Connectivity in the Aegean: The Practice of Porthmeutice and its Importance for Small-Scale Interaction

Abstract: Recent scholarship has emphasised the importance of small-scale interaction in the Aegean. More particularly, the practice of cabotage, the «short haul journeys of small ships hopping from harbour to harbour along the coasts and among the islands», is now considered an essential feature of Aegean navigation. Kolodny, travelling in the Greek islands in the late 1960s and early 1970s acknowledged that ‘in most of the small islands, maritime installations are reduced to a minimum’. The minimal scale of the material evidence does not imply an equivalent lack of travel between small islands. Rather, attention should be focused on the existence of what the Venetians called a ‘scala’, literally a small dock with a few steps for boarding vessels: such minimal maritime installations are still quite widespread in the Aegean.