Koukounaries (Paros)

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Mycenaean Acropolis

Koukounaries ( Greek Κουκουναριές ( f. Pl. )) Is the name of an archaeological excavation site on the Greek Cycladic island of Paros . It is named after the hill of the same name on the Bay of Naoussa , on the top of which it is located. The excavations brought information about the settlement and use of the place from the Neolithic to the classical period .

location

View to the summit from the west

The excavation site is located in the north of the island of Paros on the 75 meter high summit of the Koukounaries, a hill made of gray granite on the southwest side of the Bay of Naoussa. South of the Koukounaries a small river flows into the bay, which flows from the west from the plain of Kamares (Καμάρες) through the alluvial land of a delta into the sea. This agricultural area for the cultivation of wheat, pulses and fruit, which is important for the island today, was probably a swamp area in ancient times.

South side of the excavation site

The heavily eroded granite rocks of the Koukounaries only offer two incisions from the north and south to the summit. The traces of settlement there are distributed over three plateaus, the lower one in the east at a height of 40 to 50 meters, the middle one in the south at a height of 60 to 65 meters and the upper one at 75 meters. The narrow natural terraces were fortified by retaining walls. From the Koukounaries the view extends over the hinterland as well as to the northeast and east over the sea to Naxos .

history

The excavations on the Koukounaries were carried out from 1974 to 1992 by the Archaeological Society of Athens under the direction of Dimitris Schilardi . The remains of buildings spread over the entire summit bear witness to a religious and administrative center from the late Bronze Age, the first decades of the 12th century BC. Until the archaic period in the 7th century BC. Among the layers of the Late Helladic III C (around 1190 to 1050 BC) there were settlement remains from Phases I and II of the Early Cycladic (3rd millennium BC) and below, on the lower plateau, an even older one late to late Neolithic horizon . Schilardi concluded that there was already a settlement in the transition period from the end of the Neolithic to the early Bronze Age .

Wall remains (upper plateau)

After the distribution of the finds, the excavators concluded that there was an early Cycladic settlement on the upper and lower plateau. Finds from this period consisted of incised ceramics , in some places large amounts of obsidian , fragments of marble and rock crystal , sea shells and bones of sheep, goats and pigs. From the finds stand out the fragment of a carved pyxis , the head of a bull or dog made of terracotta and a marble pendant in the form of a female, steatopygenic figure, comparable to the Fat Woman of Saliagos , which is in the Archaeological Museum Paros in Parikia . A Cycladic idol was found on the Koukounaries as early as 1977, and in 1982 and 1983 two more heads and lower parts of such figures. In 1991 a trapezoidal, early Cycladic building made of plate-shaped stones and floors covered with sea gravel with two rooms was located on the northeast corner of the upper plateau under Mycenaean walls.

Parts of the "mansion"

From 1976 to 1982 a large mansion was excavated by Schilardi on the summit of the Koukounaries, which he identified as a palace. The southern facade was made of cyclops masonry . Schilardi interpreted one room of the building as a megaron . Fragments of a clay bathtub indicated the existence of a bathroom on the upper floor of the house.

Late Mycenaean ceramics (1300–1150 BC)
Late Mycenaean crater (1300–1150 BC)

Other rooms served as storage rooms; ceramics, storage vessels, weapons, tools, violin bows , a piece of ivory furniture , a piece of rock crystal, pearls, buttons, spindle whorls , gems and other artifacts, including a bronze horse, were found here. In the layout of the building and the finds from the Late Helladic (transition from SH III B2 to SH III C around 1190 BC), Schilardi saw parallels to the excavation site of the Mycenaean settlement of Maa-Palaeokastro (Μάα-Παλαιόκαστρο) near Paphos on the west coast Cyprus , the choice of location is reminiscent of the excavation site of Pyla-Kokkinokremmos (Πύλα-Κοκκινόκρεμμος) in southeastern Cyprus.

The mansion and the fortifications on the summit were destroyed by fire. During the excavations, charred remains of people, including children, were found next to domestic animals such as cattle, sheep and horses. A woman was buried in the mansion's basement. Schilardi assumes an attack on the fortification as the cause of the fire and the dead. He assumes a Mycenaean acropolis on the Koukounaries, which was built around 1200 BC. BC and in the early 12th century BC. Was destroyed, a time of upheaval in the Aegean region as a result of the Sea Peoples Wars and the end of the Mycenaean palace period . Vassos Karageorghis suspected that the Koukounaries was the refuge of a Mycenaean ruler ( Wanax ) from the mainland and that the manor was attacked by his opponents or pirates. After the destruction, the Koukounaries was repopulated in phase SH III C and provided with a fortification wall.

Vase fragment from the Acropolis (680–650 BC)

After the settlement was abandoned around 700 BC. A temple of Athena was built on the Koukounaries , which existed until the classical period. It was southeast of the central plateau. Around the same time as the temple was erected, two new settlements emerged with an agricultural hinterland and better access to the sea than the abandoned settlement on the hill, directly on the coast of Naoussa Bay. Around 680 BC There were overseas connections from Paros to the island of Thasos , on which there was a Parian settlement, and to the opposite mainland of Thrace .

literature

  • Dimitris Schilardi: The temple of Athena at Koukounaries. Observations on the cult of Athena on Paros . In: Early Greek cult practice. Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, June 26-29, 1986 . Stockholm, Göteborg 1988, ISBN 91-85086-97-5 , pp. 41-48.
  • Dimitris Schilardi: Il culto di Atena a Koukounaries e considerazioni sulla tipografia di Paros nel VII secolo a. C. In: Eugenio Lanzillotta, Demetrio Schilardi (ed.): Le Cicladi ed il mondo egeo. Seminario internazionale di studi, Roma November 19-21, 1992 . Rome 1996, pp. 33-64.
  • Stella Katsarou, Dimitris Schilardi: Emerging Neolithic and Early Cycladic settlements in Paros: Koukounaries and Sklavouna . In: The Annual of the British School at Athens . tape 99 , 2004, pp. 23–48 ( academia.edu , stellakatsarou.gr (PDF) [accessed March 30, 2014]).
  • Stella Katsarou-Tzeveleki, Demetrius U. Schilardi: Some Reflections on EC Domestic Space Arising from Observations at Koukounaries, Paros . In: Neil Brodie, Jenny Doole, Giorgos Gavalas, Colin Renfrew (eds.): Horizon - A colloquium on the prehistory of the Cyclades . McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, 2008, ISBN 978-1-902937-36-6 , pp. 61–70 ( online [PDF; 1.1 MB ; accessed on April 4, 2014]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Vassos Karageorghis : Mycenaean 'Acropoleis' in the Aegean and Cyprus: some comparisons . In: EH Cline, D. Harris-Cline (Eds.): The Aegean and the Orient in the 2nd millennium; Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Symposium Cincinnati (AEGEUM 18) . Université de Liège, Liège 1997, p. 131 ( online [PDF; 56 kB ; accessed on April 4, 2014]). online ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.ulg.ac.be
  2. ↑ a b Eva Alram-Stern: The Aegean Early Period . 2nd series: Research report 1975–2002. 2nd volume. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Mycenaean Commission 21, 2004, ISBN 978-3-7001-3268-4 , ISSN  2070-6413 , Central Cyclades, p. 891-893 .
  3. ^ A b Robert Drews: The End of the Bronze . Age Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Approx. 1200 BC Princeton University Press, Princeton 1993, ISBN 0-691-04811-8 , The Catastrophe Surveyed, pp. 26 ( online [accessed April 8, 2014]).
  4. ^ Irad Malkin: A Small Greek World . Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean. Oxford University Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-973481-8 , Island Networking and Hellenic Convergence: From Rhodes to Naukratis, pp. 77 ( online [accessed April 4, 2014]).

Web links

Commons : Koukounaries  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 37 ° 7 ′ 38 ″  N , 25 ° 12 ′ 32 ″  E