Destruction Layers, Urban Evolution, and Earthquakes in Roman Patras, Greece

The role of seismicity in the urban evolution of Roman Patras, a major town in western Greece, located next to seismically active areas (Aegean Arc, Gulf of Corinth) has so far been ignored. We have analyzed ∼1000 typically short reports of rescue excavations made during a recent building boom period in the center of Patras. A minimum of ∼100 excavations providing evidence of destruction layers and atypical burials, including unburied skeletons indicative of societal disorganization, were summarized in a georeferenced digital archive and further analyzed. Few of these data satisfy strict criteria for the identification of earthquakes from archaeological data, especially concerning dating, but in combination with other excavations with destruction layers, the association of destruction evidence with earthquakes is increased, and three destructive events were recognized, with a recurrence interval <200 years. Two of them correlate with historical evidence, in circa A.D. 61 and in A.D. 551 at the nearby town of Naupactos (Lepanto). Inferred earthquakes seem to have influenced the urban evolution of Patras and perhaps its decline since the fourth century. The urban‐oriented, statistical approach for the identification of earthquakes proposed here is different from previous archaeoseismological approaches and may well be useful for the study of many ancient urban centers.