From Hyele to Velia. Fortifications in their urban context

Elea-Velia was a town founded in the late 6th c. BC on the Tyrrhenian coast of South Italy by Phocaeans who fled from the Persian invasion in Asia Minor to the West. Austrian archaeologists were working on the site for many decades and the city walls constituted a central topic of their research, as the study of the fortifications allows deep insights into the development and expansion of a city, thus helping to understand the history of the site. While previous projects had studied mainly the well preserved walls in the upper parts of the town, the Austrian excavations from 1997-1999 concentrated on the sector in the lower town of Elea-Velia. Already the study of the architecture of the walls B and E showed that the development of the fortifications was much more complex than assumed by earlier studies. Excavations conducted in various sectors of the walls brought evidence of an intact stratigraphical sequence which allowed crucial new results for the dating and the development of the fortifications. Thus it was possible to subdivide and readjust the dating of the three periods of the city walls (middle of 5th c. 1st half of 2nd c. B.C.). They also revealed a new, yet unknown part of the fortifications (wall G) which constituted the earliest seaward boundary of the city, and brought new arguments for the location of the harbour. Finally they also underlined the determining importance of natural factors, like constant landslides and violent sea storms, for the development of the city.