Event: The Ancient Athenian Naval Bases in the Piraeus – the Backbone of the World’s First Democracy

Speaker: Bjorn Loven

The Zea Harbor Project, digging on land and underwater from 2002 to 2012, uncovered extensive
archaeological remains of the Athenian naval facilities. The lecture will show how the archaeological
finds inform us about developments from the dawn of Athenian power in the late 6th and early 5th
centuries BC, to the young democracy at the time of the Persian Wars, to the age of empire when
Athens ruled the eastern Mediterranean, and to the waning years of the 4th century BC, when Athens
stood in the shadow of Macedonia.