Medeon (Phocis)

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Medeon ancient city walls

Medeon ( Greek  Μεδεών ) was an ancient Greek city ​​on the Gulf of Antikyra. It was probably opposite Antikyra on the 60 m high Agii Theodori hill at the mouth of the Kleisoura gorge. While the place belonged to Phocis in antiquity , it is now on Boeotian soil.

Lore

Medeon is said to be named after Medeon , the son of Pylades and Electra . The city ​​still existed in Strabon's time. He reports that it was located on the Krissean Gulf, today's Gulf of Itea , 160 stadia (about 30 km) from Boeotia. A little later, however, he contradicts this statement and says that the city was opposite Antikyra. Even Pausanias reported that the city, which was in his time in ruins, was located on the Gulf of Antikyra. The city was founded in 348/47 BC. Destroyed by Philip II during the Third Holy War . Then it was rebuilt.

The Boeotic Medeon was named after the city, according to Strabo.

history

There was already a settlement on the hill in the Middle Helladic period . From 1400 to 1150 BC A late Mycenaean acropolis existed here . A late Mycenaean ivory seal (style: LH III A2-LH III B) with linear B characters was found in a grave (grave no. 239, SH III C) . The place was also inhabited in the Geometric , Archaic and Classical Periods. After the city was destroyed in the Third Holy War, it was quickly rebuilt and rebuilt in the 3rd or 2nd century BC. The fortification wall still visible today was built. In the 2nd century BC Medeon made an alliance with the nearby Stiris . In the late Roman period from the 3rd to the 6th century there was a large estate with a thermal bath on the plain south of the Acropolis on the banks of the Kleisouras . In the 11th century, a monastery church, probably a branch of the monastery of Hosios Lukas , was founded at Siderokafchion ( Greek  Σιδηρο-Καυχιόν = iron smelting ) . It is possible that an ironworks later existed here. After the church was destroyed, a tower with a surrounding wall was built on the foundation walls. Based on a Venetian treasure find with coins from 1368 to 1382, the tower can be dated to the 14th century. In the 19th century there was a small village on the plain, a settlement of the Hosios Lukas monastery. In the 1960s, the Franco-Greek company Aluminum de Grèce built an aluminum smelter on the plain .

exploration

In 1801 William Gell visited the area. He already suspected that the ancient Medeon was here. William Martin Leake came to Medeon around 1830 and wrote the first detailed description. In 1880, the archaeologist Pierre-Marie-Mondry Beaudouin discovered a stele in the ruins of ancient Stiris with an alliance between Stiris and Medeon. In 1907 the Greek archaeologist Georgios Sotiriadis carried out the first archaeological excavations and discovered numerous graves from different epochs. 1940 and 1962–1967 carried out the École française d'Athènes excavations. During this time, more graves and settlements were discovered. Roman buildings and the Byzantine church were discovered in the plain. The foundations of the buildings on the level are now hidden under the aluminum smelter. The significant architectural fragments of the church are exhibited in the monastery of Hosios Lukas. Some ancient finds can be seen in the Archaeological Museum of Distomo .

description

A total of 270 graves from Mycenaean, Geometric, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic times were found on the northern and eastern slopes of Agii Theodori Hill and on the southwest slope of Amalia Mountain (891 m). Some of these are still visible to the left and right of the road that leads from Paralia Distomou to the aluminum factory.

Western part of the Tholos tomb with access to the side chamber

The most important grave is a Tholos grave from Mycenaean times , which is located on the northeast slope of Medeon. A short access path , blocked by a wall, leads from the west to the grave. The tholos has a diameter of about 5 m and the walls are about 1 m high. There is a small side chamber to the west. Three graves were found within the Tholos. A box grave from the Middle or Late Helladic period was found in the southeast. This was in the 6th century BC. Used again for a burial and in the 4th century BC Robbed. In another grave, shards from Archaic or Hellenistic times and a silver coin from Sicyon (4th century BC) and bronze coins from Chalkida and Boeotia (3rd - 2nd century BC) were found. Another grave contained late Roman sherds (5th - 6th centuries) mixed with much older sherds. In the side chamber one found Middle and Late Helladic sherds and a so-called Psi figure and other fragments from the 4th century BC. At a later time the Tholos tomb was surrounded with a rectangular construction. The grave was built in the Late Helladic period (SH III B; 1340–1190 BC) over a Middle Helladic settlement and therefore also contains ceramic shards from this time.

The city wall from classical times enclosed the city in the west, north and east. The steep southern slope was not fortified with a wall. Remnants of this city wall are still preserved in the west, north and east. Today the church of Agii Theodori stands on the summit. The foundations of buildings and a cistern are still visible in the vicinity.

literature

  • Siegfried Lauffer (Ed.): Greece: Lexicon of historical sites - from the beginning to the present . Approved license edition Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1999, pp. 410-411, ISBN 3-8289-4144-3
  • Anton Westermann : Stephani Byzantii Ἐθνικῶν quae supersunt . Leipzig 1839, p. 194 ( online )
  • Claude Vatin: Médéon de Phocide , 1969, Ecole Frances d'Athenes

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephanos of Byzantium, Ἐθνικῶν .
  2. ↑ Strabon, Geographica , 9, 2, 26 (p. 410)
  3. ↑ Strabon, Geographica , 9, 3, 13 (p. 423)
  4. ^ Pausanias, Travels in Greece , 10, 36, 6
  5. ^ Pausanias, Travels in Greece , 10, 3, 2
  6. ↑ Strabon, Geographica , 9, 2, 26 (p. 410)
  7. ↑ 163570: Seal of CMS V 415
  8. ↑ Seal of the month February 2014
  9. ↑ William Gell, The Itinerary of Greece, with a commentary on Pausanias and Strabo, and an account of the Monuments of Antiquity at present existing in that country, compiled in the years 1801, 2, 5, 6 etc. London 1819, pp. 176
  10. ^ William Martin Leake, Travels in Northern Greece , London 1835, 2nd vol., Pp. 537-538
  11. ^ Mondry Beaudouin: Convention entre deux villes de Phocide. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Volume 5, 1881, pp. 42-54 ( digitized version ).
  12. ^ Georges Daux: Chronique de Fouilles 1966. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Volume 91/2, 1967, pp. 861-870 ( digitized version ).
  13. ^ Fritz Schachermeyr : The Aegean Early Period. 2nd volume. The Mycenaean Period and the Culture of Thera. , Vienna 1976, ISBN 3700101643 , p. 177

Coordinates: 38 ° 21 ′ 57 ″  N , 22 ° 41 ′ 5 ″  E