A Late Bronze Age “Naval Station” at Kalamianos (Saronic Gulf), Greece?

The Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project (SHARP) has documented the Late Bronze Age harbor town at Kalamianos (Saronic Gulf, Greece) through intensive survey, architectural recording, and subsurface sonar. The small community of the Middle and earlier Late Bronze Age was expanded into a walled town of the Mycenaean palatial period oriented to the harbor. Subsequent local subsidence and eustatic change have made the harbor mostly unusable, and part of the town is now underwater. The Roman-period geographer Strabo identified the town of Eiones (probably Kalamianos) as a “naval station” (naustathmon). The term naval station is mostly associated with military activities throughout Greek literature. The implications of this identification of Kalamianos as a naval station are evaluated in light of our current understanding of the archaeology of maritime culture, both commercial and military, of the Mycenaeans and other Late Bronze Age peoples of the Aegean.