The wooden wall

In the Classical period (5th century BC) Athens fortified her harbours in the Piraeus and built several large shipshed complexes to house and protect its enormous fleet of triremes. The trireme was a war galley outfitted with a large bronze ram and rowed by some 170 citizens; it served as the ship of the line in antiquity. Zea Harbour, a key-shaped inlet from the sea, was dedicated solely as a naval harbour, complete with a row upon row of covered slipways radiating outward from the harbour center. Each slipway held either one or two of these 40 meter long triremes, each pulled up the slope by its own crew. At Athens’ height, Zea housed 196 triremes and some 40,000 rowers were required to man this huge fleet.
The “Wooden Wall”, is a pilot project that aims to show the potential of presenting selected parts of the Classical naval installations in the Piraeus in 3D reconstructions.