Speakers
Prof Jean–Philippe Goiran
Research Scientist, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Biography:
Jean–Philippe Goiran is a Research Scientist at CNRS since 2003, specialized in ancient harbor and geo-archaeology, human impacts, relative sea-level variations, and landscape evolution. He is also Professor of Physical Geography at Aix–Marseille University. He was appointed Member of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Partner at the Intelligence of Urban Worlds (IMU). Goiran was also Co Director of the OMEAA Platform. He participated in 25 international conferences and 20 national conferences. Goiran published four publications in Social and Human Sciences (SHS) and Geosciences, including Geoarchaeology confirms location of the ancient river mouth harbor of Ostia (Italy).
Abstract:
Geoarchaeology of Ancient Mediterranean Harbors: The Case of Alexandria (Egypt) and Portus (Italy)
The ancient harbors of Alexandria and Portus have three main basins. Alexandria has two harbor environments: the Magnus Portus and the Eunostos Harbor, one on each side of the Heptastadion. The Magnus Portus is a well-protected environment; however, the Eunostos Harbor is subjected to storms and marine currents. A third, very well-protected basin has been reported in the Kibotos Western Harbor.
Magnus Portus consisted of two main coalescent basins. The first, the huge basin of Claudius, was subjected to storms and silting up. Claudius subsequently provided his harbor with a darsena, a highly-protected basin. A third basin, hexagonal in shape, was built later during Trajan’s rule. The borehole samples recovered in these six basins show sedimentary stratigraphy that confirms certain ideas and elements, deduced from ancient written texts, but invalidates others. We will compare between sedimentary archives and textual archives. It is also interesting to try to compare these two huge Mediterranean harbor systems in terms of bathymetry, sedimentology, mole configurations, basin area, dredging phases, life span, and more.