DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0429
APPENDIX B
THE FORTRESS OF GHA AND OTHER MINYAN WORKS AT LAKE COFAIS
The spade of the archaeologist is not the sole revealer of the buried
monuments of Greece. One can hai'dly dig a cellar without bringing
antiquity to light. And a purely economic enterprise—the draining
of Lake Copa'is— has now brought into full relief a whole series of the
greatest public works of the Mycenaean age.1 Some of these works had
long been known, and we have notices of them by travelers from AVheler
(1723) to our own day. Among others, Leake 2 gave a good account of the
katabothrae and the great shafts in the Kephalari Pass ; but the impor-
tance of the island-fortress of Gha quite escaped him.3 The first searching
investigations were made by Forchhammer (1836), and followed up by
Ulrichs (1840); then the region was neglected again until Schliemann
undertook his excavations at Orchomenos; and it was not until the great
work of draining the lake, originally undertaken by a French company,
had been carried through by their English successors (1893) that the vast
complex of prehistoric engineering at the bottom of Copa'is, as well as
above and around it, came fully to light.
Copa'is was at once the largest and the shallowest lake in Greece; in
fact, it was rather a marsh than a lake, except when fed by the winter
rain-fall and the melting snows of the great watershed (Helicon and Par-
nassus) whose basin it forms. Then its waters covered an area of 90
square miles, while in summer the lake bed for the most part was left
dry. The higher arable portions were so fertile as to yield two crops a
year, while the lower were rank meadows feeding great herds of cattle
1 See Kambanis, " Le Dessechement de lac Copais par les Anciens," in Hull, de
Corr. Hell., xvi. (1892), 121 ff. and xrii. (1893). 322ff.; de Kidder, " Fonilles de Gha,"
ib. xviii. (1894), 271 ff.; Noack, " Arne," Ath. Mitth. xix. (1894), 405-481. Cf. Ctirtius,
Sitzungsberickte Set Berliner Akademie, 1892, pp. 11S1 ff., and Gesammelte Abhand-
lungen, i. 266 ff.
2 Northern Greece, ii. 281 ff.
3 He gives it no place on his map, and merely mentions it, in passing1, as " aa
island surrounded by cliffs, the summit of which is encircled by the remains of a
Hellenic (?) wall. In the enclosed space, I am told by some peasants who have
been there, are some foundations of buildings, but no columns."
THE FORTRESS OF GHA AND OTHER MINYAN WORKS AT LAKE COFAIS
The spade of the archaeologist is not the sole revealer of the buried
monuments of Greece. One can hai'dly dig a cellar without bringing
antiquity to light. And a purely economic enterprise—the draining
of Lake Copa'is— has now brought into full relief a whole series of the
greatest public works of the Mycenaean age.1 Some of these works had
long been known, and we have notices of them by travelers from AVheler
(1723) to our own day. Among others, Leake 2 gave a good account of the
katabothrae and the great shafts in the Kephalari Pass ; but the impor-
tance of the island-fortress of Gha quite escaped him.3 The first searching
investigations were made by Forchhammer (1836), and followed up by
Ulrichs (1840); then the region was neglected again until Schliemann
undertook his excavations at Orchomenos; and it was not until the great
work of draining the lake, originally undertaken by a French company,
had been carried through by their English successors (1893) that the vast
complex of prehistoric engineering at the bottom of Copa'is, as well as
above and around it, came fully to light.
Copa'is was at once the largest and the shallowest lake in Greece; in
fact, it was rather a marsh than a lake, except when fed by the winter
rain-fall and the melting snows of the great watershed (Helicon and Par-
nassus) whose basin it forms. Then its waters covered an area of 90
square miles, while in summer the lake bed for the most part was left
dry. The higher arable portions were so fertile as to yield two crops a
year, while the lower were rank meadows feeding great herds of cattle
1 See Kambanis, " Le Dessechement de lac Copais par les Anciens," in Hull, de
Corr. Hell., xvi. (1892), 121 ff. and xrii. (1893). 322ff.; de Kidder, " Fonilles de Gha,"
ib. xviii. (1894), 271 ff.; Noack, " Arne," Ath. Mitth. xix. (1894), 405-481. Cf. Ctirtius,
Sitzungsberickte Set Berliner Akademie, 1892, pp. 11S1 ff., and Gesammelte Abhand-
lungen, i. 266 ff.
2 Northern Greece, ii. 281 ff.
3 He gives it no place on his map, and merely mentions it, in passing1, as " aa
island surrounded by cliffs, the summit of which is encircled by the remains of a
Hellenic (?) wall. In the enclosed space, I am told by some peasants who have
been there, are some foundations of buildings, but no columns."