Footholds on the sea floor
Abstract
Well before the Christian era two Greek ports, Samos and Alexandria, had already left their mark on the sea floor near the coast. In his ‘De Re Architectura’, Vitruvius would later describe the highly ingenious methods imagined by the Greeks, and later by the Romans, for the construction of artificial islands protected from the sea and how they pumped out the water and fulfilled the ancient dream of descending beneath the surface in order to construct their moles on the ocean bed.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Maritime and Coastal Archaeology
Water management and technologies
Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History
Publication details
- Journal / source
- CRC Press eBooks
- Pages
- 85–92
- Publication date
- 19 January 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter