New research on the paleogeography of Tyre

[Sean Manning]

According to this Spiegel article, Alexander’s engineers may have had less of a challenge building their mole than has been commonly thought. It had been my impression that there was a channel of significant depth between the island of Tyre and the mainland, in addition to the shallows. Has anyone read the scholarly article referenced?

(This has reminded me that Alexander’s chief engineer apparently wrote a lost book on siegecraft. Sic transit gloria…).

[Johnny Shumate]

If the water around the mole was so shallow, how did the Tyrians sail right up to it without "running aground"..?
Johnny

[geala]

It is a typical article for "Der Spiegel". First you set some crude arguments carved out of stone and then you shatter them with "new" experience. Where was it said that the sea between the land and Tyre was "several metres" deep? How many metres? Why were the troops sparsely equipped? And what does "shallow" mean in the end? Compared with some deeds in the sea, several metres can mean shallow. In this form the article is more or less useless. Nevertheless a very interesting theme, I hope more infos will come.

[Sean Manning]

I agree that the article has the usual problems with things in the popular press. Calling Alexander's army "sparsely equipped" is just ignorant, for example, and throwing in a photo from the movie Alexander is gratuitous. That's why I asked if anyone had read the scholarly article referred to to see if there was any meat to it.

If the water around the mole was so shallow, how did the Tyrians sail right up to it without "running aground"..?

IIRC triremes have a draft of a few feet, so not much water would be needed to float one. On the other hand, our sources emphasize that the water around some parts of the island was reasonably deep.