Placement of C1542. The Skala Oropos Mound.

I have heard from a correspondent who visited Greece recently and who has this to say about my placement of C1542 which I called the 'Skala Oropos Mound'.

He says this:

“C1542 Skala Oropos: Mound

38.315918° N, 23.809185° E is not quite accurate. The mound is nearby, covered by a grove of olive trees and bounded by houses, at 38°18'56.6" N  23°48'26.8” E - if this is indeed the mound: I saw no sherds in the ploughed earth around the olive trees.”

I remember struggling over this. Basically there are two sources. There is the Simpson/Dickinson/Arch Reports/Phialon track. Then there is the Cosmopoulos (Oropos Survey Project) track.  Cosmopoulos' survey effort seems to have been done independently of Simpson et al.

What does Simpson [1981] say? At p. 52, ‘B45 Skala Oropou’ he says:

“Prehistoric sherds have been found on a low mound, about 100 m. in length, about a kilometre to east of Nea Palatia, a suburb of Skala Oropou. The site is described as lying near the edge of the coastal plain and about 500 m. from the sea, at the point where the road from Skala Oropou to Markopoulo cuts a disused mine railway track which runs part (sic) the north and east foot of the mound.”

The time I’ve spent looking for that ‘disused mine railway track’! Failing that Simpson (and Simpson/Dickinson [1979]) clearly refer to the hill you specify. No other hill even comes close. And the word ‘low’ might apply.  This hill rises about 20+ m. above the surrounding plain. My marker for C1542 was just off the hill to the E and it seems like moving that marker up to the shoulder of that hill might be appropriate. The length of the entire hill is more than 400 m. from W to E. The shoulder is 60-80 m. long.

Cosmopoulos [2016] refers to that hill as ‘Ψ’ and says this (p. 104, 91/9. Agios Nikolaos): “This is a large findspot in the long and narrow valley immediately to the west of hill Ψ (Figure 35).

The valley runs in a north-south direction and can be accessed by St. Nicholas Street, which is named after the small chapel in its southern end. A stream bed runs through the valley in a southwest-northeast direction and turns to the east where the alluvial plain starts. The valley and the hillslopes around it are covered with vineyards, olive groves, and fig trees.”

I reproduce Figure 35 below:

Reproduction of  Figure 35 in Cosmopoulos [2016] 57.
Phioto taken from approx. lower center with axis shown by the arrow.
C1542 is shown on top of the 'Ψ' hill at upper center.
Area of Cosmopoulos' finds (91/9) is approx. the oval.

The chapel of Hagios Nikolaos is here: 38.316245 N, 23.810375 E. Cosmopoulos is describing a very large (basically the entire valley floor) site just off the E side of hill Ψ. He reports no prehistoric finds from this area. All the finds were Classical and later. It does seem strange that he seems to know nothing about Simpson et al.

Action Taken. I moved the location of C1542 up onto the shoulder of the hill. My new suggested position is 38.315505° N, 23.808465° E. I have left the documentation alone. In this context (since this is a BA atlas) I have ignored Cosmopoulos.   

No changes will appear until I release a modified database.

Bibliography

Cosmopoulos [2016] : Cosmopoulos, Michael B., The Rural History of Ancient Greek City-States; The Oropos Survey Project.  BAR International Series, 1001.  2001. 

Simpson [1981] : Simpson, Richard Hope. Mycenaean Greece. Noyes Press.  New Jersey. 1981