A Possible CEM associated with the HAB at C397

In my last post I suggested that the correct position for C397 (UMME 139) was at 37.085266° N,  22.055458° E

In the same paragraph from Simpson which I quoted earlier we read this:

"About 500 m. to SW and considerably below the site just described, we noted prehistoric sherds about 2.50 m. down from the surface in the sides of a sunken track that leads up in a cleft between two hills to the convent of the Panayia.  The spot is only about 250 m. E of the outskirts of Thouria village.  There is a new concrete cistern about 30 m. to E, with a sluggish spring slightly higher to NE.  Among the most distinctive sherds are a flat ribbon handle of fine pink clay, a horizontal pinched handle of soft reddish brown fabric, and some plain rims and bases of darkish clay.  Several large pieces of thick pithoi might indicate that this was a cemetery.  The pottery seems to belong mainly to MH, but some may be LH.
  The material collected on the habitation site is not closely datable but confirms its use in prehistoric times.  It could have been associated with the "cemetery" below it."[1]

Also in Simpson and Dickinson [1979] this:

"... About 500 m. SW, some MH sherds and others which may be LH were noted about 2.5 m. down from the surface in the sides of a sunken track between two hills on the way to the Panayia convent.  Some large pithos fragments suggest that the track may have cut through a prehistoric cemetery."[2]

So.  From the previously located site move 500 m. to SW (225°) and we should be in the vicinity of the CEM.  Let's look at the map.

This is what it looks like when I apply all of Simpson's constraints.  The large yellow circle is centered on C397 and has a radius of 500 m.   The azimuth line of 225° (SW) is included for reference.

Near where the azimuth line meets the circle I noticed two things.  The first is what appears to be a cistern and 30 m. distant to the left (W) is a road.  Simpson et al. clearly state that their finds were at the side of a road in the (visible) strata and about 2.5 m. from the top.

Here I've zoomed in on that location.  The circle is 30 m. in radius and it is centered on what I consider to be a cistern.  Another meter or two and we're on the roadside.  I propose this as the approximate location for C5407, our supposed CEM.

All of this fits precisely with Simpson's directions - except for one thing.  Where is the convent of the Panayia and does it fit Simpson's text?  This poses a problem because I can find no religious establishment with that specific name.  The two best candidates might be 1) Ayios Vlasios at 37.079550° N, 22.055526° E and 2) another unnamed church at 37.082563 N, 22.058166 E.  The two candidates can be seen in the next photo:

Ayios Vlasios is to the S and connected to C5407 by a driveable field trail.  But it looks like it might be too small to be more than a simple country church.  Here it is in close-up:

The second church complex looks like this:

In this photo I think we have two things.  One is the church itself and the other seems nothing more than tin-roofed farm buildings.  Truthfully these two church complexes both appear to be simple country chapels.

Nonetheless I slightly prefer the second church, the unnamed one, simply because it is reached through a path between hills.  In the next photo I have exaggerated the vertical by a factor of 2 in order to bring this idea out.

This picture shows the entire area.  Our proposed CEM (C5407) is at the lower left.  Ayios Vlasios is at the lower right.  The large complex right in the center looks to me like a private home.  That leaves 'Church 2' at the upper right as the most likely candidate for the convent but -  I am not sure.  The path in red that I have labelled 'trail' is taken from Topoguide.  It is here to emphasize that it is possible to walk from C5407 to 'Church 2' by means of a trail that goes between two hills.

If anyone has more information about these several structures then I would very much like to hear.   For right now I propose 37.081622° N, 22.052162° E (C5407) as the most likely position for Simpson's MH/LH CEM.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out my new icons on the website helladic.info

There is a new database which was delivered on March 21, 2018.  It adds sundry minor corrections as well as nearly fifty new sites in Crete.  The new DB is rev 0055.

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NOTES

[1] Messenia III, p. 160, no 79B. 'Ayios Athanasios (Thouria)'.

[2] Simpson and Dickinson [1979]: 164.

BIBLIO
McDonald and Rapp [1972]: McDonald, William A. and George R. Rapp, Jr., The Minnesota Messenia Expedition: Reconstructing a Bronze Age Regional Environment, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  USA. 1972

Messenia III: McDonald, William A. and Richard Hope Simpson. 1969. 'Further Explorations in Southwestern Peloponnese: 1964-1968'.  American Journal of Archaeology. (73:2), pp. 123-177.

Simpson, Richard Hope and O.T.P.K. Dickinson,  A Gazetteer of Aegean Civilization in the Bronze Age, Vol. I: The Mainland and the Islands, Paul Åströms Förlag, Goteborg. 1979.

The MH/LH Site 'Ayios Athanasios' (C397) near modern Thouria

A correspondent recently asked me for more detail about C397 which McDonald and Simpson identified as a potential habitation site near a church of Athanasios near Thouria in Messenia.  This gave me a chance to rethink my placement of this site; it's a good example of the hideous mess that a sketchily written description and slip-shod maps can create.  First let's go to the record:

In Messenia III we read this: "A small round knoll with a little barn on its summit rises about 200 m. NE of the chapel of Ayios Athanasios (bearing from the site to the chapel 225 degrees).  The modern village of Thouria (to be distinguished from ancient Thouria #78), on the main highway about 2 km. S of classical Thouria lies some 700 m. to SW of the site (bearing to the village church 257 degrees).
Obsidian chips and a few sherds of coarse "oatmeal" ware occur on the W terraces below the barn.  The total extent of the settlement was probably not more than 100 m. N-S by 60 m."[1]

In McDonald and Rapp [1972] it appears in Register A as site no. 139: "Thouria: Ayios Athanasios, 800 m E; 200 m NE of chapel of Ayios Athanasios.  Low knoll (barn on summit).  HAB. CEM? Frags. of obsidian; ..."[2]  There's a little more in the notice but that gives the gist of it.

This little 'settlement' reappears in Simpson and Dickinson [1979]: "A small settlement (maximum 100 m. N-S by 60 m.), marked only by obsidian and coarse pottery, on a hill c. 200 m. NE of the chapel of Ayios Athanasios and c. 800 m. E of modern Thouria village."[3]

Lots of good consistent information.  What are we looking for?

a. 200 m. NE (45 degrees) from the chapel of Ayios Athanasios.

b. From the village church of Thouria it is on a bearing of 77 degrees.

c. About 700 m. NE of modern Thouria.

Where is 'Ayios Athanasios' and where is the 'village church' of modern Thouria?  If we knew those things then we could find the site.

We should consult a map at this point in order to see where we are.

Modern Thouria and region.  From Topoguide

Here is the modern town of Thouria which is just a few km. NW of Kalamata in Messenia.  North of the town is a church labelled 'Aghios Athansios' (Arrow A).  This is too far north of Thouria to be the Ayios Athansios referred to by Simpson et al.  The church intended by our authors to be understood as Ayios Athanasios is at arrow B and I'm going to show that that must be the case in just a moment.  I should just say here that I have not been able to find the specific name for that church (B) from any of the sources that I have consulted.

Now let's take a look at the town of Thouria itself.  Perhaps we can identify the other 'village church' that Simpson mentions.  In this image from Google Earth I have marked three  prominent churches in modern Thouria.  The one to the left (C) is Hagiou Athanasiou (yes, another) and the one to the right (A) is Hagioi Theodoroi Thourias.  I have not been able to find the name of the large cemetery church at B.

I list the positions of these churches in tabular form:

A. Hagioi Theodoroi Thourias, 37.084460°,  22.051255°
B. Unnamed, 37.085319°, 22.047446°
C. Hagiou Athanasiou, 37.084310°, 22.047087°

Which of these did Simpson refer to when he talked about the bearing from the MH site being 'to the village church 257 degrees'?

In this next picture I've drawn 77° (257 - 180) azimuths from each of the three churches.

Simpson's 'Ayioi Athanasioi' at B

We know that the site is on one of these azimuth lines.  It must also be 200 m. to the NW of a church called 'Ayios Athanasios'.  The only church structure that fits that 200 m. constraint is at B.  Here is what it looks like when we put it all together:

Here I assemble all the constraints.  The church intended by Simpson et al. to be understood as 'Ayios Athanasios' is at B.  The circle is of 200 m. radius and centered on B.  The straight line from B is on an azimuth of 45° (NW).  These three constraints, the straight line constraint from Hagioi Theodoroi at A, the straight line constraint from the church of 'Ayios Athanasios' at B, and the distance constraint (the circle) centered on B, all come together at C where I've placed the site with high confidence.

How do I know that the church at B is what Simpson and others intended to be understood as 'Ayios Athanasios'? 

I don't. 

But it's the only church that fits the constraints.  Informants tell me that there are at least four churches in the Thouria region that are named for the saint.  Whether the church at B really bears that name is uncertain.  It may actually bear that name (or may have in the 1950's - 60's) or Simpson may have been misinformed about it.  If any of my readers know more about this then I would very much like to hear.  In the meantime that's my story for C397 and I'm sticking to it.


C397 is placed at 37.085266° N,  22.055458° E
Church at B, 'Ayioi Athanasioi', is at 37.084185° N, 22.053902° E


I haven't updated my on-line database to reflect this new information since March 21 so the online description of C397 won't agree with this post quite yet.  I won't update the DB for another couple of days.

Simpson and others have thought also to identify a cemetery nearby.  I'll deal with that next time.

~~~~~~~~

Check out my new icons on the website helladic.info

There is a new database which was delivered on March 21, 2018.  It adds sundry minor corrections as well as nearly fifty new sites in Crete.  The new DB is rev 0055.

If you like these posts then please follow me on Twitter or Google Plus (Robert Consoli).

You can e-mail me (and I hope you will) at  bobconsoli   at   gmail.com

And please remember - Friends don't let friends use Facebook.

If you'd like to have a copy of the Mycenaean Atlas database then e-mail me and tell me what your project involves.  And remember that useful .kml and/or .csv files can be generated directly from all the windows of the website helladic.info



NOTES

[1] Messenia III, p. 160, no 79B. 'Ayios Athanasios (Thouria)'.

[2] McDonald and Rapp [1972], p. 288. This is Register A, UMME no. 139.

[3] Simpson and Dickinson [1979], 163, no. D 139 'Thouria: Ayios Athanasios'.

BIBLIO
McDonald and Rapp [1972]: McDonald, William A. and George R. Rapp, Jr., The Minnesota Messenia Expedition: Reconstructing a Bronze Age Regional Environment, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  USA. 1972

Messenia III: McDonald, William A. and Richard Hope Simpson. 1969. 'Further Explorations in Southwestern Peloponnese: 1964-1968'.  American Journal of Archaeology. (73:2), pp. 123-177.

Simpson, Richard Hope and O.T.P.K. Dickinson,  A Gazetteer of Aegean Civilization in the Bronze Age, Vol. I: The Mainland and the Islands, Paul Åströms Förlag, Goteborg. 1979.

The location of Aphidna and its tumulus

The acropolis of Aphidna (C1503), on the hill Kotroni, is located at  38.187173° N, 23.879093° E.  It is associated with a tumulus burial which is at, approximately,  38.175410° N, 23.871020° E.  These two sites straddle the extreme NW end of Lake Marathon in northern Attica.

For many yearts it has been a project site of the Swedish Institute at Athens.  Their project website is here.  The acropolis itself is easy to find.  There is a photograph of the hill on the SIA website.  Here it is:

This is trivially simple to replicate in Google Earth:

The untitled placemark in the foreground is at  38.192352° N, 23.878794° E

The Swedish School site tells us that Aphidna was 'an important fort protecting the northern Attic border.'   It was also on an important route between Attica and Boeotia.[1]

The Swedish School do not quite make clear that the tumulus is separate from the acropolis; about 1.5 km. distant from it.

The tumulus was first investigated by Sam Wide and the German archaeologist Bulle in 1894.  Wide returned that same year to investigate the tumulus with a colleague, Lennart Kjellberg.  Together they dug up a number of graves, retrieved many vases and sherds, and demonstrated that the tumulus was a Bronze Age construction.[2]   There is a description of the vases and fragments in Frazer [3]; the tombs in Pelon.[4]

Where is the tumulus?

Sam Wide tells us that on the German map he is using the mound is marked 'Grave with wall surround'.[5]  We are further told that it is south of the Charadra stream and about 25 minutes (walking) from the peak of Kotroni.[6]

Simpson says that it is on '...low ground about 1.5 km. to south-southwest of the acropolis, ...'.  What low ground is there south of the Charadros and about 1.5 km. from the peak?

Judging from Curtius' map Lake Marathon hardly existed in Wide's time.  In the following image the Charadra is shown in blue.  Let's estimate walking distance over this kind of somewhat rough ground at about 2 miles/hour.  25 minutes of this represents 0.8333+ miles or about 4400 feet.  In the next picture I center a 4400 foot circle at the Aphidna acropolis; the red circle.  I then drew a 1500 m. circle centered on the Aphidna acropolis; the green circle.  For this kind of work they are virtually the same circle and they give us an outer bound.  I then drew in what I considered to be a typical (i.e., entirely made-up) path.  That is shown in light brown; it is 4400 feet in length.   The straight yellow line has its origin on Kotroni and an angle of 202.5° (SSW).  So the tumulus is somewhere to the SSW of the acropolis, south of the Charadra, and within the 4400 feet (or about 1500 m.) circle in the 'low ground'.   The following image tries to meet all these constraints.  No matter how I tried I couldn't get them to cohere unless I also crossed the next little stream to the south of the Charadra (the Prepagouri?). The blue paddle marker (C1502) seems to me to be in the correct area.  I drew a confidence circle with radius of 300 m. (the smaller red circle).  Most probably the tumulus is somewhere within that circle.

Without more information I can't get any closer than that.

Update on 11/05/17

Dr. Jeannette Forsén is the author of a recent paper on Aphidna [7].  In a personal communication of 11/05/17 Dr. Forsén writes as follows:

"Of course the large tumulus is more or less gone I think, due to farming activities and might even be in a fenced in grove, to which we have no access.  It is sad, but to my knowledge no one has been able to find any traces of Wide's tumulus - and many of us have tried."

I drew Dr. Forsén's attention to a feature that has remained stubbornly uncultivated at least since 2004 in the corner of a nearby field.  It is located at  38.177512° N,  23.873209° E and labelled 'uncultivated feature'.  I picture it here:

It resembles a pile of stones that may or may not have been bulldozed into a corner.  She replied:

"Indeed this feature I have seen myself, it was completely overgrown, but may very well be what is left of the tumulus.  In the same field around the larger tree of that field there was some pottery also, but nothing stood out."

In this composite shot we see this feature at several different times of the year.  The dates are the dates of the Google Image used.  One thing to notice is that this uncultivated feature seems to contract over the years - appearing largest in 2004 and significantly smaller in 2014.  In the 2014 photo the size of this feature was 35 m. x 17.7 m.

You'll notice that the paddle labelled 'Uncultivated Feature' moves around relative to the ground from image to image.  This happens because, over time, Google does not use the same model when fitting photos to an idealized underlying model of the earth.  For more on that issue see this.

That this tumulus may have been bull-dozed into a pile of rocks is, perhaps, reminiscent of the fate of the tholos of Mandhra in Messenia (C124) which appears to have met a similar end.


So it isn't just me.  The location of Wide's tumulus is really not now known with any precision.

Notes

[1] Privitera [2013] 156, "... e lungo un'importante strada di collegamento tra Attica e Beozia."

[2] Middle Helladic.  In Privitera [2013] 156, "...un tumulo funerario risalente all'inizio del ME..."  And in Pelon [1976] 82, "La céramique, bien que d'un type particulier, permet de placer le tumulus à l'HM."  Simpson [1981] 51, "It is possible that some of these [finds from the tumulus, RHC] may belong to early Mycenaean times, since they are similar to tumuli excavated at Koukounara in Messenia (F 29).  There is, in any case, no doubt that Aphidna was an important Middle Helladic and Mycenaean settlement."

[3] Frazer [1913] 560 ff.

[4] Pelon [1976] 81 ff.

[5] Wide [1896] 388.  "Der Tumulus, der auf der deutschen Karte als 'Grab mit Mauereinfassung' bezeichnet wird, ..."  The map is Ernst Curtius & Johann August Kaupert, Karten von Attika, Berlin.  1885.  This very plate, xix, is reproduced here but not very readable although it is good enough to establish that the Lake of Marathon was nearly nonexistent a century and a half ago.

[6] Wide [1896] 388, "Zusammen mit meinem Landsmann, Herrn L. Kjellberg, unternahm ich Ende Oktober und Anfang November 1894 eine archäologische Untersuchung bei Aphidna.  Das Hauptinteresse concentrirte sich auf einem grossen Grabhügel, der südlich von der Cháradra, etwa 25 Minuten von der Spitze der alten Burghöhe entfernt liegt."

[7] Forsén  [2010].  I did not have access to this paper when writing this post.

Bibliography

Borgna and Celka [2008]: Borgna, Elisabetta and Sylvie Müller Celka   Ancestral Landscape. Burial mounds in the Copper and Bronze Ages. Proceedings of the International Conference held in Udine, May 15th-18th 2008.  Lyon : Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2012

Forsén [2010]:  Forsén, Jeannette, 'Aphidna in Attica Revisited', in A. Philippa-Touchais et al. (eds.), Mesohelladika. La Grèce continentale au Bronze Moyen (Bulletin de Correspondence Hellenique, Suppl. 52), Paris-Athènes, 2010, 223-234.

Frazer [1913]: Frazer, James G.  Pausanias's Description of Greece.  Translated with a Commentary.  Vol. V, Commentary on Books IX., X., Addenda.  Macmillan and Co., Limited.  St. Martin's Street, London.  1913. Online here.

Papakonstantinou [2012]: Papakonstantinou, Maria-Photini   'Bronze Age Tumuli and Grave Circles in Central Greece: the Current State of Research', in Borgna and Celka [2008], pp. 391-399.  2012.  Online here.

Pelon [1976]: 'Pelon, Olivier.  Tholoi, tumuli et cercles funéraires; Recherches sur les monuments funéraires de plan circulaire dan l''Égée de l''Âge du Bronze (IIIe at IIe millénaires av. J.-C).  Bibliothèques de l''École française d''Athènes et de Rome - Série Athènes, 229. 1976.  Online here.

Privitera [2013]:  Privitera, Santo.  Principi, Pelasgi, e pescatori: L'Attica nella Tarda Eta del Bronzo.  Paestum: Pandemos. 2013.

Simpson [1981]:   Simpson, Richard Hope. Mycenaean Greece. Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1981.,  "B 44 Ancient Aphidna", 51.

Wide [1896]:   Wide, Sam.  "Aphidna in Nordattika", Mittheilungen des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts; Athenische Abtheilung, Band XXI, pp. 385-409.  1896.,  "Aphidna in Nordattika", 385.  Online here.  The map that Wide refers to on p. 388 is here (although not very readable)