Timber for the saltpetre works at Kiveri

21 November 1703 Probable

On 21 November 1703 a Venetian record notes timber being taken to Kiveri 'for the saltpetre works', the raw material for gunpowder. It fits the water-driven gunpowder workshop that, according to the Ephorate of Antiquities, the Venetians had built at the mills in 1698.

Where

The water mills

Threads

Industry and trade

Certainty

Probable likely, but not fully proven

Sources

• National Library of Greece (ΕΒΕ), Manuscripts, Archivio Nani 3936, f. 174r («per l'effetto della fabrica de salnitri»)
• Α. Πανοπούλου, «Το territorio του Ναυπλίου: η διαχείριση των αγροτικών και των φυσικών πόρων (τέλη 17ου – αρχές 18ου αι.)», Ναυπλιακά Ανάλεκτα IX (2017), p. 358 n. 41

Also in this period

1. 1687–1714

   The Venetians expand the mills

   After the Peloponnese came under Venice in 1687, the Venetians greatly expanded the mills of Lerna. They built connected vaulted granaries, fitted new grinding machinery and surrounded the complex with a stone dam with…

   ProbableWater and millsIndustry and trade

2. 1688–1715

   A monopoly on the ferry, coffee and eels

   Under Venice, transport between Nafplio and the mills was a state concession. The leaseholder had the sole right to carry people and goods by sea between Nafplio and the mills of Kiveri, to bring grain to the mills and…

   ProbableHarbour and pierWater and millsIndustry and trade

3. 1698

   A water-driven gunpowder workshop

   In 1698, according to the Ephorate of Antiquities, the Venetians added a gunpowder workshop to the mills, driven by the water of the springs. How long it worked is not known.

   ProbableIndustry and tradeWater and mills

4. 1700

   Grain by boat, flour back to Nafplio

   In his introduction to the Venetian cadastre of Argos, the engineer Francesco Vandeyk describes a castle on a high hill near the sea, called Anasiri, or by many 'Old Argos' or 'Helen's castle'. Below it, he writes, water…

   ProvenWater and millsHarbour and pierIndustry and trade