Malahini in Greece and Turkey

Hi Everyone! I am back after taking a day off and going to Athens. Monday was a holiday here for Pentecost. It was one of those holidays where schools and government agencies close, but stores are open and most things seem to go on normally.

On the trip to Athens I crossed the Corinth Canal by train and I thought it would be a good time to talk a bit about the canal. It is only a few minutes drive from where I am staying. From here I can see the mouth of the canal easily. Sister Susie asked how it compared to the Panama Canal and also some very good questions about my comment on ships going over land rather than around the whole of the Peloppenese. I decided to ask Guy Sanders who is the director of the Excavation here at Corinth and I am so glad I did. He printed a whole paper he gave on it and told me that he will actually be featured on TV on the History channel sometime in the next year talking about it! So, you can keep your eyes open for something on the History Channel on the Corinth Canal (or shipping in the ancient world?) with Guy Sanders!

I am not going to give you the whole paper here, but just a few interesting tidbits to get you thinking. The Corinth Canal is very different than the Panama Canal although I think it was created for the same purpose. There was a narrow neck of land between the mainland and the Peloppenese for about 6 km (or 4 miles). It is about 80 m above sea level at the highest point (you will have to figure that out in yards), so there is a LONG way from the bridge to the water below in the canal. It is so far in fact that you can actually go bungie jumping there! . At the Panama Canal there are locks because the sea level at one side is so much higher than the other and the locks help the ship to “climb” to the higher level. At the Corinth Canal the sea level is the same or similar at both sides and the land is SO much higher thans sea level that locks are not needed.[picture of depth of canal from web]

In ancient times, before the canal was dug, there were war ships (triremes) cargo ships and smaller vessels that traveled the seas. We are mainly concerned with cargo ships and smaller here. It turns out that it was less expensive to drag the ships across the land (with their goods in them-I was wrong in what I said before). The shippers charged a tariff that was figured per ton per mile of transport and so the shorter distance really made a difference. Weather and safe sailing were also factors. The seas get too choppy for sailing between October and April and the land around the Peloppenese is rocky. There are many shipwrecks around the coast.
There was a specially designed wooden cradle in which the ship was firmly secured. It was on a rolling platform. The platform with the ship was then harnessed to teams of oxen. Guy Sanders estimates that it would take around 35 yoke of oxen to pull the 40 tons or so of weight repesented by the ship and the cargo. If there were 70 oxen pulling the ship I would guess that there would be many more men (slaves and workmen) securing the ship and caring for the oxen.

Over the centuries people thought about digging a canal here, but they did not have the technical ability to do it. In order to create a canal they had to cut the channel through rock. In Roman times (31BC-330AC or CE) emperor Nero used Jewish slave labor and unsuccessfully tried to excavate a canal. Finally in 1893 it was opened. The technology had developed enough to make it possible. Today supertankers will not fit in the canal and it is not as important for tranporting cargo, but it is an amazing sight and smaller ships regularly go through it. (Are you adding dates to the timeline as you go? I am!)

Well, enough about the canal. If you are interested in canals you may want to also check out the Suez Canal, which was completed about the same time as the Corinth Canal.

Today I am going to the elementary school (Demotico Echoleio) to learn about what games the kids play. I will take some pictures and I hope they will demonstrate for me. I am guessing that it will not be a day with a lot of work since tomorrow is their last day and it is a festival.

I think I should have started out this blog by mentioning that I did spend one month in Corinth in October 2005. If you are interested in reading more about it you can find my other blog at http://malahinitx.blogspot.com and look in the archives for October 2005. In October I was communicating with a 5th grade class in Missouri. You will find their picture somewhere there. I have learned a few words of Greek, but not much. I definitely understand much more Spanish than I do Greek. I heard a tourguide giving a tour in Spanish and understood most of what she said! It was a relief after hearing so much Greek and not understanding much beyond “good morning”. It is good that I can get by in English here.

This morning when reading my email I think I came across something interesting about my friends at John Muir School. If I am right they will be participating in the National Educational Computing Conference in their city (San Diego, California) ! Here is what I read. Maybe they can write us more about it in a comment!

Muir School International Projects: Global Schoolhouse and iEARN
[Student Showcase]
Be a global citizen. Share with international partners. Muir School
students demonstrate projects that change their perspectives forever.

Today’s Greek word is Amphora-this is a vessel for holding liquids, used like we would use a bottle. I will put a picture in tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 2:36 am and is filed under Archaeology, Greece, modern Greece, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.