A discovery of lead pollution and 5 lumps of brown coals were carbon dated to the days of the Bronze Age.
As far back as the 8th century B.C.E., the city of Corinth served as the beating heart of the Mediterranean's commerce. Lechaion, its sea port, was at the very core of its success. A new study has revealed that the port may be even older than previously thought.
Built on the Gulf of Corinth, Lechaion was the largest harbor in ancient Greece, a hub for Phoenican, Mycenaean, Byzantine, and Roman ships which passed through carrying trade goods such as pottery, fragrances, and textiles. The port was built on an isthmus, a narrow neck of land with sea on either side such as where the Panama and Suez canals are built, where it served as a nexus between the Ionian and Aegean seas over 2,600 years ago.
Recently, however, collaborative efforts between international organizations, which have been surveying the port since 2013, have yielded results that suggest the Lechaion may have been in use even further back. The seemingly humble discovery of five nuggets of brown coal, known as lignite, and a quantity of lead pollution have pushed back its age by 500 years.
French geo-archaeologist Antoine Chabrol of Sorbonne University and his team drilled cylinders of sediment from the inner harbor, in a protected channel where ships would have moored. According to Chabrol, these cylinders contained abnormally high levels of lead, providing incontrovertible evidence of human activity, namely metalwork including smelting and mining. The team of experts carbon dated the samples of lead pollution to the Bronze Age -- roughly 3,400 years ago.
"Given that historical sources trace the foundation of the port back to the 7th century B.C.E., these results attest to protohistoric industrial use of the site and push back its chronology by over five centuries," the study reads. "The existence of such ancient port activity not only extends the chronological horizon for harbor activity in the Corinthian area, but also provides new insights for the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age transition."
As for the five ingots of lignite, the samples were dated to 1122 B.C.E. The mineral's nearest known source is over 30 miles from the port, which implies that merchants had been selling and using the fossil fuel since the 12th century B.C.E. The lumps of coal may have even been used to light fires in a possible lighthouse discovered in 2016. Other physical elements of the harbor that have been discovered, including stone jetties and wooden pillars, have been dated to the Roman period of antiquity, around the 1st century B.C.E.
Other experts are encouraging a broader study of the metals found in the soil. The presence of copper, for example, could further indicate human activity in the area. If copper were to similarly be found in samples taken from nearby areas, this could reveal more about ancient trade routes. The truth of Lechaion's history lies hidden in the sediment, waiting to be uncovered.