Cenchreai to Isthmus Road: Modern?

In a previous post I suggested that the present road between Kenchreai and Isthmia is not in the same position that the road was in the 1950's (the time when the several segments were discovered).  Now I see that there is evidence that the road was, indeed, rebuilt about that time.

A) In Wiseman [1978] 59 we read "Part of the dump from the Corinth Canal now covers the wall between this section and where it re-appears near the modern road."

In other words part of the Corinth Canal dump was put between segments Sk and segment St.  Notice that Wiseman talks about the 'modern' road.


B) "The Hellenistic Wall. During the summer of 1965 a short section of a fortification wall was uncovered at Cenchreae during excavations by the University of Chicago and the University of Indiana. The wall had been cut through in the construction of the new Isthmia-Epidaurus highway." Wiseman [1978] 62

So, here again, Wiseman mentions a new road built between Isthmia and Cenchreae - in this case before 1965.

C) " ... on the side of a small gully that runs from the old earthen road (Isthmia-Cenchreae) towards the southeast slope of Ayios Dhimitrios Ridge (Fig. 70)." Wiseman [1978] 62

From these citations we learn two things.  The old road was replaced by a new road before 1965 (from B) and the old road was an earthen road (from C).

Since segments Sk and St were discovered before this time we must assume that Broneer's original report about St was referring to the 'old earthen road'.

What we do not yet know is whether the new road was repositioned.

Bibliography

Wiseman [1978] : Wiseman, James. The Land of the Ancient Corinthians. Paul Åströms Förlag, Göteborg. ISBN: 91-85058-78-5.

(Note used: N663)

Some new photographs of Segment Sp in the Isthmian 'Mycenaean' wall

 

An associate, Dr. Hajo Becker, has travelled to Greece just this  month and was kind enough to take some pictures of known segments of the 'Mycenaean' wall. [1]  In this post I wanted to show a couple of his new pictures of segment Sp (C7769 in my Atlas).  First is the image available in Google Earth.  The letters alpha and beta key to the corresponding letters in Becker's photos.  Dr. Becker's photos were post-processed by me in Photoshop.  I will have some more of Dr. Becker's photos in subsequent posts.

Google Earth image.  The letters alpha and beta
correspond to the same stone in Becker's photos, below.

Center of the wall segment Sp.

The work of Dr. Hajo Becker, all rights reserved.

North end of the wall segment Sp.
The work of Dr. Hajo Becker, all rights reserved.

This reminds me of Greece: the cyclamen.

Footnotes

[1] Broneer [1966] 351; Kardara [1971] 85; Morgan [1999] 443.

Bibliography

Broneer [1966]:  Broneer, Oscar. ‘The Cyclopean Wall on the Isthmus of Corinth and Its Bearing on Late Bronze Age Chronology’, Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (35:4), pp. 346-352, 'As we proceed westward the wall ... ', pg. 351. Online here.

Kardara [1971] : Kardara, Chrysoula, “The Isthmian Wall (A retaining wall for a road?),” AAA, 4:1 (1971) 85-89.

Morgan [1999] : Morgan, Catherine.  Isthmia VIII; The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.  Princeton, New Jersey.  USA.  1999.  ISBN: 0-87661-938-3.