Bura (Achaia)

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Bura (Voura, Bira; Greek: Βοῦρα) was an ancient city that already belonged to the First Achaean League (5th year BC). It was located on a ridge between the two rivers Buraikos (Ladopotamos) and Kerynites (Buphusia) near the town of Diakopto in the area of Aigialias (Achaia) on the northeastern Peloponnese in Greece .

location

View of the hills of the former ancient city of Bura, seen from the south to the north

The ridge that supported the ancient settlement lies directly above the village of Kastro. In the 1950s it was largely forested with pine trees, today it is bare. An excellent overview of the old Bura can be obtained from the opposite Dreiklosterberg in the north, namely from the cliff on which the former monastery and church "Agios Nikolaos-Gourna" is located.

Bura in mythology

Bura (Voura) was the daughter of Ion , the progenitor of the Ionians , and of Helike , the daughter of the last king of the Pelasgians , Selinountas, who was a son of Poseidon ; a river nearby still bears his name. Heracles went after the beautiful daughter Bura . In order to pave his way to her, he struck the landscape with his sword, creating the Vouraikos Gorge, in which the Buraikos flows. Bura was considered the city founder in ancient times.

Description of Bura by Pausanias

The Greek travel writer Pausanias (115 to approx. 180 AD) wrote in his book No. 7 “Achaia” about Bura: “At the time when the god (Poseidon) let the city of Helike go under (373 BC) .), Bura was also shaken so violently by an earthquake that the old statues in the temples were shattered: And there was no one left of the old inhabitants except those who had left for military service or for some other reason, who then rebuilt the Bura . The Ceres has a temple here, as well as Venus and Bacchus, as well as the Eileithyia. Euclides of Athens made her statue out of Pentelic marble. Isis has also built a temple. "

Discovery of Bura in modern times

It was on this ridge in 1937 that Ernst Meyer discovered the exact location of the city of Bura in 1937 after a tip from the archeology professor JK Anderson of the University of California, Berkeley . Anderson rightly suspected that the reference in the book “Recherches geographiques sur les ruines de la Morée” (1836) to Bura was correct: M. Vietti had climbed into the mountains near Helike in the 1830s, following the information provided by Pausanias and had found an acropolis and ruins above the village of Rhizomylo .

However, Bura was already correctly entered on the French maps of the cartographers Coronelli and Sanson with "P (K) ernitsa-Bura". In a map by Choiseul-Gouffier from 1782 and a map by Barbié du Bocage 1791 (Paris), Bura or “Pernitza bourg” is also correctly located.

Remains of the city wall on the eastern slope

Ernst Meyer then made a sketch in 1937 and a precisely measured map of the ridge with its five hills on which Bura lay in 1954. This ridge begins in the north at the village of Kastro and lies between the two newly built churches of St. Athanasios in the north and Profitis Ilias in the south. Bura was at an altitude of 550 - 600 m. Ernst Meyer was able to find numerous pieces of bricks and shards on the five hills of the ridge, ranging from the Achaean period through to the imperial period . On his map, the remains of the city wall are also drawn on the east side, which can still be found today on the eastern slope, also a source there. In the village of Kastro (consisting of seven houses), Ernst Meyer found antique blocks built in in 1937, a column drum and an antique marble base for a sink.

Contradicting information from ancient writers

Ovid and Pliny the Elder report that Bura (like Helike ) was destroyed by an earthquake with a subsequent tsunami in 373 BC. Sank in the Gulf of Corinth . Diodorus describes the catastrophe in detail: The residents of both cities were surprised by the earthquake at night. The following day, the survivors were hit by a huge wave. On the other hand, Strabo and Pausanias do not mention the sinking of the city of Bura in the sea. According to Strabo, Bura was 40 stadiums (7 km) inland, where Pausanias also visited Bura. Strabo mentions the great earthquake of 373 BC. BC that Bura was sunk in a crevice. The natural disaster is said to have had the following prelude: An embassy from Ionia (Asia Minor) is said to have asked for an image of the statue of Poseidon in Helike. However, an oracle forbade the Ionians from sacrificing on Poseidon's altar, which they did anyway. Thereupon Helike and his allied neighbor Bura captured the embassy and plundered it. Poseidon's wrath over this is said to have destroyed the two cities.

Some historians suspect that Old Bura was initially on the coast and that after the destruction the new Bura was built inland on the ridge. Ernst Meyer considers the fact that Bura was swallowed up by the sea or disappeared into a crevice to be an inadmissible amalgamation with the fate of Helike when paraphrased by the ancient writers. For E. Meyer, the broken fragments prove a continuous settlement of Bura from the Achaean period to the Roman period. As a result, Bura could not even after the earthquake of 373 BC. Have been relocated. Concerning Bura, Strabo mentions that there was a spring called Sybaris not far from the city. Resettlers from Achaia are said to have named the river and the city in Italy after them. Bura was the birthplace of the well-known ancient animal painter Pytheas.

When the Achaic League was re-established in 280 BC BC Bura was ruled by a tyrant, but the residents in 275 BC. In his castle of refuge. In the neighboring town of Kerynea, their tyrant voluntarily gave up. Then Bura and Kerynea joined the Second Achaic Covenant. A number of ancient writers also mention the nearby oracle cave of Heracles Buraikos , which can still be visited today. In the cave, four dice were thrown on a table. Based on the signs on the dice, one could read the future on a blackboard. The pyramid-like cave is also depicted on a coin from the city of Bura.

Diocese of Bura / Kernitsa

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Bura was mentioned as a town at the end of the 7th century AD just before the Slavic invasions. A medieval ruin on the ridge indicates that Bura was not completely abandoned. The church documents indicate that there was a bishopric of Bura-Kernitsa. Bura with its surroundings was called Kernitsa. In 1380 the bishop of Kernitsa, Mathaeus, dared to rise to the rank of metropolitan, but he only succeeded for ten months. The last bishop of Kernitsa and Kalavryta was Prokopios. He played a bigger role in the uprising of 1821 against Turkish rule and signed an appeal to the European consuls. In one document Prokopios is called "Bishop of Bura". designated. Apparently this is a relic of the traditional equation Bura-Kernitsa.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Samuel Wilhelm Hoffmann: Greece and the Greeks in antiquity. 1841, p. 836.
  2. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 7,25,8.
  3. ^ A b c d Ernst Meyer: Peloponnesian migrations. Max Niehans, Zurich / Leipzig 1939, pp. 127 and 133–140.
  4. ^ Ernst Meyer: New Peloponnesian migrations. Francke, Bern 1957, pp. 82-86.
  5. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.293.
  6. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 2.94.
  7. ↑ Diodor, Bibliotheca historica 15: 4-8.
  8. ↑ Strabon, Geographika 8,7,5.
  9. ^ Ernst Meyer: New Peloponnesian migrations. Francke, Bern 1957, pp. 82-86.
  10. ^ Samuel Wilhelm Hoffmann: Greece and the Greeks in antiquity. 1841, p. 836.
  11. ↑ Polybios , History 2.41.
  12. ^ Samuel Wilhelm Hoffmann: Greece and the Greeks in antiquity. 1841, p. 836.

Coordinates: 38 ° 8 '27.3 "  N , 22 ° 11' 52.7"  E