Agia Irini

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Agia Irini ( Greek Αγία Ειρήνη ( f. Sg. )) Is an archaeological site from the Bronze Age on the Greek island of Kea , which belongs to the Aegean archipelago of the Cyclades . The settlement was located on a peninsula that is now only 150 m by 80 m in the Agios Nikolaos Bay of Korissia in the northwest of the island.

The settlement is named after a chapel that was built in Byzantine times and consecrated to a saint Irene .

Settlement history

The island of Kea was already inhabited in the Neolithic Age, grave finds stretch through the entire north of the island, and traces of settlement can only be found in Kephala . A Neolithic settlement is also assumed on the Agia Irini peninsula, but it was overbuilt in the Bronze Age and, apart from a few incoherent finds, cannot be substantiated today. What made the peninsula stand out from other parts of Kea was that it was easy to defend and had a source of drinking water.

Early Cycladic Period (from 2500 BC)

The oldest verifiable foundations on the peninsula fall in epoch II of the early Cycladic period (for a chronological classification see Cycladic culture ). They can be assigned to the Keros-Syros culture . The masonry of this era on the peninsula was already very carefully executed, the walls vertical and smooth. Ceilings could span about 4.50 m without supporting pillars. Agia Irini was until shortly after 2200 BC. Inhabited before here, as in all other places in the Cyclades, the continuity of settlement for unknown reasons and only around the year 2000 BC. Began again. The last finds of this period are attributed to the Kastri culture .

Middle Cycladic Period (2000–1600 BC)

Along with Phylakopi on Milos and Phourion on Paros, Agia Irini is one of only three excavated settlements of the Central Cycladic period. A total of 20 settlements from the era on the Cyclades are known.

In a first phase of construction around 1800 or 1900 BC In BC the residents rebuilt the city, they did not fall back on the old foundations and rearranged the houses. The buildings had simple floor plans; there is no evidence for multi-storey houses. Only individual walls were covered with lime plaster . The ceramic finds of this time show extensive contacts, styles from Crete , the Attic mainland and neighboring Cyclades islands have been found. However, types based on the model of the Miny ceramics of the nearby mainland predominated. In this first phase of construction, the settlement was fortified with a wall. A watchtower with a horseshoe-shaped floor plan that protected a gate into the city has also been preserved.

Another phase of the city begins around 1700 BC. BC and thus falls into the era when the old palace period in Crete came to an end. Only a few foundation walls have survived from this phase. The city wall was rebuilt with hewn limestone, towers with a rectangular floor plan replaced the tower with a vault on the outside. Ceramic styles of the Minoan culture in Crete are becoming more common and are also locally imitated. There are individual finds of Cretan characters in linear a .

Late Cycladic Period (from 1600 BC)

The city's heyday on the peninsula began around 1600 and fell into the period of upheaval in the late Minoan and late Cycladic periods. The first construction phase of this era is characterized by new houses with a spacious floor plan. The small peninsula was densely built up, the houses consisted of a multitude of small and tiny rooms, some with upper floors, which were added over long periods of time; in some places building complexes grew together from several earlier houses.

At the same time, the Cretan influence increased massively. This applies to architectural elements such as light shafts, but also ceramics such as oil lamps based on the Minoan model, special ceramic vessels and decorations or the spread of the weight loom in Cretan form.

The largest and best researched building "A" alone takes up 8% of the known settlement area; it covers an area of ​​about 22 m by 38 m in the shape of an irregular pentagon. It was free-standing and surrounded by streets, so it covered an entire block . Today there are still 39 rooms in the basement and on the ground floor. But it must have been much more, as the building had at least partially an upper floor. The quality of life in this house was remarkable. There was an outer courtyard with benches and an open-air cooking area. Inner rooms were supplied with sunlight via light shafts, two kitchens and several rooms with food supplies were used to supply the residents. The height of civilization was a bathroom that was connected to the sewer under the adjacent street by a gutter . It is estimated that two to four dozen people lived in this building alone; the entire peninsula was inhabited by around 600 to 700 people.

The building, known as a temple or sanctuary, probably dates back to the beginning of the Middle Cycladic period around 1900 BC. BC back. At that time it consisted of a rectangle of about 5 m by 5 m, which at the height of the city became the basement of the temple structure of the later period. In the 15th century the building consisted of an elongated suite of rooms averaging 6 m wide and more than 24 m long. The main room was near the only entrance, all smaller rooms behind it could only be entered through the main room. 55 cult figures were found in the walls of the temple, all female, made of clay, varying from 60 cm to life size. They are dressed in a floor-length skirt in the Minoan fashion, the majority wear a bodice on their upper body from which lush, bare breasts protrude, the upper body of the other is bare. Most are shown in poses to match a dance, with swaying skirts and arms raised or propped on hips. In addition to the figures, drinking and dispensing vessels were found, as well as some objects interpreted as votive offerings, for example a small symbolic melting kettle .

After the city was abandoned, the temple was still used and maintained by residents of the surrounding area. The latest evidence comes from the 4th century BC. 1500 years after the start of construction.

In addition to farming for self-sufficiency, the city probably lived from trade. Around 8,000 flat ceramic dinner bowls were found in stacks, suggesting it was a merchant's warehouse. The ceramics also make it possible to assess relationships with neighboring cultures. Vessels in the style of the Minoan culture of the island of Crete and the southern Cyclades make up almost half of the pottery found, styles from the Peloponnese , the nearby mainland predominate.

The height of the city reached into the late Cycladic period, but in the 16th century BC. There were several earthquakes that damaged the buildings. Shortly before 1500 BC A particularly severe earthquake destroyed the city. The city wall was downright torn, many buildings collapsed and their stones buried the cellars and all objects in them. The residents must have been warned in good time as they could flee with their valuables. No weapons, jewelry or metal tools were found, and only a single skeleton could be detected in the excavation.

The city as a whole was not settled again, some rooms, including the temple, were prepared by a few residents and from the change from the 14th to the 13th century BC. Inhabited. Their pottery suggests that the island of Kea was fully integrated into the Mycenaean culture of the mainland at that time .

History of the excavation

The settlement was discovered by Gabriel Welter during World War II and excavated from 1960 to 1971 by American archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati under the direction of John Langdon Caskey . Caskey divided the finds into eight strata from I - Neolithic to VIII - Mycenaean culture . The finds are in the museum of the city of Ioulida , the capital of the island, and have been published in nine volumes since 1977. The publication is not complete.

literature

  • University of Cincinnati: Keos: results of excavations conducted by the University of Cincinnati under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens , Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, since 1977 - so far ten volumes (as of 2011), one of them on Kephala , nine to Agia Irini.
    • Vol. 2, Pt. 1 ; The statues - Miriam E. Caskey 1986.
    • Vol. 3; Ayia Irini: House A - Willson W. Cummer, 1984.
    • Vol. 4; Ayia Irini: the potters' marks - Aliki Halepa Bikaki, 1984.
    • Vol. 5; Ayia Irini: period V - Jack L. Davis, 1986.
    • Vol. 6; Ayia Irini: specialized domestic and industrial pottery - Hara S. Georgiou, 1986.
    • Vol. 7, Pt. 1 ; The stratigraphy and the find deposits - John C. Overbeck, 1989.
    • Vol. 8; Ayia Irini: the balance weights: an analysis of weight measurement in prehistoric Crete and the Cycladic Islands - Karl M. Petruso, 1992.
    • Vol. 9, Pt. 1 ; The pottery and small finds - David E. Wilson, 1999.
    • Vol. 10, Pt. 1 ; Ayia Irini: the western sector - Elizabeth Schofield, 2011.
  • Werner Ekschmitt : The Cyclades. Bronze Age, Geometric and Archaic Age . Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1993, ISBN 3-8053-1533-3 .
  • Jack L. Davis: Minoan Crete and the Aegean Islands . In: Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (ed.): The Cambridge companion to the Aegean Bronze Age , Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 9780521814447 .
  • Rodney D. Fitzsimons, Evi Gorogianni: Dining on the Fringe? A Possible Minoan-Style Banquet Hall at Ayia Irini, Kea and the Minoanization of the Aegean Islands . In: Quentin Letesson, Carl Knappett (Ed.): Minoan Architecture and Urbanism: New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment . Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York 2017, ISBN 978-0-19-879362-5 , pp. 334-360 (English, online [accessed December 20, 2018]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Davis, pages 193-196
  2. ↑ Hans Kaletsch: Hag. Irini . In: Siegfried Lauffer (Ed.): Greece - Lexicon of Historic Cities , CH Beck 1989, ISBN 3-406-33302-8 , page 243 f.

Coordinates: 37 ° 40 ′ 8 ″  N , 24 ° 19 ′ 33 ″  E