May 11, 2023 • 28 mins
In this episode the landscape of Vostitsa is described using GIS analyses.
See the accompanying maps and images on the companion page for this episode on the Helonaki website.
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Jen (00:00):
April 5th, 1806.
From Megaspilio to Vostitsa Setout at 8:20.
Our road descends the mountainby a narrow zigzag path among
bushes.
At 8:40 cross the river by abridge.
Zachlourou is five minutesbeyond a village having two
small makhalas on the left bankof the river.
(00:22):
And a third on the right.
We proceed along the side of abare mountain above the left
bank.
At nine quitting the river,which pursues its course
northward towards the sea.
Through a narrow ravine borderedby precipices.
We turn to the left up a valleyformed by a branch of the river.
(00:42):
After skirting the right bank ofthe stream a little way.
Cross it.
And mount the ridge over theleft bank.
Leaving Dumena on the side ofthe opposite mountain, half a
mile on the left.
At 9:40 having arrived at thetop of the ridge we looked down
on the Corinthian Gulf.
Descend and then cross anotherridge.
(01:04):
On the summit of which at 10:25,we halt five minutes.
Here is a fine view of theopposite part of Rumili;
Parnassus and the mountains nearSolona are very conspicuous.
Below us is a hollow ofcultivated land and pasture,
with small streams running intothe Kalavryta river, which is at
no great distance on the right.
(01:26):
Proceed along the side of thehill and halt five minutes at a
fountain.
Eight minutes beyond, I arriveat 11 at the site of an ancient
town.
It stood on the lowest part ofthe ridge which separates the
course of the feeders of theKalavryta river from the water's
flowing to another stream, whichjoins the sea at two miles to
(01:47):
the westward of the former andis called the river of Bokhusia.
The Hellenic remains consists ofseveral foundations and pieces
of wall, of some of which thereare two or three courses still
extant.
The city was on the Eastern faceof the ridge.
Looking towards the Kalavrytariver.
I conceive it to have beenCeryneia.
(02:09):
Proceeding obliquely down themountain, which forms the
Eastern side of the ravine ofthe river Bokhusia.
We arrive at 11:35 at a dervenior guard house.
The sides of these mountains arebeautifully variegated with
pines and shrubs and clothedwith a fine pasture.
11:55 arrive at the spot wherethe river emerges from the
(02:31):
ravine into the maritime plain,which widens from hence to
Vostitsa.
Immediately afterwards, we crossthe river and proceed along the
plain.
At 1:30 cross the river ofVostitsa, a rapid stream,
difficult to pass after rains.
At 2 arrive in the middle of thetown of Vostitsa.
(02:53):
The river is formed from severaltributaries, of which the
sources are near Aio Vlasi, andin the summits to the eastward
of that place.
The united stream flows fromthence between the mountains of
Voidhias and Klokos and entersthe plain immediately behind
Vostitsa, after which it makes acircuit to the right, so as to
(03:14):
join the sea between two andthree miles to the eastward of
the town.
This is from Leake Travels inthe Morea volume three, which
was published in 1830.
Pages 182 through 185.
I'm Jen Glaubius, and this isthe Helonaki Deep Dive, a
podcast about mapping andanalysis for historical and
(03:34):
archeological research.
In this episode, I'll discussthe landscape of Vostitsa.
Part of which was described byLeake during his second journey
in the Morea in 1806 in thepassage that I just read.
I also want to let you know thatI have created maps related to
this episode, which you can viewon the Helonaki website.
(03:57):
The link to the page with themaps for this episode is in the
show notes.
Let's dive in.
When I talk about the landscapeI'm looking specifically within
the borders of the 1700 Venetianterritory of Vostitsa, now the
(04:20):
1463 places in the Ottomandefter go further south towards
Kalavryta further into thehigher mountains.
But I don't have firm boundariesfor that because they really
didn't have boundaries betweenthese places in 1463.
And because 1700 is the middletime period that we're looking
(04:42):
at.
All of the information andanalyses are going to be based
on the 1700 Venetian borders.
So within those borders, theentire territory of Vostitsa is
within 22 kilometers or 14 milesof the coast.
It's all hugging the coastlineof the northern Peloponnesus.
(05:03):
Leake's route through ravines toreach the coastal plain was
typical for north south travelin the Vostitsa area.
Except for the relatively flatplain along the coast, the
Vostitsa landscape consists of aseries of ravines and valleys
running north to south.
Here's how the Vostitsalandscape formed.
The story starts tens ofmillions of years ago.
(05:25):
When the shells of sea creaturesaccumulated deep underwater and
through time were compressedtogether to form limestone.
The limestone was lifted up toform mountains between 56 and 34
million years ago.
As the area was compressed astectonic plates came together.
In the last 23 million years.
(05:45):
The area is no longer beingcompressed, but now is being
stretched apart.
This extension of the landscapethrough stretching has fractured
the brittle crust into blocks,separated by fault lines.
Some of the blocks moveddownwards, like the Gulf of
Corinth to the north ofVostitsa, which is called a
Graben.
While others known as Horstsmove upwards.
(06:08):
And this is like the mountainsof Arcadia to the south of
Vostitsa.
As the Arcadian mountains movedupwards, they eroded.
And the sediment from themountains was transported north
by streams and deposited in theVostitsa area as alluvial fans
at the base of those mountains.
Lowered sea level during theglacial periods in the
(06:28):
Pleistocene caused the streamsto cut into those alluvial fans,
creating the present day,ravines and valleys.
While the coastal plain was alsoformed by river deltas in the
Gulf of Corinth that were liftedup above sea level.
Today, the coastal plain in theVostitsa area reaches at most
6.5 kilometers or four milesinland.
(06:51):
But it's mostly much less thanthat.
It extends along the coast,about 24 kilometers or 15 miles
from the Western border towardsthe east.
And there's a break where thecliffs are straight up against
the Gulf of Corinth without acoastal plain.
And then on the very Easternmost side of Vostitsa, there's
(07:14):
five kilometers, about threemiles of a coastal plain again.
The coastal plain is an areawhere agriculture is fairly
easy, but it's a very small partof the overall territory.
Most of the area is foothillsgoing up towards the mountains,
that get highest towards thesouth.
(07:35):
And this area as you might'vebeen able to discern from what I
read of Leake's description ofthis area.
Really it's divided up byravines that these streams go
into and so travel in some waysis much easier going north
south, the way that the streamsare going from the mountains
(07:57):
towards the coastline.
There's a number of thesestreams.
We're going to go from east,towards west, within the
territory.
Further east than Leake reachedwas the Krathis, which comes out
about Akrata.
It's on the east side of thisterritory.
There was also not in thepresent day, but on the Venetian
(08:22):
map from 1700, there was also astream that was east of where
Leake came out that entered theCorinthian Gulf at the present
day Punto promontory.
The next ravine, the stream isthe Voraikos, which comes out
about west of Diakopto.
This is the ravine that todaythere's a rack railroad that
(08:46):
goes from Diakopto to the MegaSpileo monastery and then on to
the town of Kalavryta.
That's basically the path forthe first part of Leake's route
going from Mega Spileo towardswhat today is Diakopto.
So to the west of that is RemaKerinitis, which enters the
(09:07):
Corinthian Gulf east ofNikoleika.
And this is the stream thatLeake called Bokhusia.
So the second one that he wasfollowing to go towards the
coast.
And then he came out on thecoastline.
And eventually he reaches, theSelinous Potamos which is the
Selinous river.
Which during Leake's time flowedcloser to Aigio.
(09:29):
So it was within two to threemiles and now it's further east
due to an earthquake.
The Selinous is what Leakecalled the river of Vostitsa,
because it flows the closest tothe town of Aigio which was
called Vostitsa.
So further west than was in thispassage by Leake there's the
Rema Meganitas, which enters theCorinthian Gulf northwest of
(09:53):
Aigio.
Many of these streams,especially on the Eastern side,
have very sharp ravines,especially away from the coast.
And it's easiest to travel asLeake did traveling down these
different ravines or streamvalleys.
Elevation is the basic data I'musing to study the landscape of
the Vostitsa area.
(10:15):
The elevation data is in adigital elevation model, also
known as a DEM.
This DEM I'm using has a 25meter resolution.
Which means that sudden changesin elevation that occur in less
than 50 to 100 meters, likethings like cliffs, those can
not be detected.
(10:36):
But the 25 meter resolution isstill good for larger landscape
features, which is why I'm usingit.
Within the Vostitsa study area,the elevation goes from zero
meters above sea level, alongthe coast to 1,748 meters above
sea level to the south, which isa change in elevation of over
(10:58):
one mile.
Now elevation is the first stepof looking at the landscape
because I also use the DEM tocompute other landscape measures
such as slope, ruggedness, andclassifying landforms.
Slope is the change in elevationover a distance.
You might've learned it inschool as rise over run.
(11:20):
So through the magic of GIS, Itransformed the DEM into a slope
map, and you can see this slopemap, and other maps on the
Helonaki website using the link.
So, if you look at that slopemap, you can see that the slope
is very close to being flat onthe coastal plain.
(11:42):
Although there are a few othersmaller upland plains further to
the south.
The steepest slopes are in theravines on the eastern side of
the territory.
And then also there's some steepslopes, not in ravines on the
southwestern border, where it'sgoing up to the mountains.
If we think ahead a little bitabout how humans use a
(12:03):
landscape, which we'll get intoin the next episode.
If you think about it flat orgentle slopes are the easiest to
use.
But in areas such as Vostitsa,and across much of Greece,
steeper slopes have beencultivated for thousands of
years.
Often by building terraces,walls that divide up a slope to
(12:27):
create small flat areas.
Some of the villages in the moremountainous parts of Vostitsa
use terraces to create enoughspace for houses.
Because the terrain is otherwisejust too steep for even a small
sized house.
All right.
So leaving slope behind anothermeasure of landscape that I'm
(12:48):
using is ruggedness.
Which measures how much theterrain goes up and down over a
certain distance.
An area can have a steep slope,but not be very rugged, if the
slope only goes one direction.
Versus if the terrain goes upand down a lot then it's going
(13:09):
to be more rugged, even if thereisn't much slope change.
Most of the Vostitsa area hasfairly low ruggedness because
it's hilly, it's the foothillstowards the mountains, but it's
not in the mountains themselves.
The lowest ruggedness of courseis along the coastal plain.
While the most rugged part ofVostitsa is the southwestern
(13:30):
border area, which isapproaching the mountains
further to the south.
The last measure I want to talkabout with respect to Vostitsa
landscape is landform.
Landforms can be classified inmany ways, but I used a
topographic position indexmethod that's available in QGIS
using the SAGA toolbox.
(13:51):
That classification yielded 10landforms, which I simplified to
five, which are stream/drainage,valleys, plains, slope, and
ridge.
And slope in this case justmeans that the landscape is not
flat so like the side of a hill,not the top, not the bottom.
(14:12):
If you look at the landforms mapusing the link to the Helonaki
website.
As you might expect, the streamsare bounded by valleys.
So where you have a stream oneither side, there are valleys
and then slopes.
Most of the area of the Vostitsaterritory is classified as
(14:32):
slopes While the next largestclassification is plains.
Including elevation, those arefour different ways of looking
at the landscape and looking atthem all together, you get the
idea that the coastal plain isone very easy area to use.
The ravines, especially on theEastern side of the territory
(14:57):
are steep and would not havebeen easy to travel through or
to live in.
And then another area that wouldbe very difficult to do anything
in is that Southwestern part ofthe territory that's approaching
the mountains.
Now one analysis I have not donefor the Vostitsa area is
classification of land cover.
(15:19):
Which looks at what type ofvegetation or surfaces cover a
landscape.
From my own observations from mytravels in the Vostitsa area, I
know that the more rugged areasand in the ravines are forested
with pine trees.
While more gentle slopes arecultivated with olive trees or
(15:41):
vineyards.
Very little of the area iscultivated with grains in the
present day.
But in the past grain would havebeen cultivated underneath olive
trees and much more widely, whenpeople were growing grain for
their own consumption.
So those are some of the basicsabout the landscape.
(16:02):
Let's talk about a few processesthat can affect the landscape
itself.
I was making my first trip tothe Vostitsa area in 2004
exploring the landscape.
I was driving around and Istopped for lunch near this
place called Tsivlos at a smalltaverna.
The person working had someEnglish and I had a little bit
(16:23):
of Greek and we were able tocommunicate enough and we ended
up talking.
I told him a little bit aboutwhat I was doing.
And he told me the story of agiant landslide that he said
happened during hisgrandparents' time that had
reshaped the landscape.
Just to make sure I have all thedetails, I did some additional
research since I didn't rememberall the story.
(16:45):
So here's what I know.
On Sunday, March 24th, 1913.
There was a large landslide ofrocks and soil that came down
from the Gerakari mountain.
All that rock and soil slid downand it blocked the Krathis
river.
The village of Sylivaina camedown as part of that landslide.
(17:08):
While the village of Tsivloswhere it was then was flooded by
the new lake that was formed bythe now blocked Krathis river.
Unfortunately four people werekilled during this incident,
which destroyed both villages,but fortunately, most people in
(17:29):
Sylivaina and Tsivlos had leftthe area due to smaller
landslides two days earlier.
So most people left the area andwere safe.
But it ends up that some of thehouses and the semi submerged
church of Agios Athanasios fromthe old village of Tsivlos are
still visible in the lake.
(17:50):
This happened just to the southof the Vostitsa area.
So not within the area ofanalysis, but, there definitely
were landslides, small and largethrough time.
Especially in this type ofmountainous, very sloping
landscape.
In addition to landslides, wealso need to talk about
(18:13):
earthquakes as a process thatcan really change the landscape.
There was a fairly well-studiedearthquake in 337 BC, that
destroyed the city of Helike,which was attested in ancient
authors.
And there's an archeologicalproject that's been working In
(18:34):
that part of Vostitsa lookingfor Helike, which they think
they've done.
They've done studies of soilsand sedimentology and other
things like that to look at whathappened.
As for modern times, the latestbig earthquake in the area was
on June 15th, 1995.
When there was a 6.5 near Aigiothat affected the town.
(18:58):
Most of that damage has beentaken care of.
But if you ever visit Aigio,there are signs around talking
about the earthquake damage.
I was also able to find someinformation about earthquakes
from Before there was monitoringin the area.
I got these from a paper thatI'll link to in the show notes.
(19:19):
This paper looked at informationabout earthquake damage from
reports, correspondence,newspaper articles and things
like that.
To get an idea of where theepicenter probably was, the
magnitude, things like that.
So let's talk about a fewhistoric earthquakes.
First, there was one on May14th, 1748.
(19:41):
Fortunately, there were someforeshocks before the main
earthquake actually happenedthat warned the inhabitants.
So they were actually outdoorsand not inside.
There were very few casualties,but otherwise this earthquake
caused a lot of damage.
There were houses, churches,towers, all fell down.
And along with the earthquake,it also caused a tsunami that
(20:05):
had three waves, that hit Aigio.
Each one was higher than thelast.
And the third wave was higherthan the large plane tree, which
is right at the harbor.
It's a very large tree.
I put a picture, on the pagewith the maps.
So you can see, at least whatthe tree would have looked like
back in the 1700s.
(20:25):
There was another largeearthquake on August 23rd, 1817.
Most of the town of Vostitsa,which is modern Aigio was
destroyed.
Most of the houses were damaged.
There was damage to thechurches.
This was at the very end of theOttoman period, so there was a
mosque which was completelydestroyed by this earthquake.
(20:47):
There were similar damage innearby villages of Cumari,
Zevgolatio, Temeni, Mourla, andDimitropoulo.
This earthquake, like the one in1748 also caused a tsunami.
This tsunami hit both sides ofthe Gulf of Corinth.
So not just the Vostitsa area,but across the Gulf of Corinth.
Because of the tsunami atVostitsa itself, 18 people
(21:10):
drowned in the tsunami.
Sea level rose almost sevenmeters and it flooded a few
different areas.
It was because of thisearthquake that the Selinous
river, which is close to Aigio,shifted course slightly to come
to the Gulf of Corinth furthereast than it had before.
So the mouth of the Selinousriver is further away from
(21:34):
Vostitsa from the town of Aigiothan it used to be.
Another massive earthquakeoccurred on December 26th, 1861.
The worst damage was not in thetown of Vostitsa or Aigio
itself, but just east of it.
And in some of those villages,all of the houses, schools,
(21:54):
churches, and other buildingscollapsed.
In Aigio there was less damage,but still many buildings
collapsed or cracked or wereinclined sideways.
There was a little tsunami,which flooded the harbor road
and the springs that are nearthe plane tree.
But there was also, flooding ofthe coast between the Selinous
(22:15):
and Vouraikos rivers and alsobetween Diakopto and Pounta
which is a little peninsula outinto the Gulf of Corinth.
So in those areas, there werecracks and liquefaction.
There were at least seven deathsof people because of the 1861
earthquake, 126 people wereinjured.
(22:37):
And in the districts Aigio andBoura within the Vostitsa area,
at least 2000 families losttheir homes in this earthquake.
On August 29th, 1888.
There was another bigearthquake.
This one happened with two tothree big shocks.
So not just one main shakingevent.
(22:57):
And there were also strongaftershocks.
One person died over 20 wereinjured.
There was a lot of damage inAigio.
Of 1,300 houses in Aigio at thattime, 1000 of them were damaged.
So only 300 houses, escapeddamage.
Waterflow to Aigio wasinterrupted.
(23:17):
And then it came back, but itcame and went for about 24
hours.
And there was large amounts ofdamage in the nearby villages of
Kouloura, Valimitika,Temeni, andMourla So from these historic
events, we can tell thatearthquakes have changed the
landscape.
They changed the course ofrivers.
(23:38):
They bring on tsunamis thatdeposit.
And they of course caused a lotof damage to buildings.
So this is something that thepeople of Vostitsa have been
dealing with.
The landscape described by Leakeduring his travels in 1806, has
been inhabited and used byhumans for thousands of years.
(23:58):
You almost wouldn't know it fromLeake's words, since he
describes the vegetation of pineand shrubs and pasture.
He touched on the remains ofancient Keryneia.
But he described Keryneia muchmore than any fountain or any
village that he passed on thatsection of his trip, from Mega
(24:20):
Spileo to the town of Vostitsa.
So you can tell that hisinterest was in ancient sites
and in the landscape.
But not necessarily on thepeoples of the area.
The coastal plain would havebeen cultivated and dotted with
villages, but Leake did notdescribe any of that in this
(24:41):
section.
What he does talk about are thestreams that he crossed and
where those streams originated.
So Leake's account leaves mewith questions.
Did he not come across anyvillages on the coastal plain.
I understand not having villagesin the ravines, but there's so
many villages on the coastalplain today.
(25:02):
Did he not pass any of them?
On his route to the town ofVostitsa, which is Aigio.
So has human use of thelandscape changed since Leake
traveled to Vostitsa in theearly 1800s.
I'm also interested in how humanuse of the landscape has changed
since 1468, the earliest of ourtime period.
(25:25):
So we're going to startexploring that by looking at
settled locations on thelandscape in the next episode.
And now for some endnotes.
The ravines through which Leaketraveled are mostly untouched by
humans even today.
There is a rack railroad thattravels from the town of
(25:45):
Diakopto near the coast upthrough the ravine to the
monastery of Mega Spileo.
Which is where Leake began, hisentry that I read.
And then the railroad continueson to the town of Kalavryta.
It's a beautiful journey, whichI highly recommend, if you ever
travel to that part of Greece.
(26:06):
The information about historicearthquakes came from a 2017
article by Albini and otherstitled"Large 18th- 19th century
earthquakes in Western Gulf ofCorinth with reappraised size
and location".
I thought the article was areally cool use of archival
research into correspondence,official reports and newspaper
(26:31):
articles, and then using thatinformation to study the
magnitude and impacts ofearthquakes in areas without
other data.
And I will be using someinformation from this article
again in a few episodes.
The information about theTsivlos landslide is on the
Greek version of the Wikipediapage for Tsivlos.
(26:53):
It's not on the English version.
But if you have Chrome, it cantranslate from the Greek to
English automatically.
A link to that Wikipedia articleis also in the show notes.
Thanks for listening.
Email questions or comments todeepdive@helonaki.com or ask
(27:14):
them on the Helonaki Deep DiveFacebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K i.com.
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch, such as t-shirts, mugs,and stickers with the Helonaki
(27:35):
Deep Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the Helonakideep dive going.
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
(27:56):
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songs.com, additional soundsfrom zap splat.com.
Thanks for listening.
April 5th, 1806.
From Megaspilio to Vostitsa Setout at 8:20.
Our road descends the mountainby a narrow zigzag path among
bushes.
At 8:40 cross the river by abridge.
Zachlourou is five minutesbeyond a village having two
small makhalas on the left bankof the river.
(00:22):
And a third on the right.
We proceed along the side of abare mountain above the left
bank.
At nine quitting the river,which pursues its course
northward towards the sea.
Through a narrow ravine borderedby precipices.
We turn to the left up a valleyformed by a branch of the river.
(00:42):
After skirting the right bank ofthe stream a little way.
Cross it.
And mount the ridge over theleft bank.
Leaving Dumena on the side ofthe opposite mountain, half a
mile on the left.
At 9:40 having arrived at thetop of the ridge we looked down
on the Corinthian Gulf.
Descend and then cross anotherridge.
(01:04):
On the summit of which at 10:25,we halt five minutes.
Here is a fine view of theopposite part of Rumili;
Parnassus and the mountains nearSolona are very conspicuous.
Below us is a hollow ofcultivated land and pasture,
with small streams running intothe Kalavryta river, which is at
no great distance on the right.
(01:26):
Proceed along the side of thehill and halt five minutes at a
fountain.
Eight minutes beyond, I arriveat 11 at the site of an ancient
town.
It stood on the lowest part ofthe ridge which separates the
course of the feeders of theKalavryta river from the water's
flowing to another stream, whichjoins the sea at two miles to
(01:47):
the westward of the former andis called the river of Bokhusia.
The Hellenic remains consists ofseveral foundations and pieces
of wall, of some of which thereare two or three courses still
extant.
The city was on the Eastern faceof the ridge.
Looking towards the Kalavrytariver.
I conceive it to have beenCeryneia.
(02:09):
Proceeding obliquely down themountain, which forms the
Eastern side of the ravine ofthe river Bokhusia.
We arrive at 11:35 at a dervenior guard house.
The sides of these mountains arebeautifully variegated with
pines and shrubs and clothedwith a fine pasture.
11:55 arrive at the spot wherethe river emerges from the
(02:31):
ravine into the maritime plain,which widens from hence to
Vostitsa.
Immediately afterwards, we crossthe river and proceed along the
plain.
At 1:30 cross the river ofVostitsa, a rapid stream,
difficult to pass after rains.
At 2 arrive in the middle of thetown of Vostitsa.
(02:53):
The river is formed from severaltributaries, of which the
sources are near Aio Vlasi, andin the summits to the eastward
of that place.
The united stream flows fromthence between the mountains of
Voidhias and Klokos and entersthe plain immediately behind
Vostitsa, after which it makes acircuit to the right, so as to
(03:14):
join the sea between two andthree miles to the eastward of
the town.
This is from Leake Travels inthe Morea volume three, which
was published in 1830.
Pages 182 through 185.
I'm Jen Glaubius, and this isthe Helonaki Deep Dive, a
podcast about mapping andanalysis for historical and
(03:34):
archeological research.
In this episode, I'll discussthe landscape of Vostitsa.
Part of which was described byLeake during his second journey
in the Morea in 1806 in thepassage that I just read.
I also want to let you know thatI have created maps related to
this episode, which you can viewon the Helonaki website.
(03:57):
The link to the page with themaps for this episode is in the
show notes.
Let's dive in.
When I talk about the landscapeI'm looking specifically within
the borders of the 1700 Venetianterritory of Vostitsa, now the
(04:20):
1463 places in the Ottomandefter go further south towards
Kalavryta further into thehigher mountains.
But I don't have firm boundariesfor that because they really
didn't have boundaries betweenthese places in 1463.
And because 1700 is the middletime period that we're looking
(04:42):
at.
All of the information andanalyses are going to be based
on the 1700 Venetian borders.
So within those borders, theentire territory of Vostitsa is
within 22 kilometers or 14 milesof the coast.
It's all hugging the coastlineof the northern Peloponnesus.
(05:03):
Leake's route through ravines toreach the coastal plain was
typical for north south travelin the Vostitsa area.
Except for the relatively flatplain along the coast, the
Vostitsa landscape consists of aseries of ravines and valleys
running north to south.
Here's how the Vostitsalandscape formed.
The story starts tens ofmillions of years ago.
(05:25):
When the shells of sea creaturesaccumulated deep underwater and
through time were compressedtogether to form limestone.
The limestone was lifted up toform mountains between 56 and 34
million years ago.
As the area was compressed astectonic plates came together.
In the last 23 million years.
(05:45):
The area is no longer beingcompressed, but now is being
stretched apart.
This extension of the landscapethrough stretching has fractured
the brittle crust into blocks,separated by fault lines.
Some of the blocks moveddownwards, like the Gulf of
Corinth to the north ofVostitsa, which is called a
Graben.
While others known as Horstsmove upwards.
(06:08):
And this is like the mountainsof Arcadia to the south of
Vostitsa.
As the Arcadian mountains movedupwards, they eroded.
And the sediment from themountains was transported north
by streams and deposited in theVostitsa area as alluvial fans
at the base of those mountains.
Lowered sea level during theglacial periods in the
(06:28):
Pleistocene caused the streamsto cut into those alluvial fans,
creating the present day,ravines and valleys.
While the coastal plain was alsoformed by river deltas in the
Gulf of Corinth that were liftedup above sea level.
Today, the coastal plain in theVostitsa area reaches at most
6.5 kilometers or four milesinland.
(06:51):
But it's mostly much less thanthat.
It extends along the coast,about 24 kilometers or 15 miles
from the Western border towardsthe east.
And there's a break where thecliffs are straight up against
the Gulf of Corinth without acoastal plain.
And then on the very Easternmost side of Vostitsa, there's
(07:14):
five kilometers, about threemiles of a coastal plain again.
The coastal plain is an areawhere agriculture is fairly
easy, but it's a very small partof the overall territory.
Most of the area is foothillsgoing up towards the mountains,
that get highest towards thesouth.
(07:35):
And this area as you might'vebeen able to discern from what I
read of Leake's description ofthis area.
Really it's divided up byravines that these streams go
into and so travel in some waysis much easier going north
south, the way that the streamsare going from the mountains
(07:57):
towards the coastline.
There's a number of thesestreams.
We're going to go from east,towards west, within the
territory.
Further east than Leake reachedwas the Krathis, which comes out
about Akrata.
It's on the east side of thisterritory.
There was also not in thepresent day, but on the Venetian
(08:22):
map from 1700, there was also astream that was east of where
Leake came out that entered theCorinthian Gulf at the present
day Punto promontory.
The next ravine, the stream isthe Voraikos, which comes out
about west of Diakopto.
This is the ravine that todaythere's a rack railroad that
(08:46):
goes from Diakopto to the MegaSpileo monastery and then on to
the town of Kalavryta.
That's basically the path forthe first part of Leake's route
going from Mega Spileo towardswhat today is Diakopto.
So to the west of that is RemaKerinitis, which enters the
(09:07):
Corinthian Gulf east ofNikoleika.
And this is the stream thatLeake called Bokhusia.
So the second one that he wasfollowing to go towards the
coast.
And then he came out on thecoastline.
And eventually he reaches, theSelinous Potamos which is the
Selinous river.
Which during Leake's time flowedcloser to Aigio.
(09:29):
So it was within two to threemiles and now it's further east
due to an earthquake.
The Selinous is what Leakecalled the river of Vostitsa,
because it flows the closest tothe town of Aigio which was
called Vostitsa.
So further west than was in thispassage by Leake there's the
Rema Meganitas, which enters theCorinthian Gulf northwest of
(09:53):
Aigio.
Many of these streams,especially on the Eastern side,
have very sharp ravines,especially away from the coast.
And it's easiest to travel asLeake did traveling down these
different ravines or streamvalleys.
Elevation is the basic data I'musing to study the landscape of
the Vostitsa area.
(10:15):
The elevation data is in adigital elevation model, also
known as a DEM.
This DEM I'm using has a 25meter resolution.
Which means that sudden changesin elevation that occur in less
than 50 to 100 meters, likethings like cliffs, those can
not be detected.
(10:36):
But the 25 meter resolution isstill good for larger landscape
features, which is why I'm usingit.
Within the Vostitsa study area,the elevation goes from zero
meters above sea level, alongthe coast to 1,748 meters above
sea level to the south, which isa change in elevation of over
(10:58):
one mile.
Now elevation is the first stepof looking at the landscape
because I also use the DEM tocompute other landscape measures
such as slope, ruggedness, andclassifying landforms.
Slope is the change in elevationover a distance.
You might've learned it inschool as rise over run.
(11:20):
So through the magic of GIS, Itransformed the DEM into a slope
map, and you can see this slopemap, and other maps on the
Helonaki website using the link.
So, if you look at that slopemap, you can see that the slope
is very close to being flat onthe coastal plain.
(11:42):
Although there are a few othersmaller upland plains further to
the south.
The steepest slopes are in theravines on the eastern side of
the territory.
And then also there's some steepslopes, not in ravines on the
southwestern border, where it'sgoing up to the mountains.
If we think ahead a little bitabout how humans use a
(12:03):
landscape, which we'll get intoin the next episode.
If you think about it flat orgentle slopes are the easiest to
use.
But in areas such as Vostitsa,and across much of Greece,
steeper slopes have beencultivated for thousands of
years.
Often by building terraces,walls that divide up a slope to
(12:27):
create small flat areas.
Some of the villages in the moremountainous parts of Vostitsa
use terraces to create enoughspace for houses.
Because the terrain is otherwisejust too steep for even a small
sized house.
All right.
So leaving slope behind anothermeasure of landscape that I'm
(12:48):
using is ruggedness.
Which measures how much theterrain goes up and down over a
certain distance.
An area can have a steep slope,but not be very rugged, if the
slope only goes one direction.
Versus if the terrain goes upand down a lot then it's going
(13:09):
to be more rugged, even if thereisn't much slope change.
Most of the Vostitsa area hasfairly low ruggedness because
it's hilly, it's the foothillstowards the mountains, but it's
not in the mountains themselves.
The lowest ruggedness of courseis along the coastal plain.
While the most rugged part ofVostitsa is the southwestern
(13:30):
border area, which isapproaching the mountains
further to the south.
The last measure I want to talkabout with respect to Vostitsa
landscape is landform.
Landforms can be classified inmany ways, but I used a
topographic position indexmethod that's available in QGIS
using the SAGA toolbox.
(13:51):
That classification yielded 10landforms, which I simplified to
five, which are stream/drainage,valleys, plains, slope, and
ridge.
And slope in this case justmeans that the landscape is not
flat so like the side of a hill,not the top, not the bottom.
(14:12):
If you look at the landforms mapusing the link to the Helonaki
website.
As you might expect, the streamsare bounded by valleys.
So where you have a stream oneither side, there are valleys
and then slopes.
Most of the area of the Vostitsaterritory is classified as
(14:32):
slopes While the next largestclassification is plains.
Including elevation, those arefour different ways of looking
at the landscape and looking atthem all together, you get the
idea that the coastal plain isone very easy area to use.
The ravines, especially on theEastern side of the territory
(14:57):
are steep and would not havebeen easy to travel through or
to live in.
And then another area that wouldbe very difficult to do anything
in is that Southwestern part ofthe territory that's approaching
the mountains.
Now one analysis I have not donefor the Vostitsa area is
classification of land cover.
(15:19):
Which looks at what type ofvegetation or surfaces cover a
landscape.
From my own observations from mytravels in the Vostitsa area, I
know that the more rugged areasand in the ravines are forested
with pine trees.
While more gentle slopes arecultivated with olive trees or
(15:41):
vineyards.
Very little of the area iscultivated with grains in the
present day.
But in the past grain would havebeen cultivated underneath olive
trees and much more widely, whenpeople were growing grain for
their own consumption.
So those are some of the basicsabout the landscape.
(16:02):
Let's talk about a few processesthat can affect the landscape
itself.
I was making my first trip tothe Vostitsa area in 2004
exploring the landscape.
I was driving around and Istopped for lunch near this
place called Tsivlos at a smalltaverna.
The person working had someEnglish and I had a little bit
(16:23):
of Greek and we were able tocommunicate enough and we ended
up talking.
I told him a little bit aboutwhat I was doing.
And he told me the story of agiant landslide that he said
happened during hisgrandparents' time that had
reshaped the landscape.
Just to make sure I have all thedetails, I did some additional
research since I didn't rememberall the story.
(16:45):
So here's what I know.
On Sunday, March 24th, 1913.
There was a large landslide ofrocks and soil that came down
from the Gerakari mountain.
All that rock and soil slid downand it blocked the Krathis
river.
The village of Sylivaina camedown as part of that landslide.
(17:08):
While the village of Tsivloswhere it was then was flooded by
the new lake that was formed bythe now blocked Krathis river.
Unfortunately four people werekilled during this incident,
which destroyed both villages,but fortunately, most people in
(17:29):
Sylivaina and Tsivlos had leftthe area due to smaller
landslides two days earlier.
So most people left the area andwere safe.
But it ends up that some of thehouses and the semi submerged
church of Agios Athanasios fromthe old village of Tsivlos are
still visible in the lake.
(17:50):
This happened just to the southof the Vostitsa area.
So not within the area ofanalysis, but, there definitely
were landslides, small and largethrough time.
Especially in this type ofmountainous, very sloping
landscape.
In addition to landslides, wealso need to talk about
(18:13):
earthquakes as a process thatcan really change the landscape.
There was a fairly well-studiedearthquake in 337 BC, that
destroyed the city of Helike,which was attested in ancient
authors.
And there's an archeologicalproject that's been working In
(18:34):
that part of Vostitsa lookingfor Helike, which they think
they've done.
They've done studies of soilsand sedimentology and other
things like that to look at whathappened.
As for modern times, the latestbig earthquake in the area was
on June 15th, 1995.
When there was a 6.5 near Aigiothat affected the town.
(18:58):
Most of that damage has beentaken care of.
But if you ever visit Aigio,there are signs around talking
about the earthquake damage.
I was also able to find someinformation about earthquakes
from Before there was monitoringin the area.
I got these from a paper thatI'll link to in the show notes.
(19:19):
This paper looked at informationabout earthquake damage from
reports, correspondence,newspaper articles and things
like that.
To get an idea of where theepicenter probably was, the
magnitude, things like that.
So let's talk about a fewhistoric earthquakes.
First, there was one on May14th, 1748.
(19:41):
Fortunately, there were someforeshocks before the main
earthquake actually happenedthat warned the inhabitants.
So they were actually outdoorsand not inside.
There were very few casualties,but otherwise this earthquake
caused a lot of damage.
There were houses, churches,towers, all fell down.
And along with the earthquake,it also caused a tsunami that
(20:05):
had three waves, that hit Aigio.
Each one was higher than thelast.
And the third wave was higherthan the large plane tree, which
is right at the harbor.
It's a very large tree.
I put a picture, on the pagewith the maps.
So you can see, at least whatthe tree would have looked like
back in the 1700s.
(20:25):
There was another largeearthquake on August 23rd, 1817.
Most of the town of Vostitsa,which is modern Aigio was
destroyed.
Most of the houses were damaged.
There was damage to thechurches.
This was at the very end of theOttoman period, so there was a
mosque which was completelydestroyed by this earthquake.
(20:47):
There were similar damage innearby villages of Cumari,
Zevgolatio, Temeni, Mourla, andDimitropoulo.
This earthquake, like the one in1748 also caused a tsunami.
This tsunami hit both sides ofthe Gulf of Corinth.
So not just the Vostitsa area,but across the Gulf of Corinth.
Because of the tsunami atVostitsa itself, 18 people
(21:10):
drowned in the tsunami.
Sea level rose almost sevenmeters and it flooded a few
different areas.
It was because of thisearthquake that the Selinous
river, which is close to Aigio,shifted course slightly to come
to the Gulf of Corinth furthereast than it had before.
So the mouth of the Selinousriver is further away from
(21:34):
Vostitsa from the town of Aigiothan it used to be.
Another massive earthquakeoccurred on December 26th, 1861.
The worst damage was not in thetown of Vostitsa or Aigio
itself, but just east of it.
And in some of those villages,all of the houses, schools,
(21:54):
churches, and other buildingscollapsed.
In Aigio there was less damage,but still many buildings
collapsed or cracked or wereinclined sideways.
There was a little tsunami,which flooded the harbor road
and the springs that are nearthe plane tree.
But there was also, flooding ofthe coast between the Selinous
(22:15):
and Vouraikos rivers and alsobetween Diakopto and Pounta
which is a little peninsula outinto the Gulf of Corinth.
So in those areas, there werecracks and liquefaction.
There were at least seven deathsof people because of the 1861
earthquake, 126 people wereinjured.
(22:37):
And in the districts Aigio andBoura within the Vostitsa area,
at least 2000 families losttheir homes in this earthquake.
On August 29th, 1888.
There was another bigearthquake.
This one happened with two tothree big shocks.
So not just one main shakingevent.
(22:57):
And there were also strongaftershocks.
One person died over 20 wereinjured.
There was a lot of damage inAigio.
Of 1,300 houses in Aigio at thattime, 1000 of them were damaged.
So only 300 houses, escapeddamage.
Waterflow to Aigio wasinterrupted.
(23:17):
And then it came back, but itcame and went for about 24
hours.
And there was large amounts ofdamage in the nearby villages of
Kouloura, Valimitika,Temeni, andMourla So from these historic
events, we can tell thatearthquakes have changed the
landscape.
They changed the course ofrivers.
(23:38):
They bring on tsunamis thatdeposit.
And they of course caused a lotof damage to buildings.
So this is something that thepeople of Vostitsa have been
dealing with.
The landscape described by Leakeduring his travels in 1806, has
been inhabited and used byhumans for thousands of years.
(23:58):
You almost wouldn't know it fromLeake's words, since he
describes the vegetation of pineand shrubs and pasture.
He touched on the remains ofancient Keryneia.
But he described Keryneia muchmore than any fountain or any
village that he passed on thatsection of his trip, from Mega
(24:20):
Spileo to the town of Vostitsa.
So you can tell that hisinterest was in ancient sites
and in the landscape.
But not necessarily on thepeoples of the area.
The coastal plain would havebeen cultivated and dotted with
villages, but Leake did notdescribe any of that in this
(24:41):
section.
What he does talk about are thestreams that he crossed and
where those streams originated.
So Leake's account leaves mewith questions.
Did he not come across anyvillages on the coastal plain.
I understand not having villagesin the ravines, but there's so
many villages on the coastalplain today.
(25:02):
Did he not pass any of them?
On his route to the town ofVostitsa, which is Aigio.
So has human use of thelandscape changed since Leake
traveled to Vostitsa in theearly 1800s.
I'm also interested in how humanuse of the landscape has changed
since 1468, the earliest of ourtime period.
(25:25):
So we're going to startexploring that by looking at
settled locations on thelandscape in the next episode.
And now for some endnotes.
The ravines through which Leaketraveled are mostly untouched by
humans even today.
There is a rack railroad thattravels from the town of
(25:45):
Diakopto near the coast upthrough the ravine to the
monastery of Mega Spileo.
Which is where Leake began, hisentry that I read.
And then the railroad continueson to the town of Kalavryta.
It's a beautiful journey, whichI highly recommend, if you ever
travel to that part of Greece.
(26:06):
The information about historicearthquakes came from a 2017
article by Albini and otherstitled"Large 18th- 19th century
earthquakes in Western Gulf ofCorinth with reappraised size
and location".
I thought the article was areally cool use of archival
research into correspondence,official reports and newspaper
(26:31):
articles, and then using thatinformation to study the
magnitude and impacts ofearthquakes in areas without
other data.
And I will be using someinformation from this article
again in a few episodes.
The information about theTsivlos landslide is on the
Greek version of the Wikipediapage for Tsivlos.
(26:53):
It's not on the English version.
But if you have Chrome, it cantranslate from the Greek to
English automatically.
A link to that Wikipedia articleis also in the show notes.
Thanks for listening.
Email questions or comments todeepdive@helonaki.com or ask
(27:14):
them on the Helonaki Deep DiveFacebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K i.com.
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch, such as t-shirts, mugs,and stickers with the Helonaki
(27:35):
Deep Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the Helonakideep dive going.
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
(27:56):
The theme music is Deep Ocean,instrumental by Dan o of dan o
songs.com, additional soundsfrom zap splat.com.
Thanks for listening.
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