Chapter 5: GREECE

The waters around Greece are full of cultural remains: submerged coastal sites and shipwrecks of all kinds, ancient and modern, prehistoric and historic. The Minoan civilisation was well-known for its trading with Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, whilst the voyages of the Myceneans throughout the eastern Mediterranean are echoed in the heroic epics of Homer and the tale of the Argonauts. The Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology (HIMA) has undertaken three full-scale projects: the excavation of a site at the island of Dokos; the excavation of a wreck at Point Iria in Argolikos Gulf whose pottery assemblage dates to 1,200 B.C. and comes from three different areas, Crete, Cyprus and mainland Greece; and an excavation of a fourth century B.C. shipwreck near the island of Kythera. Keywords: Greece; Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology (HIMA); underwater cultural heritage (UCH)