A New Theory for the verification of the location of the ancient city of Helike in Achaia, Greece
A New Theory for the verification of the location of the ancient city of Helike in Achaia, Greece
According to the historical literature, the ancient elike 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 elike remains one of the greatest mysteries of the science of Archaeology, 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.
Prodromos Psarropoulos
4th International Symposium on the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites
Materials, Monitoring and Geotechnical Investigation Methods
https://doi.org/10.53243/tc301-2026-31