The development of the water supply on the Peloponnese in Greco-Roman times

It has long been clear that the water supply in ancient Greece was trans-formed over time, with the relative number of various types of watersources varying in time and space. Yet, what patterns this produced hasnever been explored, and the degree to which trends suggested by localor qualitative studies are representative for larger areas and patterns isunknown. The root of this uncertainty lies largely in the difficulty as-sembling an extensive and representative material beyond individualsites or cities. Following this, the present article has two aims. The firstis to test and evaluate a method for collecting an extensive and (more)representative material for the investigation of the water supply in an-cient Greece on a regional scale, based on a systematic review of thematerial from the Peloponnese published in Archaeological Reports1887–2012. The second aim is to discuss how the collected data canbe used to explore the transformations of the water supply systems onthe Peloponnese in the period 900 BC–AD 300. Together the resultsare intended to develop further the WaterWorks project, which aims tocreate a better understanding of the development of the ancient watersupply. The method produced a considerably better dataset than previ-ously available. The dataset, recorded in an Access database, suggeststhat some hitherto acknowledged trends are probably valid for largerareas while others are less prominent than previously believed. How-ever, in the end, the dataset is too limited to allow firm conclusionsconcerning how, and to a larger degree why, the water supply systemwas transformed over time.