Aetos Paliokastro (C168): A Report from Barking Pete

An associate of mine in Greece, Barking Pete, sends me an email about the real position of Aetos Paliokastro and, because of its interest, I thought that I should share part of it with my readers.  He and a friend who calls himself 'Aristomenes' after the famous Messenian hero recently re-visited the town of Aetos in order to definitely establish the former castle at the top of Paliokastro hill as well as get some more information and photos of the cyclopean wall in the town of Aetos itself.

Now I had the position of Paliokastro (C168) at 37.244601° N, 21.838944° E with an error radius of 50 m.  This was quite wrong; Pete establishes the actual position on a small neighboring hill just to the E at 37.243872° N,  21.842411° E.  The distance between them is more than 300 m.  The atlas has now been corrected for C168.

On the ground it looks like this:

Pete and Aristomenes took a number of pictures while they were there.  

This next is of the small hill that Paliokastro sits on:

... and here is a portion of the outer wall on the W side of Paliokastro:

Of his experience at Paliokastro Pete says:

"After a bumpy ride up a rutted track, we arrived at the small hillock that defines the Franksh/Byzantine castle. It's a small affair and in a somewhat ruined state. There are visible traces of the walls, some higher, some collapsed. The Frankish walls and towers constructed with mortar are best preserved to a height of a metre or so. The stones are large 'brick-sized' or bigger but able to be placed easily by one person. There is a  central "keep" with an underground cistern - so it must have had a roof to collect the rainwater. 

However there are a number of peripheral walls, mostly collapsed and constructed without mortar from much larger stones as well as some smaller stuff. This could have been the peripheral wall of the prehistoric acropolis. Unfortunately, the undergrowth was dense in many places and we could not easily navigate the whole site. ...

There were many ceramic sherds on the site. Our findings agree with Simpson et al when they note that most sherds are found on the hill to the east and north east of the access track. We also found a lot of pottery fragments above the track  - but that put them on the west/northwest side of the hill itself. The ceramics were less evident on the east side of the hill, if only because that was the steeper side and they may have been washed down to a greater extent over time. As the east side of the hill was very overgrown further down we did not venture far there."

Pete's reference to Simpson is Simpson [1981] 'F 215 Aetos: Palaiokastro', pg. 138.

I want to thank Pete and Aristomenes for their efforts here and for these valuable photos.

Biblio

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

The Pheneos Plain and the location of Lykouria

The town of Lykouria was only ever notable for the fact that Pausanias once passed through it and there are few or no other mentions of it in antiquity.   Its isolation explains this.  It is set in northern Arcadia, surrounded by mountains, and sitting on the edge of a remarkable karst landscape (the plain of Pheneus) to which there is no easy entrance or exit.  Let's go to the map.

The area of the Pheneos Basin in N. Arcadia.

The Pheneos Basin in more detail.  Lykouria was located somewhere on the southwest edge of the valley, and just to the north of the jagged white line in the lower left that indicates a road.

The Pheneos Basin from the SE and looking NW.  Lykouria was located somewhere by the center left corner of the superimposed line map.

Here's what we know about Lykouria.  In Paus. viii.19.4 we read "One of the roads west out of Pheneos I have still to deal with, the one on the left, which leads to Kleitor, past Herakles Labour, the channel he made for the river Aroanios.  Beyond that point, the road goes down to a place called Lykouria, which is the territorial boundary of Pheneos and Kleitor."[1]

Let's look at each of the bolded names in turn:

Pheneos (ID: F7322): An ancient town of Arcadia situated in the NW corner of the Pheneos Plain.

The hill on which Pheneos was built is in the center of this image.  
Here S is to the lower left.

Kleitor is Pausanias' destination.  What geographical relationship does it have to Pheneos?

This map shows the route Pausanias takes.  He starts at Feneos and travels more or less along the blue line and reaches ancient Kleitor.  The distance is about 26 km; a day's trip perhaps.  The town of Lykouria is somewhere near the end of that first leg just before it bends to the SW and descends into a valley.  Can we be more precise?

In the very next paragraph (viii.20.1) Pausanias says this: "Six miles or so from Lykouria you arrive at the SPRINGS OF THE LADON.  I had heard that the water of the Phenean lake which drops into the pot-holes in the mountains comes up again here to form the springs of the Ladon."[2]

The Ladon is a major tributary of the Alpheios which it joins (at  37.593682° N,  21.820481° E) from the N and just above the complex at ancient Olympia.  The primary source of this river is a spring at F7315.  Here is a user-submitted photo of the Spring.

Springs of the Ladon where they emerge from underground at F7315.
Original  work of Chris Karagounis.  All rights reserved to the creator.

The Pheneos Plain forms a basin at an average elevation of about 750 m. sloping down to about 710 m. at its S end.  Any water that enters the plain (which it does from the N) exits from the south by the way of sinkholes or katavothrai.  The water that leaves the Pheneos Plain reemerges at this spring and from here it becomes one of the major contributors to the Ladon river.  This spring at F7315 has an elevation of 475 m.  The distance to the katavothrai is just about 9 km. or 5.66 miles.  In that distance the waters to the spring fall about 235 m. or 771 ft.  This is about the height of a 72-story building.

So  Pausanias says that the Spring and the town of Lykouria are about 50 stades distant from each other.  All we have to do is work backward from the Spring about 50 stadia and we should be in the region of Lykouria.  So how long is a stadion?  A stadion was a rough and ready estimation of length and it varied from about 157 m/stadion to 209 m/stadion.   I gathered various stadion equivalents from sources around the internet and put them into this table:

These values of m/stadion have a standard deviation of 14.175 m.

I could think of no better solution than to take the average of 185.4 m/stadion.  This would suggest that the distance Pausanias traveled was about 5 and 3/4 miles (9.27 km.)    To confirm that that makes sense let's look at the next photo.

Pausanias's plausible route in green (R to L)

Here we see the territory stretching from the Springs of the Ladon to the edge of the Pheneos Plain.  On this map I traced a plausible route for Pausanias in green.  This route goes to the edge of the plain and it is just a hair over 5.5 miles (8.87 km.).  So this suggests that Lykouria is north of where the green path reaches the plain and south of Louzion (F7321).  Levi suggests that 'Pausanias took roughly the track from LOUZION.' [3]

The ancient town/village of Lykouria may safely be placed somewhere on the SW edge of the Pheneos Plain where it meets the hills and between 37.865 N to 37.879 N longitude which is a distance of 0.94 miles or (1.52 km.)  The total area to search would be about 1 square km. (100 ha.) or 0.39 sq. miles.  It looks like this:

Here I removed the vector-map overlay so you can see what the country looks like.  The orange polygon encloses the 1 sq. km. search area.  The two horizontal lines are the bounds in longitude which I referred to above.

This work was undertaken to improve the guesses of Pleiades and Topostext.  Topostext has the location of Lykouria at the Ladon Springs.  This cannot be because Pausanias has already told us that the Springs and Lykouria are 50 stadia distant from one another.  Pleiades, with their usual carelessness, has placed Lykouria on the other (west) side of Mt. Dourdoubana/Pentelia at 37.90495, 22.230895.  I'm not even going to bother to plot that.

There is a modern town of Lykouria in this area which is 3.8 km. from the Ladon Springs.  It has nothing to do with the town/village of ancient Lykouria.  Frazer, when he comments on viii.19.4, says

"The modern village of Lykouria can hardly occupy the site of the ancient place of that name.  For Pausanias's description of the route to it implies that it was situated in the plain of Pheneus, lower down than the city of Pheneus, and that it was on or near the canal.  Moreover, he says (20. 1) that Lycuria was 50 Greek furlongs (5 1/2 miles) from the springs of the Ladon; whereas the modern Lykouria is only 2 1/2 miles (less than 20 furlongs) from the springs."[4]

As it was so close to the head of the valley leading to the Ladon Spring I wonder whether the business model of Lykouria wasn't primarily to provide guides down the risky descent to the Springs and then on to Kleitor.

In another post, I would like to write more about the karst landscape (or polje) of Pheneos but this is enough for today.

Notes

[1] Translation in Levi [1971] 418.

[2] Idem.

[3] Levi [1971] 418, fn. 141.

[4] Frazer [1898] 262.

Bibliography

Frazer [1898] : Frazer, J.G. Pausanias's Description of Greece; Translated with a Commentary by J.G. Frazer. Vol. IV, Commentary on Books VI-VIII., London, MacMillan and Co. Limited. 1898.

Levi [1971] :  Levi, Peter.  Pausanias; Guide to Greece; Vol. 2 Southern Greece.  Translated with an Introduction by Peter Levi.  Penguin Books, 1971.  ISBN: 978-0-14-044226-7.

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.

Starochorafa on Kefalonia (C588)

The island of Kephalonia lies just off the west coast of Greece and directly facing the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth as is plain from this map. 

One of the best resources for Kephalonia as well as the Ionian islands in general can be found in the books and articles of Dr. Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood.   I've listed some of her writings in the bibliography at the end of this post.   

In this next map we see Kefalonia in close-up as it appears in the Mycenaean Atlas Project.  The blue paddles are specific sites and the red paddles (marked 'F') are modern-day features.

The island of Kephalonia

I've been reading an  article by her, ''Interpreting the Bronze Age Landscape of Kephalonia. A (Preliminary) View from the Livatho Valley Survey' in which she mentions a site near Argostoli, called Starochorafa.[1]  Starochorafa is mentioned in Simpson [1981] 156 as 'a locality named Starochorafa, three walls of a Mycenaean house were uncovered ... '. And ' ... only a few Mycenaean sherds were found, together with coarse ware, also presumably Mycenaean.'   It turns out that Starochorafa is one of the few places in the Ionian islands where true Mycenaean finds can be found and it has a little history.  It was originally  discovered by Marinatos (published 1932, AE [1932] 14, 42 n. 2) and then 'lost' until the Livatha Valley Survey Project stumbled across it again in 2007.

So where is Starochorafa?   I actually included this site in the Mycenaean Atlas long ago as site C588, based purely on Simpson who gives few clues as to its actual whereabouts.  Originally I put it here: 38.160442° N, 20.534861° E.  But now I have been able to glean some new information and I have learned that its real location is about 800 m distant to the SW.  It's actually here:  38.158419° N, 20.526261° E.

How was this more accurate location determined?

In the article mentioned above Dr. Souyoudzoglou-Haywood presents a photograph which I never noticed before of two archaeological field workers collecting surface sherds at Starochorafa[2].  I reproduce it here:

Where is this open field?  Which way  are we facing?  What is the ridge in the background?  We are not told.  Let's see whether we can figure this out by trying to reproduce it somehow in Google Earth.  Is there even a starting point?  I used Dr. Souyoudzoglou-Haywood's map of the survey area which I reproduce here:[3]

This map shows twenty-six Bronze Age find spots discovered by the LSV survey project.  I  plotted each of these on Google Earth.  The result was this:

The points closest to my original Starochorafa were points 10-13.  I blow them up here.  [Keph_Overlay_Detail.jpg]

Could these be the 'real' Starochorafa.  I zoomed in on this area on Google Earth and almost immediately hit paydirt.  Here's what this area looks like in close-up:

I found the grassy field between points 10 and 12 a real possibility for place from which the photograph was taken.  I zoomed into that field and tried to reproduce the same view.  The result is this:

And here, again, is the original  photo of Dr. Souyoudzoglou-Haywood so that you can compare it:

When we put these two pictures together we see that they are entirely consistent with each other.  Examination of the skyline shows that the positions are very likely to be the same.  It was here that I placed the marker.  It turns out that Starochorafa is more complex and extended.  Dr. S.-H. has put four different markers, placed closely together which encompass various components of Starochorafa.  But this picture at least gets us started and it's a huge improvement on what I had before.  I'll be releasing a new database soon and it will have the corrected position on it.

As usual I want everyone to stay safe.  COVID-19 is not the flu.  It is a dangerous viral infection - but you don't need to be told that by now.  Social distance and use masks when you go out of your homes.  I need all the readers I can get.

And ... friends don't let friends use Facebook.

NOTES

[1] Souyoudzoglou-Haywood [2008] 241.  "‘Starochorafa’ ... is largely a one period site of Mycenaean date (LH III, most likely LHIIIC only). It is one of the two small settlements mentioned above which were excavated by Marinatos ... The toponym fell into disuse over time, and the site was only identified anew during the 2007 fieldwork season.  Marinatos ... only excavated part of one house (6.80m x 4.20m), and reported that, having been prevented from continuing the excavation in a neighbouring field, he covered up the exposed remains of the site at the end of his brief campaign."

[2] Souyoudzoglou-Haywood [2008] 243, fig. 4.

[3] Souyoudzoglou-Haywood [2008] 240, fig. 2.

BIBLIO

Haywood [2018]:  Haywood, Christina.  'Archaeology and the Search for Homeric Ithaca: The Case of Mycenaean Kephalonia', Acta Archaeologica [89:1] 145-158.  2018.  Abstract is online here.

Livatha Survey Project:  The homepage of the Kephalonia - Livatho Valley Survey project is here.

Morgan [2007]:   Morgan, Catherine. Archaeological Reports (54) p. 46,  'Livatho Valley Survey'.   2007-2008.  Online here.

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

Simpson [2018]: Simpson, Richard Hope.  Mycenaean Greece and the Homeric Tradition.  This book may be downloaded from here.

Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, Christina.  'A Corner of the Landscape: The Kefalonia  Project 2001-02.  A Preliminary Account', on JSTOR here.

Souyoudzoglou-Haywood [2008]:   Cristina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, 'Interpreting the Bronze Age Landscape of Kephalonia. A (Preliminary) View from the Livatho Valley Survey'. 

In: C. Gallou, Georgiadis, and Muskett (edd.), Dioskouroi: Studies Presented to W.G. Cavanagh and C.B. Mee on the Anniversary of their 30-year Joint Contribution to Aegean Archaeology (BAR IS-1889) Oxford: Archaeopress, 237-251.  The paper is online here.

Metsiphi (C6878)

The area of Euboea south of Styra is a wild forested country of zig-zagging ridges.  It was not densely populated at any period in antiquity and it remains sparsely populated today.    I've been adding find sites in this area to the Mycenaean Atlas by integrating Fachard [2012] and this brought me to an habitation site called Metsiphi.

The site of Metsiphi (no. 4 on the next map) consists of a six-room building and a boundary stone marking the border between the demes of Eretria and Styra.  It may be a construction of either the Archaic or the Classical period.

Where is it?

I was able to locate two sets of directions to this site.  The map above should help you in following them.  And, in order to make better sense out of the geography I include some place name definitions (marked with an asterisk in this text, thus Kiapha Pass*) in a glossary appended to this post.

Fachard [2012] gives these directions to Metsiphi:

“From the Kiapha* pass, located some 300 m north of the gate of the Venetian castle of Larmena*, you can follow an (ancient?) path towards the valley of Aghios Ioannis. About 1 km east of the pass, there is an old building and a rock monument, both discovered by N. K. Moutsopoulos.”(1)

The town of Styra, in southern Euboea, lies just to the north of a long mountainous ridge (Kliosi*) that runs north-east to south-west across the entire length of the island. There is a classical period fort (sometimes referred to as the Acropolis of Styra*, F5701) on this ridge and immediately to its east the Venetian castle of Larmena*(Armena*, F5654).   That would put the pass (col) at F5694 where there does indeed appear to be a saddle over the ridge of Haghios Nikolaos. In Google Earth I drew a circle of 1000 m. radius and centered it on this pass.  But without any specific thing to look for the chances of seeing an overgrown ruin in GE are basically zero. And, as for the toponym of 'Haghios Ioannis', it is undiscoverable on any map to which I have access.

What to do?

I found another source which gives directions to Metsiphi. In Reber [2002] we read the following:

"In antiquity, two different routes led from Styra to Karystos. One corresponded roughly to the course of today's road, the other led first from Styra to the east and then followed the gentle slope of the northern slope of the Kliosi*. Via a saddle east of the fortifications one first came into a gorge and from there via a low saddle into the wide valley of Stoupaioi. From Stoupaioi, the path led through the mountains to the south, where it merged with the first path behind the village of Vatisi."(2)

Then he remarks:

"If you follow the path to Stoupaioi, which is partly paved with ancient retaining walls, you will find the ruins of an ancient building, which was uncovered by N.K. Moutsopoulos, below the saddle at Metsiphi." (3)

Karystos itself is at the south end of Euboea (F5697).  Kliosi* is another name for the ridge on which stands the Acropolis of Styra* (F5654).  Stoupaioi is at F5695 and Vatisi is further south at F5696.  And yet we still have no definite narrowing for the location of Metsiphi.  

But as Reber does not specify the starting point these directions do not help. Are we starting from Styra again? From the col (Sattel)?  Just as Reder promised to get specific he starts referring generally to ‘the path to Stoupaioi’. This path is a long one and through wild country; it will not help us to find Metsiphi.

What to do?

Well, it turns out that Reber does provide a photograph of the Metsiphi house in question. Perhaps it’s possible to duplicate that view in Google Earth. Here’s the picture: (4)

The house at Metsiphi.  But which direction are we facing?

I looked at this for a while and I decided that if it were possible to identify the mountain in the background it might be possible to draw a line back from that mountain to the site of Metsiphi.  At this point I really had no hope of locating Metsiphi exactly.

Could this view be replicated in Google Earth?  On my first attempt I came up with this:

It was gratifying to come so close on the first attempt.  It turns out that the  background mountain in this picture is Peristeri (F5693).   But it was clear that I hadn't yet succeeded in finding Metsiphi.  In Reber's original there is a ridge in the right center which is of lighter color than its surroundings.  That ridge does not appear in my reconstruction.  I continued to rotate the image in Google Earth until I had this:

In this view 1  indicates the pale colored slope which appears also in Reber's picture.  2 is the Peristeri peak. 3 indicates the slope down from the left which is also in Reber's picture.

We're obviously very close to Metsiphi at this point.  Can we find it by searching around this point?  Not likely, but first let's see what we're looking for.  Here's the floor plan of this building as supplied by Reber:

Floor plan of Metsiphi house from Reber [2002] 46, Abb. 3.

I started to search in this area and in no time I found this:

And zooming in:

In this version I did a find-edges in Photoshop and then multiplied it against the picture layer.  To say that I was astonished when I saw that grid shape is an understatement.  This is a difficult country.  I'd been looking for an entire day with absolutely no expectation of finding the exact site but suddenly there it was.

And one last mystery to clear up:  What or where is the valley of Aghios Ioannis?

The valley of Aghios Ioannis is just the light-colored ridge which appears at the right center of Reber's original photograph.  It is just to the south and west of Metsiphi.  Here is a view of it from the air (N at the top):

Google marks a church here which it calls Haghios Ioannis (F5698).  The area to the left was probably cultivated in ancient times.  

About Metsiphi Fachard says 'The most probable hypothesis seems to us to be that of a farm exploiting the little valley of Haghios Ioannis."(5)

Here's my final reconstruction of Reber's photo as taken from Metsiphi itself (foreground):

... with Reber's photo again for comparison:

Metsiphi is C6878 in the Mycenaean Atlas.  Its coordinates are 38.147513 N, 24.278 E

And a final map with everything labelled:

1. Styra
2. Haghios Nikolaos (Acropolis of Styra AND Fortress of Larmena/Armena)
2a. Kiapha Pass (col, Sattel)
3. Koryphi peak (682 m)
4. Metsiphi and Haghios Ioannis



The reproduction of landscape views in Google earth is a good technique that I have used successfully many times in the past and I encourage you who are trying to locate sites from photographs to try it.

Glossary of Place Names at Haghios Nikolaos ridge:

I used the following geographic terms in the specific way explained here:

The term 'Haghios Nikolaos' (sometimes 'Diakofti') is reserved in this post for the small plateau at the west end of the Kliosi massif, elev. 648 m ( 38.146118° N,  24.262697° E).  It is right at the ridge-line and overlooks a small pass (called by Fachard [2012] the Kiapha Pass, F5694) just a few meters to the NE.  This plateau takes its name from a nearby chapel cut into the rock just off to the west and named for Haghios Nikolaos.  Do not confuse this chapel with the church dedicated to the Virgin (F5700, another Panaghia?), placed prominently at the center of this plateau.

In this post the name 'Armena' (also 'Larmena' and with numerous alternate names and transliterations; F5654) is reserved for the great 13th century walled stronghold located on Haghios Nikolaos.  This corresponds to Fachard [2012] 229, no. 170, 'Aghios Nikolaos: Château-Fort d'Armena'.

Just to the W of the fortress of Armena, and adjoining it, was located a classical period fortress (in Fachard [2012] 225, no. 169) of which some walls and a famous and often photographed gate are the principal remains.  There is a plan of the remains of this specific fort in Fachard Fig. 190.  Photographs of the gate are in Reber [2002], Taf. 10, nos. 2 and 3.  A very helpful map of both the classical fortress and the Armena fortress is given in Ducrey et al. [2005], 121, fig. 4.  This classical period fortress is often referred to as 'The Acropolis of Styra' (F5701) and I have used that name for convenience but Reber [2002] 44 casts doubt on the idea that it could have had such a purpose given its great distance (~ 2 km.) from that city and therefore this appellation should be used with caution.  Fachard [2012] calls this classical period fortress 'Aghios Nikolaos' (6) but I have reserved that name as the geographic designator of the entire plateau.

The term 'Koryphi' ('Korifi'), alt. 682 m. is reserved for the peak of the Kliosi mountain ridge located about 1700 m to the NW of 'Haghios Nikolaos' at 38.160292° N, 24.279566° E.  Here it is given the feature name  F5699.

The Kliosi range (often referred to as a single mountain) is a long ridge that begins at the north-east of our area and runs to the south-west for about 15 km.  One of its high-points is Koryphi at 682 m asl.  Another is Haghios Nikolaos itself at 648 m asl.

Footnotes

(1) Fachard [2012] 336, no. 171. “Du col de Kiapha, situé à quelque 300 m au nord de la porte du château vénitien de Larmena, on peut suivre un chemin (antique ?) en direction du vallon d’Aghios Ioannis. À environ 1 km à l’est du col, on remarque une construction ancienne et une borne rupestre, toutes deux découvertes par N. K. Moutsopoulos.”

(2) Reber [2002] 45. “Von Styra aus führten in der Antike zwei verschiedene Wege nach Karystos. Der eine entsprach ungefahr dem Verlauf der heutigen Strasse, der andere führte von Styra zuerst nach Osten und folgte danach in leichtem Anstieg dem Nordhang des Kliosi. Uber einen Sattel ostlich der Befestigungsanlage gelangte man zuerst in eine Schlucht und von dort uber einen niedrigen Sattel in das weite Tal von Stoupaioi. Von Stoupaioi führte der Weg durch das Gebirge nach Süden, wo er sich hinter dem Dorf Vatisi mit dem zuerst genannten Weg vereinigte.”

(3) Idem. “Folgt man dem streckenweise mit antiken Stützmauern befestigten Weg nach Stoupaioi, so trifft man unterhalb des Sattels bei der Stelle Metsiphi auf die Ruinen eines antiken Gebaudes, das von N. K. Moutsopoulos freigelegt worden ist.”

(4) In Reber [2002] Plate 11.1

(5) Fachard [2012] 336: "L’hypothèse d’une ferme exploitant le petit vallon d’Aghios Ioannis nous semble la plus vraisemblable." 

(6) Fachard [2012] 169, 'Aghios Nikolaos: Forteresse; 169; ... '.

BIBLIO

Ducrey et al. [2005]:  Ducrey, Pierre and Sylvian Fachard, Thierry Theurillat, 'Les Activités de l'École Suisse d'Archéologie en Grèce 2004',  Antike Kunst (48) 112-123. 2005.   Online here.

Fachard [2012]: Fachard, Sylvian La Défense du Territoire; Étude de la Chôra Érétrienne et de ses Fortifications, École suisse d'archéologie en Grèce, InFolio Editions, CH-Gollion.  2012.  Online here.

Reber [2002]: Reber, Karl 'Die Südgrenze des Territoriums von Eretria (Euböa)' Antike Kunst (45) 40-54. 2002 Online here.