Ivlia (bireme) is a modern reconstruction of an ancient Greek rowing warship (galley) with oars at two levels,[1] and is an example of experimental archaeology.

After processing the available scientific data using ancient illustrations on vases and reliefs, as well as written and archaeological sources, members of the Odesa Archeological Museum, under the direction of Prof. Vladimir N. Stanko, Ph.D., proposed the building of a bireme because, in antiquity, it had been the most widely used vessel in the northern Black Sea region.

The authors of the project, Igor Melnik, Mikhail Agbunov and Pavel Goncharuk, together with the staff of the Odesa Archaeological Museum and the Nikolayev University of Shipbuilding, developed the research program of the expedition primarily to address the following objectives: Ancient galleys had an emotive aspect that seems to attach itself to most of the great ship designs of history.

To judge from the surviving pictures of two-level galleys from the sixth century BC, the new system seems to have been used to reduce the ship's length while keeping the same number of oarsmen.

Also regular measurements were made of environmental parameters and the level of pollution of the seawater, assessments of the state of marine flora and fauna, and a variety of medical experiments were conducted.