Una noticia de 2007 muy resaltante fue la teoría del arqueólogo francés Nick Marriner, que asegura que el puente o camino artificial que construyó Alejandro Magno para sitiar Tiro, durante su campaña en el Levante Mediterráneo, alteró las costas y permitió que con el paso de los siglos, la isla se uniera al continente mediante un istmo.
Archaeology, enero/febrero 2008: Alexander’s Isthmus, Tyre, Lebanon
Geoarchaeological analysis of today’s isthmus at the Lebanese city of Tyre shows that Alexander the Great took advantage of a natural sandbank during his celebrated siege of the city. (Alexander: photos.com, Graphic: Courtesy Nick Marriner, CNRS). Archaeology.
There is no shortage of stories about Alexander the Great’s military accomplishments. One of them, his 332 B.C. conquering of the seemingly impenetrable Phoenician island fortress of Tyre, was revised a bit this year. History tells us that Alexander, after laying siege to the massive fort for seven months, made his final assault by having his engineers build a half-mile causeway connecting the island to the mainland–a stunning feat. But a study published in May posits that Alexander got assistance from a submerged sandbar, so he crossed water only a yard or two deep. Geoarchaeologist Nick Marriner, of France’s National Center of Scientific Research, and his colleagues also theorize that the bridge or causeway that Alexander’s army built altered coastal currents and the flow of sand, helping permanently join the island of Tyre with the mainland. It’s always fascinating when archaeology and other forms of science can be applied to the historical record. In this case, geoarchaeology explains not only how Alexander made his assault, but also how he actually reshaped Lebanon’s coastline.
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El artículo completo de Nick Marriner en la revista Proceedings:
PNAS, 6 de abril de 2007: Holocene morphogenesis of Alexander the Great’s isthmus at Tyre in Lebanon
In 332 B.C., Alexander the Great constructed an ≈1,000-m-long causeway to seize the offshore island of Tyre. The logistics behind this engineering feat have long troubled archaeologists. Using the Holocene sedimentary record, we demonstrate that Alexander’s engineers cleverly exploited a shallow proto-tombolo, or sublittoral sand spit, to breach the offshore city’s defensive impregnability. We elucidate a three-phase geomorphological model for the spit’s evolution. Settled since the Bronze Age, the area’s geological record manifests a long history of natural and anthropogenic forcings. (i) Leeward of the island breakwater, the maximum flooding surface (e.g., drowning of the subaerial land surfaces by seawater) is dated ≈8000 B.P. Fine-grained sediments and brackish and marine-lagoonal faunas translate shallow, low-energy water bodies at this time. Shelter was afforded by Tyre’s elongated sandstone reefs, which acted as a 6-km natural breakwater. (ii) By 6000 B.P., sea-level rise had reduced the dimensions of the island from 6 to 4 km. The leeward wave shadow generated by this island, allied with high sediment supply after 3000 B.P., culminated in a natural wave-dominated proto-tombolo within 1–2 m of mean sea level by the time of Alexander the Great (4th century B.C.). (iii) After 332 B.C., construction of Alexander’s causeway entrained a complete anthropogenic metamorphosis of the Tyrian coastal system. (seguir leyendo)
Arqueoafición 