Agios Vasilios (Laconia)

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Agios Vasilios (mostly Ayios Vasileios or Agios Vasileios in the publications on the site ) is the name of an archaeological site near Xirokambi, about 12 kilometers south of Sparta in the southern Peloponnesian landscape of Laconia . Systematic excavations have been carried out here since 2010 , which mainly reveal parts of an extensive Mycenaean settlement from the 14th century BC. BC, which was probably a Mycenaean palace center.

Location and research history

The site extends over a flat range of hills, which is cut by the national road 39, about 4 kilometers northeast of Xirokambi, in the western Evrotasal . On the main hill, west of the national road, is a post- Byzantine chapel of the same name, which was probably built over the center of the Bronze Age settlement. As early as 1960 and 1996, surveys had given rise to assumptions that a larger, fortified late Helladic settlement existed at this location . In 2008, three Linear B tablets were found by chance on a side hill about 300 meters southwest of the chapel , as they are mainly known from the archives of the Mycenaean palaces, for example from the Mycenaean Pylos , Knossos or Thebes . They were in the collapsed chamber of a rock chamber tomb . As a result, three search trenches were dug immediately south and southwest of the chapel on the main hill as a test. Among other things, further fragments of Linear B documents came to light. Systematic excavations have been taking place since 2010 under the direction of Adamantia Vasilogamvrou.

Archaeological evidence

The oldest finds come from the Early Helladic I and II, but they are scattered finds , so an associated stratum has not yet been discovered. While for the time between approx. 2200 and 1800 BC So far no evidence has been discovered, existed from the 18th to the 15th century BC. BC ( Middle Helladic III to Late Helladic II) a necropolis and a settlement, the exact dimensions of which, however, have not yet been determined.

Agios Vasilios attained its greatest importance at the beginning of the following Late Mycenaean period (Late Helladic III A). From this phase several larger buildings have been found to the southeast and south of the chapel:

  • Building Alpha was largely excavated and divided into at least eight rooms. Seventeen bronze swords were discovered in one of them (room 3), which were presumably stored in a box made of organic material that has not been preserved. In two other rooms (5 and 7) there were references to cult practices and feasts, including two bronze vessels (in room 7), animal statuettes and burned animal bones. According to the datable pottery found in Building Alpha, this complex was built in the 14th century BC. Used.
  • Building Beta is located approximately 30 meters east of Building Alpha. This building complex and was previously only cut by search trenches.
  • Geophysical prospecting revealed two other large building complexes on the southern slope of the hill: the Delta and Epsilon buildings. Delta building is divided into three parts, oriented from northeast to southwest. An impressive wall of this complex was discovered in 2011 during test excavations. It is joined on its northwest side by the elongated Epsilon building, which is oriented from northeast to southwest and consists of two rows of rooms.

All the walls of the previously excavated buildings were decorated with Mycenaean frescoes .

interpretation

Both the excavators and some other archaeologists assume that the settlement of Ayios Vasileios is a Mycenaean palace center, similar to the palaces of Pylos , Mycenae or Thebes , or that according to the findings so far, at least much suggests it. Both the found Linear B clay tablet fragments and the frescoes with which the walls were decorated speak for this. Both are typical of Mycenaean palace centers. In addition, there is the specialization of rooms based on the previous findings.

literature

  • Vassilis Aravantinos , Adamantia Vasilogamvrou: The first Linear B documents from Ayios Vasileios (Lakonia). In: Pierre Carlier et al .: Études mycéniennes 2010. Actes du XIIIe colloque international sur les textes égéens (= Biblioteca di "Pasiphae". Volume X). Fabrizio Serra, Pisa 2012, ISBN 978-88-6227-473-9 , pp. 41-54.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birgitta Eder : Considerations on the political geography of the Mycenaean world, or: Arguments for the supraregional importance of Mycenae in the Late Bronze Age Aegean. In: Geographia Antiqua. Volume XVIII, 2009, p. 28 with evidence.
  2. ↑ Vassilis Aravantinos, Adamantia Vasilogamvrou: The first Linear B documents from Ayios Vasileios (Lakonia). In: Pierre Carlier et al .: Études mycéniennes 2010. Actes du XIIIe colloque international sur les textes égéens (= Biblioteca di "Pasiphae". Volume X). Fabrizio Serra, Pisa 2012, ISBN 978-88-6227-473-9 , p. 43 f.
  3. ^ Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier : Greece and Asia Minor in the late Bronze Age. In: Michael Meier-Brügger: Homer, interpreted by a large lexicon. Files from the Hamburg Colloquium from 6.-8. October 2010 at the end of the lexicon of the early Greek epic (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. New series, volume 21). De Gruyter, Berlin 2012, p. 152.

Coordinates: 36 ° 58 ′ 44 ″  N , 22 ° 28 ′ 41 ″  E