Mavrospelaies, C7724

 There's a site in the Corinthia called Mavrospelaies (Black Cave, C7724).  Now, wherever it was (and we're going to talk about that), a single grave was found nearby.  This find was the result of plowing during which the sarcophagus cover was ripped off.  Inside three vases were found: an amphora and two aryballoi. [1]

Let's look at the general area under discussion:

Mavrospilies is not the most important find in the Corinthia but there has been some confusion about its precise location.

Lawrence herself gave the location as in "the field of Michael Roumeliotis near (east of) Mavrospelaies, about a three minute walk above (i.e., south of) the road which leads west from the Roman Villa".  Let's parse this.  The Roman Villa is 'Shear's Villa' which is F7371 and is located at 37.908442° N, 22.864786° E.  There is a road that continues on west from there.  Somewhere on that road we turn S and walk for three minues to M. Roumeliotis' property.  It looks something like this:

Here the yellow line is the road that Lawrence is talking about, anchored on the right (E) by Shear's Villa.  We do not yet know where on the yellow line it is that we're supposed to turn S.

James Wiseman uses Lawrence as a source.  He describes the site as 'not far from Aetopetra' and 'The grave was found in a field belonging to Michalis Roumelites.'[2]

The location of the BA settlement (C915) on the ridge of Aetopetra is firmly established at 37.905633° N, 22.838495° E.  The ridge itself looked like this recently. [3]

As photographed by Blegen a century ago: [4]

From Carl Blegen, 'Corinth in Prehistoric Times', 4, fig. 2.  1920.

I am, once again, going to take the opportunity to condemn the lazy practice of identifying a site with a specific landowner. In this respect some archaeologists are worse than others (looking at you, E. Kanta) but it is to be condemned wherever encountered. Goodness knows that I wish Mr. Roumeliotis long life but 59 years after Lawrence's report the land is very likely to belong to someone else whose identity, at this late date, would be very difficult to discover. More than that Mr. Roumeliotis might very well have owned widely separated plots - a common practice and one which, now, would make the site almost impossible to locate. It is remarkable that prehistorians should be so committed to the ephemeral when they, of all people, are aware of the profound changes associated with the passage of time.

Well, if Mavrospelies is 'near' Aetopetra let's see where Aetopetra is located on a map.  In this first map I have related Aetopetra to the road leading W from Shear's Roman Villa.

In this second map from Google Earth we are looking approximately SW with the ridge of Aetopetra in the foreground.

The Aristeia Project (Mazarakis-Ainian [2015], they reference Lawrence's article) describes the site as being between the North Cemetery (C7280) and the Potter's Quarter (F7661). [5] But Mavrospelaies and Aetopetra are far to the W of these two.  It looks like this:

Here the Potter's Quarter and the North Cemetery are on the right of the map.  Aetopetra Ridge is on the left.  The white line which connects these two areas is about 2.7 km. long.

Morgan  gives us the best orientation by describing the site as 'immediately west of ... Aetopetra'. [6] I have followed her lead by choosing a more or less plausible location just to the west of the ridge of Aetopetra (C915) whose location is firmly established.  It looks like this:

Here we're looking at the western end of the 'orange' road that goes back to Shear's villa on the east.  The purple line extends along a tributary road 3 minutes (260 m) to the S of the orange road.  I have marked 'Mavrospilies' at the S end of the purple mark.  The blue circle is centered on Mavrospilies and is 100 m in radius.  The actual site should be somewhere in that circle.

I'm still somewhat discomfited by the tendency, on the part of some, to place Mavrospilies somewhere back towards ancient Corinth but, given Morgan's  precision, I think that this is the best I can do for the moment.

Footnotes

[1] Lawrence [1964] 89.

[2] Wiseman [1978] 100.  ''Not far from Aetópetra and in the ravine of Mavrospeliés ... ''.

[3] Google Street View.  Heavily post-processed by me for clarity.

[4] Blegen [1920] 4, fig. 2.  Heavily post-processed by me for clarity.

[5] Mazarakis-Ainian [2015]:  'Maurospelaies', here.  Additionally the Aristeia Project says of Mavrospelaies that 'The grave belongs to a group of 5 graves.'  It doesn't.  It is a single grave which Lawrence grouped in with four other widely-separated grave complexes.

[6] Morgan [1999] 470,  '9 Mavrospelies'.

Bibliography

Blegen [1920] : Blegen, Carl W.,  'Corinth in Prehistoric Times', <i>American Journal of Archaeology</i> [24:1] pp. 1-13. 1920.  Online here.

Lawrence [1964]:  Lawrence, Patricia. ‘Five Grave Groups from the Corinthia’, <i>Hesperia</i> (33:2), pp. 89-107, 'Grave at Mavrospelaies', pg. 89. Online here.

Mazarakis-Ainian ed. [2015]:  Mazarakis Ainian, Alexander . Η Κοινωνική Αρχαιολογία του Ελληνικού Κόσμου κατά την Πρώιμη Εποχή του Σιδήρου και την Πρώιμη Αρχαϊκή περίοδο (The Aristeia Project: The Social Archeology of the Greek World during the Early Iron Age and the Early Archaic period), 'Maurospelaies', Online here.

Morgan [1999]:  Morgan, Catherine. Isthmia VIII; The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Princeton, New Jersey, 1999.

Wiseman [1978]:  Wiseman, James. The Land of the Ancient Corinthians. Paul Aströms Förlag, Göteborg, Sweden, 1978.