Tsikalario

Tsikalario ( Greek Τσικαλαριό ) is a small high plateau and the name of a village with 100 inhabitants on the Greek island of Naxos . Tsikalario and the southern neighboring village of Chimarro (Χείμαρρο) now form the village of Zoodochos Pigi in the municipality of Drymalia .

necropolis

A necropolis from the Geometric Period (approx. 1000–700 BC) was excavated on the plateau (coordinates 37 ° 3 ′ 52.4 ″  N , 25 ° 27 ′ 44.6 ″  E ). This cemetery consisted of eighteen tumuli (burial mounds) with a diameter of seven to twelve meters. Such barrows are so far unique for the geometric period in Greece and on the Cyclades . The barrows were mostly round and delimited by stone setting, two of them were rectangular.

The burials under the hills varied widely. Usually several of them were found within stone settings. The urns were usually found in these stone settings, but sometimes the ashes were also placed directly in a pit. There were also urns that were only filled with sand.

In the middle of some of the mounds were the cremation sites for the corpses, so a mound was not built over them until later. In the pyre there were sometimes rich, but mostly broken or burned additions, such as jewelry , weapons , charred bones and ceramics . Two mounds contained no burials at all and therefore seem to have been symbolic tombs. Offering tables and houses were found next to the hills . Apparently the dead were thought of here.

literature

• W. Ekschmitt: Art and Culture of the Cyclades, Part II: Geometric and Archaic Time , Mainz am Rhein 1986, pp. 46–50 ISBN 3805309007

Web links

• Presentation of Zoodochos Pigi (Greek)

Coordinates: 37 ° 3 ′ 52 ″  N , 25 ° 28 ′ 16 ″  E