The Cyclopean Wall: Why the salient?

In Simpson [1981] we read the following 

"The wall ... is sited wherever possible in such a manner as to force attackers from the north to approach over steeply  sloping ground.  Indeed a very wide (and expensive) loop was made in the central part of its preserved length ..., adding about 2 kilometres of "extra" walling, obviously in order  to maintain the desired elevation and to take advantage of the steep slopes." [1]

Dr. Simpson is quite mistaken about this.  Section Pe does sit on the top north edge of the Mytika plateau but segment Sp, the very next segment and some 230 m to the S of Pe, sits some 26 m. below the top of the ridge.  In 230 m, therefore, this 'defensive' wall has descended the height of an 8-story building from Pe.  That is clear in the next picture:

Segments Pe, Sp, and Zo.  Facing SE.
The blue 'fence' is a reconstruction of the route of the supposed wall.

The descent from Pe to Sp is clear in this picture.  The fact that a steep ridge sits immediately behind and above Sp and that Sp is actually embedded in the ridge makes it impossible that this segment was ever part of a defensive wall.  

Segment Sp.  A steep ridge (in which Sp is embedded) rises just behind
and makes it impossible to defend.

The very next segment, Zo, is at the same elevation as Sp but, because of the ground, sits on a level plain easily approachable to any 'attacker' coming up the valley.  

Simpson is correct that the southern salient (and the extra 1800 m of walling) requires an explanation.  An attempt 'to maintain the desired elevation and to take advantage of the steep slopes' is not that explanation.

Footnotes

[1] Simpson [1981] 35, 'A 61 Isthmia'.

Bibliography

Simpson [1981] : Simpson, Richard Hope. Mycenaean Greece.  Noyes  Press.  1981. ISBN: 0-8155-5061-8.

Kamari Gouva (C173) Reconsidered

In my last post I discussed the location of a site called 'Gouva', near Kamari (UMME 236).  Gouva was a large tholos tomb from the LHIII A.  And just to recap some of the main points:

a. It has been robbed and destroyed. [1]

b. It had been so large that when the central dome collapsed (or was dug out) it left two little hills. [2]

c. These two 'bumps' on the landscape could still be seen from a nearby highway as late as the 1960's by investigators such as McDonald and Simpson.[3]

In that post I looked over all the constraints and decided on a location at  37.292614° N, 21.78284° E and I gave various reasons for why I thought that was the right location.

But now I have reason to think that I was wrong and that the real location is just a bit to the north.  A correspondent of mine in Greece, Pete, has actually been to this ridge and walked the whole length of it looking for features that might fit our tholos.  He reports:

"I took a general walk around the area either side of the ridge. Going much further south got difficult as the ridge was overgrown and I was weary of snakes in the undergrowth. Of course low scrub and trees make judging any details difficult but I can usually spot a point of interest or identify an area that might fit the bill. So none of this is conclusive, but I offer a suggestion for consideration.

I note that the report stated that the mounds were on the skyline and looked like two small hills. Or some such. So I took a walk along the skyline ridge route. I started a little further to the south of the area you had indicated and walked north, along the top of the little valley and up to the highest point some tens of meters away. Just beyond that high point (mostly covered by bushes) there was a cleared stony/earth field with a somewhat obvious mound near the higher, west side. The mound had a shallow dip in the middle."[4]

What does he mean?

This next image shows the area that he's talking about.  The various camera icons indicate where Pete was standing when he took these photos; the color matching rays indicate the direction the camera was facing.  (Photo 12 is a panorama.)  His suggested tholos location is the white circle and its lat/lon position is 37.293955° N, 21.782660° E.  North is at the top.

And in order to see his suggested mound clearly let's look at Photo 10:[5]

Proposed Kamari: Gouva tholos as seen from E.
For credit see fn. 5.

And from the SE facing NW here is photo 7:[5]

Proposed Kamari: Gouva tholos as seen from SE.
For credit see fn. 5.

Photo 8 shows the mound from the S:[5]

Gouva Mound(?) from the SE.
For credit see fn. 5.

Photo 9 shows the mound from the SW.[5]

Pete has this to say about Photo 9:

"Image 9 is taken from 'behind' the mound in question I walked though the gap in the bush to the SW of the mound as I wanted to see what the other side was like. The mound was not so obvious at this point. It was "lost" in a long linear patch of shrub and undergrowth. In fact if anything there seemed to be a short, steep bank (which the shrubs followed) instead of a smooth sloped side to the mound.

In the photo one can see that the nearest olive trees are smaller and so I suppose this immediate area has been bulldozed in the last 50 years (probably 20 or so). That might explain the missing west slope of the suggested site. It had been removed by bulldozer and  the "cut-edge" left exposed and left to weather. I could not get too close but when I tried to see if there were any stones showing I was not able to see any clearly. I did not see any regular pattern of placement of stone or anything proving or strongly supporting this as a site for a tholos. The exposed parts of the bank were composed of a gritty red earth with a lot of stones."[6]

Photo 12 is a panorama which looks at the site from the NE.[5]

Gouva Mound(?) from the NE.
For credit see fn. 5.

So.  Is this site correct?  Or at least does it fit the description in Messenia III?

Here's what McDonald and Simpson report:

"As one travels w on the road from Kopanaki to Kamari past the spring of Sanova, he sees on the w skyline what appear to be two artificial mounds quite close together.  The N-S ridge on which they lie is at least 1 km. from any road.

   On close inspection it turns out that there was originally one large mound and that its center was deeply dug out.  From a distance the heightened banks of excavated earth create the impression of two mounds.   ...    The shrubs that have since grown up in the crater suggest that the excavation may have been as much as half a century ago.  Perhaps the crater explains the local toponym of Gouva ("hole")."[7]

Can we find the road?  Can we find the spot from which McDonald/Simpson were when they saw these two mounds?

I think we can.  The stretch of road along which they were travelling is shown here:

The yellow line is the road of travel.  In Google Maps the road is labelled 'Epar. Od. Chanion-Naou Epikouriou Apollonos'.  Kopanaki is in the lower right under the red arrow and Kamari is on the upper left center under another red arrow.  The stretch of road from which McDonald/Simpson could have seen the twin mounds is somewhere along the yellow line and inside the i km. circle which is centered on the proposed new location.  This stretch of road leaves Nea Agrilia going NW and the traveler drops from the plateau on which Nea Agrilia is situated into a little valley (some 15 m. or so vertical distance) through which flows a stream (Topoguide says that it's called the 'Kopitsa') whose origin is on the N side of this road.  It turns out that the proposed stretch of the ridge on which the proposed location is positioned is only visible from the very edge of this plateau just before the drop into the valley.  This position is just to the right of the 1 km. circle on the line which represent the road.

Here's a viewshed of these valleys and ridges; it has its origin on the plateau edge as I just suggested

And I have another way of demonstrating this.  Incredibly Google Street View is available for this entire road.   I've made a photo of what that ridge line looks like from the suggested observer's position on top of the plateau.  Here it is:

O.k.  This requires a little explanation.  The road in the foreground (we're facing NNW) is the road to Kamari.  What's that gray thing?  It turns out that when you draw a line in Google Earth and the extend it down to the ground you can often see that extended line in Google Street View.  This scene places us on the right road looking more or less west to the ridge.  The line here was drawn starting at the  proposed tholos position and extended to the observer's position just ahead of us on  the road.  I then extended it to create this unmissable indicator.  The left vertical edge of this figure is directly over the tholos and the ragged corner here imitates the changing elevation of the ridges between us and the observer.  To see where the line hits the ridge line it is enough to continue the edges with arrows to the point where they meet on the ridge.

If Pete is right then this is the area of the ridge that MacDonald/Simpson would have seen.   

Can we see two little mounds from here given that we know that they're there?  I'm just not sure.  The bumps on this ridge are consistent with what M/S saw but whether they're exactly the same we cannot now know.

Anyway, Pete's suggested position (which I will be adopting for C173 in the atlas) is:  37.293955° N, 21.782660° E.

A shout-out to Pete for his extraordinary work on this ridge!

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

There's just one more mystery to clear up.  Simpson says: 

"As one travels w on the road from Kopanaki to Kamari past the spring of Sanova, ... "[8]

Where is the spring Sanova?  I'll deal with that in my next post.

Footnotes

[1] Messenia III, 137. ' ..., there is practically no doubt that this was a large tholos tomb that was excavated (presumably illicitly) and completely destroyed.  The shrubs that have since grown up in the crater suggest that the excavation may have been as much as half a century ago.'  This article appeared in 1969.  All the authors known to me who have described this tomb are simply repeating McDonald and Simpson.

[2] Messenia III, 137.  ' ... [the traveler] sees on the w skyline what appear to be two artificial mounds quite close together.  The N-S ridge on which they lie is at least 1 km. from any road.'

[3] Idem.

[4] Personal communication on July 18, 2021.

[5] Pete's photos were heavily post-processed by me in Photoshop before publishing.  Typical operations consisted of contrast adjustment (sometimes selective), color-balance and enhancement, and sharpening.   

All of Pete's photographs are licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).  This license means, in brief, that anyone may use, modify, or tweak this data, even for commercial use, as long as credit is given to the original author(s).

[6] Personal communication on July 13, 2021.

[7] Messenia III, 137-8.

[8] Messenia III, 137.

Bibliography  

(All of the sources listed here simply copy Messenia III.  Aside from these there are no other reports of Gouva to my knowledge.)

Boyd [2001]:  Boyd, Michael John, Middle Helladic And Early Mycenaean Mortuary Practices In The Southern And Western Peloponnese, 2001   pg. 212   'Unexcavated Tholos Tombs'.  It is online here.

Cavanagh and Mee [1998]: Cavanagh, W., Mee, Ch., A private place: death in prehistoric Greece ((Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, 125)).1998.  ISBN: 91-7081-178-4

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.   pg. 298, no. 236, 'Kamari: Gouva'.

Messenia III:   McDonald, William A. and Richard Hope Simpson. ‘Further Explorations in Southwestern Peloponnese: 1964-1968’, American Journal of Archaeology (73:2) (Apr., 1969), pp. 123-177., '23D. Gouva (Kamari)', pg. 137. 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.   pg. 465, 'Gouva'.   It is online here.

Simpson and Dickinson [1979]:  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.   pg. 177, 'D 236 Kamari: Gouva.'  It is online here.

Simpson [1981]:  Simpson, Richard Hope.  Mycenaean Greece. Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1981.   pg. 137   'F 209 Kamari: Gouva'.

Zavadil [2012]:  Zavadil, Michaela  Monumenta: Studien zu mittel- und späthelladischen Gräbern in Messenien.  Wien:Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften. 2012.   pg. 411, 'KAMARI/GOUVA (EP. TRIPHYLIAS)'.  It is online here.

The Geography of Partheni Bay on Leros

 

The island of Leros, in the Dodecanese, lies between Patmos and Kalymnos. 

Leros is situated between Patmos and Kalymnos

 Simpson and Dickinson tell of an early Bronze Age site discovered on the edge of Partheni Bay which is in the north of Leros as shown on the next map.  

Partheni Bay on Leros

  Simpson and Dickinson characterize the site like this:

"The easternmost of three promontories (collectively named "Ta Poundaria") on the S shore of Partheni Bay in the N of the island was an EB settlement.  The site is only 80 m. NNW-SSE by 40 m., but may have been partly eroded by the sea.  The  sherds found are from jars and pithoi of EB I type.  ... "[1]

Where exactly is this site?

Partheni Bay on Leros with ta Poundaria labelled.

On this map we see the three promontories called 'ta Poundaria'. They are the easternmost on the south coast of Partheni Bay. The one furthest E I have arbitrarily labelled "Poundaria 1". Its neighbors,Ta Poundaria 2 and 3, lie just to its W.

Let's look at Ta Poundaria 1 in closeup:

Does this satisfy the criteria set out by our authors? Here's what Simpson and Lazenby said about it earlier:

" ... a very low and very small promontory ... with the remains of an L-shaped mole at its north-west tip. The promontory, which is about 80 m. long by 40 m. wide, is the easternmost of the three (named collectively 'Ta Poundaria') in the middle of the south shore of Partheni Bay (the central promontory is even smaller, and the westernmost is the peninsula discussed by Benson where both Ross and Burchner reported tholaria)."(52)[2]

Here Simpson and Lazenby are, confusingly, giving the size of the peninsula as 40 x 80 m. when, in fact, it's the site that's 40 x 80 m.[3] The hypothesized size of the site is thus 3200 m. The actual area of this peninsula is about 29,700 sq. m.

In order to give an idea of the size of the site relative to the peninsula I have drawn a circle with an area of 3200 m. (about 32 m. radius) against a photo of Ta Poundaria 1. I show this circle in the next photo:

Ta Poundaria 1 with a circle sized to approximately the dimensions of the site.

I have identified this site in the Mycenaean Atlas Project as C7111 and I suppose that we're no more than twenty or so meters away from wherever it was that these Early Bronze sherds were discovered.

A Second Site, C7112

Simpson and Dickinson [1979] 367 suggest the presence of another site in this area:

"Similar fragments of pithoi found on a hillock c. 1 km. to SW may  represent  a cemetery area connected with the settlement.'"[4]

Where is this 'hillock'?  

The hillock in question sits just to the SW of the Leros airport runway.  At its highest point it is 11 m. above the surrounding plain.  On its peak sit the ruins of a tower about 8m square, presumably Hellenistic, and about which there has been some debate.  Early investigators supposed it to be the site of the often-mentioned Temple to Artemis (Parthenos Iokallis).  The virgin Iokallis has been thought to be a local semi-deity whose cult was assimilated to that of Artemis.  In 1905 Dawkins and Wace established that this platform was really just a tower.[5]  Bean and Cook reaffirmed this in 1957.[6]  And even though no other location for the temple has been suggested, this remains the consensus of scholars today.  But the idea that Artemis' temple is located on this hill hasn't quite died.   (Including the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports which still has this claim on their website here. )  In fact, Benson gives reasons why the tower base may have originally been the location of a small temple.  

Here's a photo of the entire top of the hill with some superimposed drawings of what can be made of the structures currently remaining.

The green cylinders (T1, ... ) are trees: a crude if effective way of representing them.  S1 and S2 are structures whose purpose I cannot determine.  The structure labelled 'Platform' is the proposed tower base.  The orange structure labelled 'Nave' is the location of the church of H. Eirene. I marked one structure, in yellow, with a question mark.  It is not clear whether or not this is part of H. Eirene.

Following is a photograph of the same area from directly above:

At some point in the Christian era the stones of the tower platform were re-used to build a small chapel to H. Eirene (F6216). [7]   Of H. Eirene Benson says this:

"Parallel and very near the tower on its north side is a small ruined chapel , known locally as Ayia Eirene, built largely with blocks taken from the tower. The small conch - like apse is constructed of brick and concrete , which was covered with plaster on which are traces of wall painting in red, yellow and dark greenish grey paint. The total height of the apse above the present surface is 2.45 m. A clandestine excavation which had taken place recently went down below the obvious level for a floor without revealing any traces of one."[8]

I found some pictures that show what remains of the nave of this chapel.  You should be able to link to them here: 

https://www.lerosinfo.com/media/k2/items/cache/954fb0ebf1d84fb921bfb0b6e045d57f_XL.jpg

This is the same scene from the photograph looking down the 'nave' of H. Eirene facing east.   Next to it on the S (right) is what's left of the tower platform.    On the N (left) of the chapel is a low yellow structure.  Photographs indicate that the slope falls away towards the N and I could not interpret what this structure was.  Take it with a grain of salt.

As for the platform itself there is another user-contributed photo that shows it up close and looking W.  You can find that photo here: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-m/1280/18/7c/ac/ae/view-of-temple-of-artemis.jpg

Here is a reproduction of that photo.  Here the viewer is looking directly W along the apse end of the nave (center).  The platform is to the S (on the left) under the shade of a tree.  

The temple that was thought to be here was famous in antiquity as sacred to Artemis.  The priests kept Guinea hens here which they advertised as Meleager's sisters, the Meleagrides.

In my next post I will devote more space to the myth of Meleager.

Footnotes

[1] Simpson and Dickinson [1979] 367, 'Partheni: Ta Poundaria etc.'.

[2] Simpson and Lazenby [1970] 52, 'Leros; Partheni'

[3] Simpson and Dickinson [1979] ibid.

[4] Idem.

[5] Dawkins and Wace [1905] But see Benson [1963] 16,  ' ... this may be the site of the Temple of the Parthenos, if it was of modest proportions.' 

[6] Bean and Cook [1957] 134, 'Leros': " ...; and at H. Eirene, between the bay and H. Georgios, is the ruin of a square tower described and illlustrated by Dawkins and Wace."

[7] The name confirmed in Benson [1963] 17 and n. 48.

[8] Benson [1963] 17.



Biblio

Bean and Cook [1957] : G.E. Bean and J.M. Cook, 'The Carian Coast III', Annual of the British School at Athens (52) 'Leros', pp. 58-146. [1957]. Especially 134 ff. It is online here.

Benson [1963]:  Benson Ancient Leros. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and Eaton Press, Mass., U.S.A. 1963. Online here.

Dawkins and Wace [1905] : Dawkins, R.M. and Alan J.B. Wace, 'Notes from the Sporades, Astypalaea, Telos, Nisyros, Leros', Annual of the British School at Athens (12) 151-174, [1905-06]. esp. Section '4 - Leros', which starts on 172.  They include a photo of the base of the tower taken facing approx. W. It is online here:

Simpson and Dickinson [1979] : 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., 'Partheni: Ta Poundaria etc.', pg. 367. Online here :

Simpson and Lazenby [1970] : Simpson, R. Hope and J.F. Lazenby. 'Notes from the Dodecanese II', The Annual of the British School at Athens (65). pp. 47-77. 1970. Online here:

Customized Bibliographies in the Mycenaean Atlas Project

The Mycenaean Atlas Project is happy to announce the delivery of software that can support customized bibliographies.

The bibliography for the Mycenaean Atlas Project now numbers more than 1000 items.  For a long time I have wanted to be able to present the bibliography online in a focused and analytical fashion.

From the beginning it was possible to create a map that showed every location documented by specific scholars.  It was possible to create, for example, a map of the Mycenaean world which showed just those sites for which Simpson’s Mycenaean Greece was one of the sources.  At the present time one can draw such a map for any one of 40 different scholars.

This is useful for tracking the actual coverage that the Mycenaean Atlas gives to any one of these prominent writers and these maps change as more and more of their sites are put into the Atlas.  Here, for example, is a map based on Emilia Banou's Beitrag zum Studium Lakoniens in der mykenischen Zeit from 1996.   These are all the sites for which her work is at least one of the supporting citations in the Mycenaean Atlas.

There is more in the Bibliography than just those forty authors.  At a minimum it should be possible to produce customized bibliographies.  If a user chooses just to look at sites from Arcadia then it should be possible to produce a bibliography of just those writers who are cited in locations from Arcadia.   In other words, to produce a customized bibliography of Arcadia in the Mycenaean period.  And that goes for any other combination of choices.  A customized bibliography for ‘tholos’ and ‘LH’; or a customized bibliography just for ‘Forts’,  etc.

This is now  possible with new software delivered to helladic.info.  In addition to the other reports that are generated from the report page such as ‘Chrono’ or ‘Elevation’ it is now possible to generate a bibliographic report limited to just those categories the user actually chose.

If the user chose ‘Boeotia’ and ‘EHII’ from the control page then, on the report page, pressing ‘Biblio Report’ on the main report page will produce a new page that contains a bibliography of just those authors and sources in the DB who are cited in support of every Boeotian site of the EH II.

A dedicated bibliography for 'Boeotia' in the 'EH II' looks like this:

Your choices are listed in the parameter box at the top left.  Here the PERIOD: is EHII and the REGION: is Boeotia.

The primary feature of this new page is the bibliography table.  This table has four columns, 'Author', 'Citation', 'Comment', and 'ISBN'.

Author: This column displays the author name, if known.  If there is a link associated with the author's name then clicking that link will bring up a map with just the sites in 'Boeotia' in the 'EHII' that use that author as a supporting citation.

Citation: This column displays the title and publisher (or journal information) of the work being cited.  If there is a link in this column then clicking that link will bring the user to the actual text of the work (.pdf or other doc) being cited.

Comment: The comment field displays extra information, if any, about the work being cited.

ISBN: This displays the ISBN number (or ASIN or DOI) of the work being cited.  This is included, when known, to prevent ambiguity.  The ISBN is still the best way to identify the exact edition of a book being cited.

Here's a part of the biblio page for 'Attica':

(You may need to click on this to enlarge it.)  Here there are ISBN numbers for Simpson and Hagel's Mycenaean Fortifications ... and Privitera's Principi, Pelasgi, e Pescatori because those books are not available online.  On the other hand Jeremy Rutter's "Evidence for a Mycenaean Tomb of the Late Helladic IIA period in the Athenian Agora" is online and the page provides a working link to it.  Clicking on that link brings up Dr. Rutter's article.

And what about that first column which is headed 'Author'?  As mentioned above that entry might have a link and, if it does, clicking on that link brings up a new map with sites for which that author/work combination provide bibliographic support.  For example, when you click on Jeremy Rutter's name next to his article 'Evidence for a Mycenaean Tomb of the Late Helladic IIA Period in the Athenian Agora' from Hesperia you are taken to a new map page with just that site on it, in the Atlas, for which Dr. Rutter's article is cited in support.  It looks like this:

Here's the new single citation source page.  Since you clicked on Dr. Rutter's name it brings up the single site in Attica which is in the DB and for which Dr. Rutter is one of the supporting sources.   In this particular case it turns out to be a grave in the Athenian agora (C1835).  In this way you can quickly track those sites for which specific authors/works are cited in support.

At the top of this page the original choice criteria are repeated.  The Criterion Bar says "Source: Rutter [1975]    Number of sites: 1     Region: Attica"

When you mouse over the Source the full citation will pop up.  It looks like this:

Here you can see the black background popup box with the full name of Dr. Rutter's article and its place of publication, namely in Hesperia.

Ceramic Horizon (Period) criteria are handled in a similar fashion.  Here, for example, is a map derived from Simpson's 1959 article on 'Nemesis'.  One selection criterion was 'LH'.  For our search purposes the choice of 'LH' means every subdivision of that period: LHI, LHII, LHIII, etc.  You can see that if you mouse over the 'Ceramic Horizon: LH' string:

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


The Dynamic Bibliography Report is available to be used now.  That software was delivered in the last week.  A new data base to support dynamic bibliographies has also been released.

Your feedback is very valuable to me.  My e-mail address is: bobconsoli 'at' gmail.com

Please follow me on Twitter: @squinchpix

I would ask you to follow me on Google Plus but c'est la guerre.

Friends don't let friends use Facebook and if you are using it please stop.

Useful .kml and/or .csv files can be generated directly from all the windows (including the new reports pages) of the website helladic.info   Try it out!   I'm also willing to generate custom .csv or .kml files from the atlas if you need something specific.

Most researchers in this field use some product like Microsoft's Excel to create a DB.  This is fine; it's what is generally referred to as a 'flat file' - a single table representation of your data of interest.

The Mycenaean Atlas database, on the other hand, is a relational database with several tables.  It was built using MySQL.  I will make dumps of this DB available but you need MySQL (or similar) and a knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL) to run it.  (I'm pretty sure that you can interface to my database from ArcGIS or QGIS).  

Otherwise it doesn't make much sense to ask for it.  But If you'd like to have a copy of the Mycenaean Atlas database anyway then e-mail me (bobconsoli 'at' gmail.com) and tell me about your project.  I want to share the Database but just remember that it's a relational SQL DB

Where is Arcadian Dhimitra: Troupes (C484)?

It is said that photographs don't lie but they certainly can mumble.

An example occurs in Syriopoulos' article on 'Windy Enispe'[1] that discusses the important Bronze Age site called 'Dhimitra'.   Syriopoulos tells us about the site and how it was discovered:

“IN 1939, during road construction near the modern village Dimitra in the district of Gortynia in north-western Arcadia, digging works brought to light considerable prehistoric remains from the eastern slope of a small hill called Troupes (= 'holes') about 2 km. north-east of the village of Dimitra.'

 The remains passed unnoticed until 1942, when I chanced to visit the site and collected from the cutting of the hill-slope a considerable number of prehistoric sherds, the most remarkable of which I have briefly mentioned under 'Demetra village' in my (Prehistory of the Peloponnese).  R. Howell quotes the site in his recently published 'Survey of Eastern Arcadia in Prehistory' without adding any more information.

 Unfortunately, I did not manage to publish these finds earlier with a more detailed description and the relevant illustrations. But I have visited the site several times since I942 and collected more sherds and other finds, the most remarkable of which are described below. They all prove, in my opinion, a continuous and intensive inhabitation of the site from Neolithic to L.H. IIIC 2 times, when the settlement was deserted for ever.”

I transliterated his title in parentheses and have suppressed his footnotes except for fn. 1 which I reproduce here:

“1. The area of Dimitra, formerly Divritsa, is described in Frazer, Pausanias iv. 287-90, PW 70-5, GL iii. 276. The road, during whose construction the prehistoric finds came to light, branches off the main carriage road from Tripolis to Olympia at its 83rd kilometre in the village of Stavrodromi and leads through the villages of Tropaia, Vachlia, Dimitra, Kontovazaina, Voutsi, and Monastiraki, towards Koumani village and the carriage road from Pyrgos to Patras via Platanos. It has not yet been completed.”

So.  A significant large settlement that existed throughout the Bronze Age in central Arcadia and situated about 1 km. north of the Ladon River.

Where is it?

The name of the site is 'Troupes' and 'Dhimitra' is the name of the modern town closest to it.  The general position of Dhimitra in Arcadia is shown in this map:

Here we're looking at the NW quadrant of the Peloponnese; the lavender arrow points to Dhimitra.   If we zoom in on this area we can see the road being described by Syriopoulos in his footnote 1 which are indicated more or less roughly in the next map.  (Click on it to enlarge.)

On this map I have labelled the names of the towns in Syriopoulos' footnote.  The sequence begins with Stavrodromi at the lower R and ends with Koumani at the upper L.  The last bit of the road from outside Monastiraki to Koumani is not very good; really a series of dirt roads and this may be the part that Syriopoulos thought was 'not yet ... completed.'.

Now for Dhimitra itself.

The modern town of Dhimitra is positioned at the lower L.  Measuring a path from that town to my proposed location for Troupes is just about 1890 m.  I admit that the starting point for this lavender line was somewhat arbitrarily chosen but Syriopoulos does not tells us where to begin measuring the 2 km. distance from town to site.

In this post I have started with the answer.  With a high degree of confidence it can be said that the site of Troupes is at 37.786502° N, 21.932709° E.  How can this be justified?  

The criteria for this site are as follows:

1. Ca. 2 km. from modern Dhimitra.

2. It is on the road between Stavrodromi and Koumani.

3. It must be on or very close to the side of the road because it was discovered during road-building.

In addition to these vague criteria there are two photographs that show the area around Troupes.  These are from Syriopoulos' article.

The first shows the Ladon river valley taken from ... somewhere.

Here I have labelled the gorge of the Ladon R. (tributary of the Alpheios).  Also I have indicated the facing ridge on the S which is Dariza.  The modern town of Dhimitra cannot really be seen but it's somewhere over the labelled ridge.

In the next picture I reproduce that view in Google Earth:

Being able to reproduce this view leads me to say that the photograph in Syriopoulos was taken from approximately 37.786022° N, 21.947296° E.  In this picture the red line is the road described in Syriopoulos' footnote 1.  The intermittent blue line is the position of the Ladon river itself.

Syriopoulos labels this picture (a) as 'Troupes (or Damari) from north-east.'

But it isn't.  

The photo labels in his article have come adrift.  This caption which says 'Troupes' is actually meant for photograph (c) which is here:

This is the original.  Here is a labelled version of it:

Here we're looking roughly SW down the Ladon river valley in the direction of Dhimitra which we cannot see.  The main highway actually winds around the site of Troupes.  If we could figure out from where this picture was taken we would know where Troupes is located.  Perhaps it's possible to recreate this view in Google Earth?

After a great deal of huffing and puffing I was able to do exactly that.     Here it is:

Not too convincing?  That's what I mean when I say that photographs can stutter.  O.k., let's zoom in on the ridge in the LC:

Now we have a photo almost identical to Syriopoulos' photo which was taken from about 37.790800° N, 21.932980° E. I suspect that Syriopoulos' original was taken with a moderate telephoto, perhaps 135 mm. focal length.

And there it all is.  That wooded plateau feature in the center is Troupes.  In Syriopoulos' original there are many limestone outcrops visible and those have nearly disappeared in the overgrowth some 45 years later.  But when we look at this ridge from above those limestone features are still plainly visible:

I have drawn yellow arrows that indicate extruding features.  Even though this east side of the ridge is greatly overgrown compared to when Syriopoulos' picture was taken its essential rocky nature is unchanged.

Here's another photo of the site from above:

Here's Syriopoulos' photo of it:

And this is as close as I can get in Google Earth Street View:

I think that Syriopoulos's photo was taken by following the branching road to the left (NW) and photographing the hill by facing more towards the NE.

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A new database (Rev. 65) and updated search files were moved to helladic.info on 08/23/18 at 06:52 PST.  This includes about 71 new sites, many of them on the islands of Karpathos, Saros, and Kasos in the Dodecanese.  And don't forget to try out the new chronological pages on helladic.info.

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Most researchers in this field use some product like Microsoft's Excel to create a 'DB'.  This is fine; it's what is generally referred to as a 'flat file'.  That is, a single table representation of your data of interest.

The Mycenaean Atlas database, on the other hand, is a relational database with several tables that was built using MySQL.  Dumps of this DB are available but you need MySQL (or similar) and a knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL) to run it.  Otherwise it doesn't make much sense to ask for it.  But If you'd like to have a copy of the Mycenaean Atlas database anyway then e-mail me and tell me about your project.  

And remember that useful .kml and/or .csv files can be generated directly from all the windows (including the new reports pages) of the website helladic.info   Try it out!   I'm also willing to generate custom .csv or .kml files from the atlas if you need something specific.

Footnotes

1. Syriopoulos [1973] 193.  

   In Howell [1970] p. 98, "During the construction of the public highway near the village of Dhimitra, a cutting was made through a prehistoric settlement."  

   In Simpson [1981] 88, 'D 19 Dhimitra: Troupes', "The small hill called Troupes lies about 2 k. northeast of Dhimitra, on the south slopes of Mt. Aphrodision, above the Ladon river valley.  During road construction a cutting was dug through a prehistoric settlement here, and Syriopoulos ... collected a large quantity of sherds from it, mainly from the eastern slope.  Most of this was Middle Helladic coarse ware, but a few sherds were Mycenaean of provincial type  ...   the LH IIIC claimed is not certain ..."   

   In Simpson and Dickinson [1979] 83, 'B 33 Dhimitra: Troupes': "The small hill called Troupes is c. 2 km. NE of Dhimitra, on the S slopes of Mt. Aphrodision.  During road construction a cutting was made through the prehistoric settlement here and many sherds were collected, ...  Most of this was MH coarse ware and provincial LH.  ..."  

   In Parker [2008] 217: "Finally,  near  the  village  of  Dhimitra  (62)  in  the  northwestern region of Arkadia, a substantial settlement dating from the Neolithic to the LBA was discovered when the current road was built (Syriopoulos 1973)."

Bibliography

Howell [1970]:   Howell, R., 'A Survey of Eastern Arcadia in Prehistory',  The Annual of the British School at Athens (65). November, 1970.  79-127.

Parker [2008]:   Parker, Catherine Ruth, Arkadia in Transition: Exploring Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Human Landscapes. Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the University of Birmingham. Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, School of Historical Studies.  The University of Birmingham, January 2008.

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

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

Syriopoulos [1973]: 'The Homeric 'Windy Enispe': A Prehistoric Settlement in North-Western Arcadia near the River Ladon', The Annual of the British School at Athens (68), pp. 193-205, 1973.