Lake Copais

A one-time island in the lake was modified in ancient times into a megalithic citadel, now called Gla.

[4] In 1865 a French company, Montferrier and Bonnair, signed a contract with the Greek government to drain the lake.

[8] Modern excavation has found enormous channels dug in the 14th century BC which drained water into the sea to the northeast;[9] Strabo mentions work being done on these channels by an engineer named Crates of Chalcis in the time of Alexander the Great.

[2] An incomplete tunnel with planned length of 2.2 km (1.4 mi) at Kephalari, close to the sinkholes, leading water rivers Cephissus and Melas to a small torrent leading eventually to the Euboean Gulf may also be a Bronze Age work;[2] however, currently there is no consensus about the matter and some researchers date the tunnel much later,[1] perhaps during the Hellenistic period.

[3] There was a legend that the lake came into being when the hero Heracles flooded the area by digging out a river, the Cephissus, which poured into the basin.

[11] Polyaenus explains that he did this because he was fighting the Minyans of Orchomenus: they were dangerous horseback fighters, and Heracles dug the lake in order to unhorse them.

[13] The travel writer Pausanias and the 5th century BC comic playwright Aristophanes record that in antiquity Lake Copais was known for its fish, especially the eels.

Location of Lake Copais
Lake Kopais
British-built Lake Copais Company dredger at work
Map of ancient Boeotia.