηelike remains one of the greatest mysteries of the science of Archeology, worldwide. Although the efforts to verify the location of the ancient city have increased during the last decades, the discoveries that have been identified to date are rather limited (both offshore and onshore), and nobody can claim that has verified the exact location of this ancient city.
Since the area of North Peloponnese is characterized by an irregular terrain, active seismic faults, and high seismicity, the present study aims to establish a new theory according to which the ancient city of Helike has been completely covered by the ground mass of a deep-seated earthquake-triggered landslide that took place during the strong earthquake of 373 BC. In order to establish this theory, apart from the historical data, all the available geodata (topographical, seismotectonic, geological, and geotechnical) for the specific area have been collected and evaluated on a Geographical Information System (GIS), while a preliminary geotechnical earthquake engineering study has been carried out which mainly includes numerical simulations of seismic slope instability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Strabo, Geography 8.7.2
Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.24.13
Soter, S., Katsonopoulou, D.: Submergence and uplift of settlements in the area of Helike, Greece, from the Early Bronze Age to late antiquity. Geoarchaeology 26(4), 584 (2011)
Soter, S., Katsonopoulou, D.: The search for ancient Helike, 1988–1995: geological, sonar and bore hole studies. In: Katsonopoulou, D., Soter, S., Schilardi, D. (eds.) Ancient Helike and Aigialeia, Athens (1998)
Makropoulos, K., Kaviris, G., Kouskouna, V.: An updated and extended earthquake catalogue for Greece and adjacent areas since 1900. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 12, 1425–1430 (2012)
Briole, P., Rigo, A., Lyon-Caen, H., Ruegg, J.C., Papazissi, K., Mitsakaki, C., Balodimou, A., Veis, G., Hatzfeld, D., Deschamps, A.: Active deformation of the Corinth rift, Greece: results from repeated GPS surveys between 1990 and 1995. J. Geophys. Res. 105(B11), 25605–25625 (2000)
Moretti, I., Sakellariou, D., Lykousis, V., Micarelli, L.: The Gulf of Corinth: an active half graben? J. Geodyn. 36, 323–340 (2003)
Kramer, S.L.: Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (1996)
Sabatakakis, N., Tsiambaos, G., Rondoyanni, Th., Papanakli, S., Kavoura, K.: Deep-seated structurally controlled landslides of Corinth Gulf rift zone, Greece: the case of Panagopoula Landslide. In: 13th ISRM Congress Proceedings - Innovations in Applied and Theoretical Rock Mechanics, p. 651 (2015)
Gkantona, A.: Topographical and geotechnical study for the verification of the location of the Ancient City of Helike. Diploma Thesis, NTUA, Greek (2019)
Acknowledgements
The first author would like to thank his wife, Danae Magkanioti, who grew up in the suburbs of Aegion and has supported this new theory in various ways.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Psarropoulos, P., Gkantona, A. (2020). Information Technology and a New Theory for the Verification of the Location of the Ancient City of Helike in Achaia, Greece. In: Correia, A., Tinoco, J., Cortez, P., Lamas, L. (eds) Information Technology in Geo-Engineering. ICITG 2019. Springer Series in Geomechanics and Geoengineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32029-4_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32029-4_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32028-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32029-4
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)