The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

The Ambivalent Landscape of Late Antique Corinth

I'm thinking out loud again. I've been invited to contribute a paper to a conference next fall in Austin and this week one of the organizers asked me for a title of my paper. I thought about it for about an hour and offered: "The Ambivalent Landscape of Christian Corinth: The Archaeology of Place, Theology, and Politics in a Late Antique City".

I'm not entirely convinced that I have the ability to write a paper that coincides with this title, but a title is a start.

My initial thought was to write an article that captures some of the vexing ambiguities present in the Corinthian landscape of the 5th-6th centuries A.D. To do this, my paper would begin with two of my favorite examples of ambivalence in the Corinthian landscape:

1. I'd start with the ambivalent language of the two Justinianic texts from the Isthmus (that many veteran readers of this blog know and love so well).

2. Then I'd talk a bit about the unusual and decidedly ambivalent architecture of the massive Lechaion basilica. Its prominent transepts have long been seen to invoke the architecture of the Epirus, particularly the relatively well-documented group of churches in the immediate vicinity of Nikopolis in Epirus. At the same time, the central ambo and abundant use of Proconnesian marble suggests imperial patronage and the liturgical influence of the Eastern capital. (Again readers of this blog, know this argument)

I'd like to expand these two points with a few other observations:

3. I'd like to do something with the Nymphaion near the Lechaion Basilica. This building was excavated by Stikas in the mid 1950s and published in a fairly preliminary form in 1957 (PAE 1957, 89-94). This building is notable because it was modified extensively in the 6th century. These modifications include the use of opus sectile floors and architectural sculpture that have clear parallels in the Lechaion basilica nearby. The nymphaion, however, does not appear to have any clearly defined religious function. The use of decorative elements that tied the building to the Lechaion church suggested that the basilica extended either liturgical, or perhaps simply symbolic, influence into the larger Corinthian countryside. This influence, however, created ambiguous spaces like the modified nymphaion which was neither strictly religious in function, nor entirely disengaged from the Christianization process

4. The Fountain of the Lamps and the Ascleipeion also represent ambivalent spaces in the Corinthian landscape. Both sites show clear evidence for both Christian and pagan use over the 4th and 5th (and perhaps even 6th) centuries. While the evidence continues to be murky and problematic, it would seem foolish not to discuss the relationship between Christians and pagan in a paper on the ambivalent quality of the Corinthian landscape.

The more pressing issue, of course, is how does identifying ambivalence in the Corinthian landscape contribute to how we understand pressing historical problems. While I have not thought this out entirely at this stage, I'd argue that embracing the ambiguous position of the Corinthia sheds light on it character as contested space in Late Antiquity. Justinian's efforts to skirt contentious Christological issues and to invest in the construction of monumental Christian churches intentionally subverted ecclesiastical authority of Papacy in the west (under whose authority religious matters in the Corinthia resided). The tentative and ambivalent nature of Justinian's efforts, however, hint that the local residents of the Corinthia were not willing simply to buckle under his political authority, but offered a sufficient threat to warrant Justinian's ambivalent approach to expressing political authority.   

A parallel perhaps appears between the imperial policy in the 6th century and the relationship between Christians and Pagans earlier in Late Antiquity. While few scholars continue to embrace Christianity and paganism as mutually exclusive categories in terms of Late Antique religious practices, the triumphalizing narrative of Christianization which was so prevalent in Late Antiquity, continues to cast a shadow over how we understand Late Antique religion. In fact, one could argue that the our willingness to accept the narratives of Christianization from antiquity lies in part with their neat correspondence to our own practical categories of religious behaviors. Christians and pagans, sacred and secular space, religious power and secular power, east and west, all form defining polarities in our late modern methods of understanding the world.

These polarities coincide well with archaeological practice in particular which tends to categorize evidence in exclusive ways. While the formation of hierarchical typologies of, say, ceramics has been an immense benefit to how we understand the function and chronology of ancient objects, the tendency to create such interpretative categories continues even as the categories themselves become more complex. Thus, for generations archaeologists talked about sacred space or Christians in the archaeological record. Such neat distinctions (which are largely rarely received uncritically by scholars today) often overwrote evidence for more complex and ambiguous definitions within the archaeological record. In this complexity, ambiguity, and ambivalence, once can perhaps find evidence for Corinthian resistance to imperial policy, their opaque and highly practical engagement with religious practices and authority, and their willingness to understand the polysemic character of their built environment.

Well, it's at least a start.

Some New Work on Historic Corinthian Lithics

The most recent volume of Hesperia also has a nice article by my favorite stone tool expert, P. Nick Kardulias.  Nick is a long-time colleague from Ohio State Excavations at Isthmia (and the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey) and is publishing our lithics from the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project.   His article, "Flaked Stone from Isthmia" emphasizes (in particular) flaked stone from post-prehistoric contexts at Isthmia.  He also includes a brief discussion of lithics found in the Kromna excavations and associated with some other areas in the Eastern Corinthia surveyed by the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey.  Nick makes the useful and interesting point that lithic technologies persisted into the historic period (following on his and others important work along similar lines in the Southern Argolid and in the study of doukani (or threshing floor) blades on Cyprus).

Nick's arguments for the use of lithics into the historical period is important for survey archaeologists.  EKAS found hundreds (if not thousands) of chert and obsidian objects over the course of its intensive survey in the general vicinity of Isthmia.  He makes some off hand observations regarding the cautious tendency for survey archaeologists to assign lithic artifacts prehistoric dates (pp. 333-336) especially when they appear in multiperiod sites.  The result of this caution is that we may be underestimating the number of lithic artifact datable to the historic period.  There is reason to think that the large assemblage of material from EKAS (which I think Nick is studying) may provide some evidence for the use of lithics in historical periods.  Of the 222 units which produced obsidian or chert objects, only 95 of them (43%!) produced clearly datable perhistoric pottery.  While the problems with recovering and identifying prehistoric pottery in a survey context are well known and my hasty analysis is a simply count of units (rather than a more useful analysis of their spatial distribution across the site (i.e. it may be plausible to argue for the prehistoric date of lithics found in units adjacent to those with prehistoric pottery), it nevertheless suggests that a careful study of the distribution of lithic artifacts across the survey area might lead to some suggestive observations.  (I'll try to do a spatial analysis of this data sometime over the weekend...)

Nick Kardulias looking at one big lithic in Lakka Skoutara

One of the more interesting things about the historic use of lithics is that obsidian (and maybe chert) blades could be reused long after their original production.  This is interesting because Kardulias argues that the initial energy needed to produce lithic blades and other tools was not excessive nor did it require a particularly high level of expertise.  Moreover there were good chert sources throughout the Isthmia plain most notably on Acrocorinth.  This is all to ask why would people re-use lithics in the historic period (other than shear convenience or some accident of survival) if they are relatively easy to acquire and manufacture?   

Modern Greek Studies Association in Vancouver

I attended the Modern Greek Studies Association conference in Vancouver, B.C. over the last few days. It was a great show. Our panel on the archaeology of modern Greece was sparsely attended, but the discussion was vigorous and the feedback good. It was great to reconnect with Effie Athanassopoulos, Amelia Brown, and Kostis Kourelis. It was also fun to meet Matthew Milliner, blogger at millinerd.com. and northamericanchurches which I have now happily added to my delicious blogroll and will link to regularly. (His Wordless Wednesday feature is the kind of alliterative brilliance that I can truly appreciate).

Here's a link to our paper. My understanding is that Kostis Kourelis has recorded the session and I hope to make these links to our papers as MP3s available soon. As a preview, the papers captured the variety of methods employed to come to grips with modern Greece with an archaeologist's tools. These methods ranged from diligent work in paper archives to field work rooted in the best practices of processualism to post-processual practices that sought to reconcile the varieties of relationships and experiences recoverable within the modern landscape. What was perhaps striking is that none of our methods were particular to the Greek national experience. This is perhaps good in that it avoids reifying age old arguments for Greek exceptionalism (rooted in the archaeological practices derived in large part from the study of ancient Greece), but it was a bit disappointing as well in that the unique history of Greek archaeology and its institutions must contribute more than just a particularly well-curated body of knowledge, but also distinctive ways of understanding the landscape, the place, and the people.   

Vancouver was a great city. The trip to the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology was a particular highlight. Much like our panel and the project of archaeology more generally, this dramatic building sought to wrap the material culture of the first nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest in a modern setting. The interplay between the elaborately carved, yet functional house posts and totem polls and the austere economy of the poured concrete building made obvious the act of translation performed at the museum. The artifacts of the various local tribes found themselves recontextualized within the museum of the colonizer. The relationship between the vertical lines of the museum and the dimensions and functions of the architectural fragments and objects housed within it proved that some cross-cultural understanding is possible, and while it would be neither precise nor value free, it could at least be dramatic and emotionally evocative.

  

The scenery around Vancouver was simply ridiculous. The rain, the coastline, the diversity of the city's neighborhoods, and the company made the entire experience memorable (and how often can we say that about an academic conference?).

Between Sea and Mountain: The Archaeology of a 20th Century "small world" in the upland basin of the southeastern Korinthia

This weekend, David Pettegrew and I are off to Vancouver, BC to give a paper at the Modern Greek Studies Association conference.  Our paper will focus on our work with Tim Gregory and Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory at the upland basin of Lakka Skoutara in the southeastern Korinthia.  While we have been preparing a proper empirical study with lots of mico-historical detail for a formal archaeological report, David and I decided to take a bit more of a methodological approach to the paper at the MGSA meeting.

We focused on four scales of analysis at the site produced by the various methods that we used to document the material evidence present at Lakka Skoutara.  We used diachronic intensive pedestrian survey to document long term changes at the settlement.

We placed the results of this survey work in a broader regional and national context to demonstrate how this material is the evidence for a dynamic set of interconnected local, regional, and national economic and political processes. 

We also returned to the site every other year for a decade and documented the changes to individual buildings at the site.  Most of the buildings at Lakka Skoutara are abandoned or only kept up in a very superficial way, so documenting their deterioration or curation allows us to understand the processes that produced the archaeological landscape documented through intensive survey. 

Finally, our team collected oral history interviews from people who used the Lakka in various ways.  These interviews allowed us to put formation processes within a social context.

The goal of this approach is not to attempt to reconcile the interpretations or analysis produced by various methods, but rather to produce parallel narratives that are linked through their common reference to the landscape.  The interplay of these references to the landscape (i.e. signifiers) is not meant to compile a "total history" of the landscape but to capture the dynamic nature of the landscape as a product of experience and methods.

The key to this approach is recognizing the modern period as an important lens for viewing the landscape.  An older generation of archaeologists often tended to ignore the modern landscape as they sought to reconstruct the ancient one particularly for rural areas.  One result of this approach was an understanding of the Greek countryside, both in antiquity and in modern times, as a static place.  More recent work on the Greek landscape, however, has emphasized the dynamism of the 19th and 20th century Greek countryside.  Using finer resolution documentary sources than are available to scholars of antiquity and observing more carefully the living archaeology of Greek village life, archaeologists of modern Greece have managed to uncover a vitality in the countryside that less critical observers missed.  By ascribing this reality as much to a method uniquely applicable to the modern period (that is, interviews, easy examination of a whole range of ongoing formation processes, documentary evidence) as to the dynamic nature of the modern Greek landscape in particular, we argue that the archaeology of modern Greek landscape emerges as a vital interpretative lens for reconsidering ancient landscapes.  This isn't to simply turn the traditional method for understanding landscapes on its head (or resort to a clumsy ethnoarchaeology) and argue that ancient landscape are similar as the modern landscape but for our ability to document the processes that created them.  Instead, incorporating the modern landscape into our analysis of landscape more generally allows us to problematize the methods used to create archaeological landscapes and show that the idea of landscape requires reading methods across periods.  Thus the landscape becomes a product of our knowledge as archaeologists and the tools that we have at our disposal to document the material culture present for any period. 

Hopefully we'll have a draft of the paper posted by the weekend. 

For more on our work at Lakka Skoutara see these posts:

Slopes and Terraces at Lakka Skoutara
Corinthian Infiltration: The Interior of Some Houses at Lakka Skoutara
Lakka Skoutara: The Survey
The Houses of Lakka Skoutara
Collapse
Provisional Discard
Construction in the Corinthia

Slopes and Terraces at Lakka Skoutara

I usually plan my blog post as I am waking up (or, if I am running late, in the shower), but today, the post almost planned itself when I received 6 email pertaining to our ongoing research at Lakka Skoutara.  Our work at Lakka Skoutara in the southeastern Corinthia is a collaborative effort between David Pettegrew, Tim Gregory, and Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory.  I've been working from a set of GIS maps created for the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey (EKAS) and filled in with GPS points from 2001.  It's remarkable to see how much our ability to map the landscape has improved over the years.  GPS points are more accurate and the tools available to process large or complex datasets like regional level Digital Elevation Models (or DTMs) is remarkable.

Here's a cool example.  (Here's another).  This past summer, David, Tim, Lita, and I became curious about the terrace walls at Lakka Skoutara.  They aren't particularly interesting on their own.  In fact, they reflect what we though was typical terracing procedure.  The walls creep up the southern face of the hill that marks the northern boundary of the Lakka (a lakka is basically a valley surrounded by relatively steep hills with a polje at its bottom). 

In any event, as we looked at these terraces, we began to wonder at what point the terrace builders decided to build a terrace or, perhaps more importantly, decided that the slope was too steep to build a terrace.  Andrew Bevan, one of the most clever practitioners of archaeological GIS, had posed a similar question based on the terraces on the island of Kythera where he noted that terraces become the norm in terms of field management as the hill slopes approached 10 to 15 degrees of slope (see here).

We conducted a similar analysis using a far less robust dataset derived from our work around Lakka Skoutara.  At our site in the Corinthia, we found that terraces begin to appear when the slope exceeds 8 degrees and stop when the slopes exceed 16-18 degrees.

Here's a maps of the slopes and terraces.  Note that some of the terraces function as check dams and that accounts for their position at lower elevations and lower slopes.

And here's a map of the slopes with the yellow color representing the slope range associated with terraces.

For more on our work at Lakka Skoutara see these posts:

Corinthian Infiltration: The Interior of Some Houses at Lakka Skoutara
Lakka Skoutara: The Survey
The Houses of Lakka Skoutara
Collapse
Provisional Discard
Construction in the Corinthia

Working Paper II: Towers and Fortifications at Vayia in the Southeast Corinthia

This summer, David Pettegrew and I have been revising an article that we submitted last winter to Hesperia.  The article documents three new rural sites in the southeastern Corinthia.  Our initial approach was to submit a rather bare-bones site report that simply made the world aware of these sites.  When we submitted such an article to Hesperia, however, we received some good criticism from our reviewers who required that we make some not-insignificant changes before it would be considered for publication (this is usually called a revise and re-submit, but for Hesperia it's called a conditional acceptance (the condition being, it would seem, that we revise it and resubmit it). 

The most substantial revision stems from the skepticism surrounding our interpretation of the sites.  We argued that our sites were most likely fortifications; our reviewers were not convinced.  This criticism evokes a long-standing controversy in how we understand rural installations.  Traditionally, they were all assigned military functions, by the 1970s, these identifications were coming under scrutiny and many fortifications became fortified rural farmsteads.  Our research began under the assumption that our sites were agricultural installations of some description, and only after we were knee-deep in fieldwork did we revise our thesis to argue more forcefully that the towers at Lychnari and Ano Vayia only make sense as fortifications (or military installations of some description) and, perhaps more importantly, are hardly plausible as farmsteads.  Along these same lines, we provided a more robust set of regional comparanda for our sites

We also beefed up our analysis of the distributional data from the small scale intensive survey conducted at the site of Ano Vayia.  This includes not only a more detailed treatment of our methods, but also a comparison of our material collected at Ano Vayia to the assemblages present at other sites.  The expanded discussion of the assemblage provided a nice complement to our function arguments (not a farmstead) as well as provided a traditional basis for our Late Classical to Hellenistic date.

Finally, we beefed up the historical discussion.  One thing that both reviewers wanted to see was a more substantial description of the historical context for fortifying this area in the Corinthia.  While the sources for the Late Classical and Hellenistic Corinthia remain problematic, we were able to point toward several possible motivations and occasions mostly from the 4th century which was not incompatible with the material present at the site.  I favor our sites being built by either Corinthian or Athenian forces stationed in the countryside in the volatile 360s (Xen. Hell. 7.4.4-5.).  The additional walls at Ano Vayia suggest that the site was modified or repaired at some point.  The small quantity of material present from the site generally and the almost total absence of any significant material from the post-Hellenistic period suggests that the site may have been used intermittently throughout the Hellenistic period in response to the tumultuous politics of the day.

I think that you'll see that the criticism of the peer reviewers and the Hesperia editorial staff has made our paper better and more substantial.  All the lingering problems are the responsibilities of the stubborn authors.

So, in the interest in keeping our public informed, here is the most recent version of our paper:

Towers and Fortifications at Vayia in the Southeast Corinthia
William R. Caraher, University of North Dakota
David K. Pettegrew, Messiah College
© 2009

As the paper says, please do not cite without the authors' permission.

For the first version that we submitted see: Working Paper: Towers and Fortifications at Vayia in the Southeast Corinthia

For more info on our work at these sites see:

New Research on the Corinthian Countryside: Vayia Microregion
The Corinthian Countryside: The Site of Ano Vayia
The Corinthian Countryside: Distributional Data from the Site of Ano Vayia
The Corinthian Countryside: The Lychnari Tower
The Corinthian Countryside: The Passes of the Eastern Corinthia
The Corinthian Countryside: Classical Vayia
The Corinthian Countryside: History and Archaeology
The Corinthian Countryside: Some More Contemporary Thoughts
Three New Sites in the Eastern Corinthia (W. Caraher and D. Pettegrew)
Summer Research on the Fortifications of the Southeastern Corinthia
Viewsheds in the Eastern Corinthia

Corinthian Infiltration: The Interior of Some Houses at Lakka Skoutara

Of the dozen or so houses at Lakka Skoutara (for more on that see the index at the end), there is only one that is clearly 19th/early 20th century, roofed, and accessible.  It afforded us a glimpse of the interior of these houses.  It was not really locked, the padlock merely served as a weight to keep the wire chain pulled through the door handle.

One of the interesting challenges confronting archaeologists who study buildings is trying to work out the interior organization of domestic space.  One the key problems is the use of highly perishable materials to mark divisions in the interior of domestic space or add decorative flourish.  In our 19th and 20th century houses at Lakka Skoutara, for example, interior walls were made of a very simple mud and lime plaster which also served to shape the contours of the hearth and mantle. 

In houses that have stayed in use, the plaster has sometimes been replaced by concrete. For example, the concrete additions are visible in the mantle below:

While plaster floors are typically easier to identify in excavation, wood members of flooring like the wood threshold below are typically more ephemeral:

There are, of course, more common interior features that I should include here.  For example, our old friend provisional discard:

The concrete basin in the above photo was for collecting resin.

For more on Lakka Skoutara:

Lakka Skoutara: The Survey
The Houses of Lakka Skoutara
Collapse
Provisional Discard
Construction in the Corinthia

Viewsheds in the Eastern Corinthia

David Pettegrew and I continue to make revisions to our article on the fortification around the sites of Vayia and Lychnari bay.  One of the reviewers suggested that instead of simply describing the views from the fortified heights of Ano Vayia and Lychnari, we could do a viewshed analysis.  Viewshed analysis describes any number of methods used to determine the intervisibility of points on a map.  Generally they are performed using geographic information system software (GIS) and are based on Digital Elevation Models (DEM or more properly a DTM, Digital Terrain Models). My viewsheds are pretty basic.  They derive from a DEM based on the 1:5000 maps of the Eastern Corinthia.  I then use ESRI's spatial analyst to produce very simple viewsheds based on the 6 known sites along the eastern Corinthian coast from Mt. Oneion and Stanotopi to Ano Vayia. 

The circles are the sites and the blue line represents the route south from the town of Kenchreai, which is not labeled on this map but would have been immediately north of Mt. Oneion and Stanotopi, which are the three sites lined up east to west across the rocky spine that projects into the Mediterranean as a small peninsula.  The site from which the viewshed derives is labeled in each of the illustration below.  The dark black line is the Saronic coast line.

 

I am not sure that these images tell me anything more than what we already could say based on simple observations from the various points in the countryside.  Here is the argument that we offer in our paper:

"The towers and buildings at Vayia, however, do make sense as military installations guarding key travel and transportation corridors through the region. The Lychnari tower sits on the far western side of the Lychnari hill and seems to be positioned to overlook the bay and the northern coast of the Corinthia, while the Ano Vayia tower overlooked the pass from Frangolimano as well as the Vayia River valley. Indeed, both towers were clearly intervisible and well-placed to work together to monitor movement in the area of Lychnari and Vayia. The tower at Ano Vayia overlooked movement through the pass leading south to Frangolimano, but the height of the coastal ridge of Kaki Rachi compromised its view of the northern coast of the Corinthia and the Saronic islands. The tower on Lychnari, in contrast, could not see clearly into the pass but had a good view of the northern coast of the Corinthia including most of the Saronic Gulf and islands. Together these two fortifications could have worked to guard against an invading force traveling either westward through the pass or by sea along the coast. To the north Acrocorinth is visible in the distance as are the occupied heights of Vigla,near the village of Almyri, and the fortifications at Stanotopi, Oneion, and even Kenchreai. The sites at Acrocorinth, Oneion, Vigla, and Stanotopi lacked a clear view of the bays located along the southern coast of the Corinthia. In fact, without the towers situated near Lychnari bay, it would have been possible for a substantial force to land at Frangolimano and move east and north toward the Isthmus hidden by the coastal heights and completely out of the view of Corinthian positions immediately south of Oneion or on the Isthmus. Guards stationed at Lychnari or Ano Vayia ensured that this inland route remained in communication with forces positioned closer to the Isthmus and could provide an early warning for the heartland of the Corinthian chora to any danger threatening these more peripheral communities.

The kind of network and communication proposed here is well-documented in other regions of the Greek mainland. J. Ober and M. Munn have shown how rural towers in Attica belonged to networks of routes, towers, and fortified sites that functioned together for local defense in the Late Classical world. Recently, J. Marchand and Y. Lolos scholars have demonstrated the close link between towers and roads and argued that states situated towers so as to control traffic through the countryside. As we have already noted, Lolos documented a tower at Tsakouthi in the Sikyonia with similar size and construction technique to the round tower on the height of Lychnari; he argued that it overlooked a significant roadway linking the Sikyonian plain to the region around Stymphalos.  Wiseman, Smith, and others have likewise associated a network of towers with the road network that passes from the southern Megarid into the Corinthia via either the Kaki Skala or over various passes through Mt. Geraneia. In these contexts, rural towers functioned mainly as signal stations across the countryside that connected military forces, rural communities, and polis centers separated by long distances and rocky terrain. The towers at Ano Vayia and Lynchnari would have functioned in a similar way, although the rectangular building at Ano Vayia and the rubble fortification on the Vayia peninsula also suggest brief or occasional occupations by small garrisons perhaps positioned to protect the area against small-scale raiders. The impressive views afforded the Lychnari and Ano Vayia tower must have extended the influence of any force stationed in the rubble fortification on the Vayia peninsula.

In sum, the position of the Lychnari and Ano Vayia towers in the landscape, along with the evidence of the artifact assemblage, encourages us to understand the principal function of these structures as militaristic. The ease with which a force could pass north from the Bay at Lychnari or even Frangolimano into the rolling country south of Oneion made the fortification of this stretch of coastline crucial to any Corinthian strategy designed to protect territory peripheral to city’s central chora on the Isthmus. The fortification of Vayia and Lychnari find parallels in Corinthian (and allies’) efforts to guard or block vulnerable passes in the mountainous regions of Corinth. The large and complex fortified site of Ayia Paraskevi near the modern village of Sophiko, for example, overlooks a fertile plain and several major lines of communication and travel through the southeastern Corinthia.While this site could represent a fortified outpost for a village of the Corinthian interior, its position also suggests a military function not dissimilar to the “border forts” along the Attic-Boeotian frontier. Similarly, the impressive array of rubble fortifications along the ridge of Oneion must represent efforts to control passage across the eastern ridge of the mountain and indicate a clear strategic initiative to control passage through the rugged interior of the Corinthia—even if those walls should represent a temporary occupation by a foreign power."

The total viewshed of these six sites, however, is interesting:

Basically, these six sites combine to blanked the Eastern Corinthia with the exception of the small inlet at Katakali and its beach (it's the largest bay that is not red near the center of this map.  I would be reasonable to look at the height to the west of this inlet, perhaps, for a tower.  A tower built on that hill would not only be visible to other sites in the area, but also be poised to watch over this embayment.  Of course, this tower might not serve too obvious a strategic function in that other towers would cover the most visible routes out of the vicinity of the embayment.  The lack over coverage over Lychnari bay is an artifact of the DEM and my analysis.  The bay is clearly visible from the tower at Lychnari.

Lakka Skoutara: The Survey

I've already blogged a bit about my collaboration with Tim Gregory, David Pettegrew, and Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory in documenting the abandoned rural settlement of Lakka Skoutara (The Houses of Lakka Skoutara, Collapse, Provisional Discard, Construction in the Corinthia).  We conducted an intensive survey in this upland basin in 2002 and I've just begun to analyze the distribution pattern of material across the landscape there.  Since we only had about a week to do our survey at the site, we decided to sample the various parts of the basin so that we would capture the hillslopes, slope wash, the bottom of the basin and areas across the entire basin for east to west including fields in the immediate vicinity of the abandoned houses that David Pettegrew and I have so carefully documented.  In hindsight, I wish we had surveyed the entire area since the results of our survey were so interesting.

Daniel Pullen and Timothy Gregory read the ceramics from the site and the entire Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey helped out with the fieldwork.  The basin produced material from the Final Neolithic (ca. 3300-2500 B.C.) to the modern period with noticeable concentrations of material in the Roman, Medieval, and Early Modern periods.  In the maps below each dot represents a single artifact. 

The dates assigned to the various maps derive from the Chronotype dates and reflect the specificity with which our ceramicists could identify the individual artifacts.  The modern houses are represented by little dots and the larger black dots are threshing floors (alonia). The coloring of the survey units represents the total density of material present in each unit.

Final Neolithic

 
Final Neolithic to Early Helladic I

 
Early Bronze Age

Early Helladic I

Early Helladic II

Late Bronze Age

 

Archaic Period

Archaic to Classical

 
Archaic to Hellenistic

 
Early Roman

Roman

 
Late Roman

Roman to Medieval

 
Medieval

Late Medieval

Early Modern

Modern

 
Very Recent

It's clear, for example, that the prehistoric material clusters in a very different place than the highest density of ancient material (particularly the Roman material).  In contrast, the "Greek" period material and Roman period material cluster to the northeast of house 4.  Later, the Roman and Medieval material seems to concentrate in some of the same areas, particularly the units to the east of house 9.  These clusters of material suggesting some local continuity in occupation or activity.  For the material to cluster so relatively clearly in a small survey area was welcome and rather unexpected.  It will certainly make my job of writing up the distributional data from the survey easier.

Check back soon (maybe not today, though!) for more on Lakka Skoutara over the coming weeks.

The Houses of Lakka Skoutara

As I settle back into my American routine, I'll try to bring my readers up to date on my summer adventures.  I just returned from 10 days (or so) of fieldwork in the Corinthia at a site called Lakka Skoutara.  As I've reported here earlier, David Pettegrew and I spent much of that time recording a collection of rural houses in various states of abandonment.  To do this, we (mostly David) described the condition of the house in minute detail, measured the houses, photographed them, and this year we produced small sketch plans of a few typical houses in the area. 

So, I've included here three sketch plans and a photographs (with apologies to architects everywhere -- particularly Kostis Kourelis!).  It will be clear that these houses are rather typical Balkan type "long houses".  House 10 preserved the traditional divider that separated the area for agricultural work or animals from the area reserved for domestic activities.  House 4 is said to be the oldest house in the area and our sketch plan must represent multiple phases or significant repairs. House 10 was by far the best preserved and it is clear that it is still maintained for seasonal use, probably associated with the cultivation of olives. 

The large basin's for resin which were commonly associated with several of these houses show that resin collection was an important activity for residents of the Lakka.  In addition to basins for resin collecting, most the houses had a cistern or well near by, as well as an aloni (or threshing floor) and a oven.  Despite being identified as the oldest house, the aloni associated with House 4 must be earlier than the house as at least part of the house sits atop the aloni and it would have been impractical for the aloni to be that close to a domestic area.  Threshing grain is dusty work.  Several of the houses preserved a small area for a walled garden (see House 3 and probably House 4).  The wall probably served to keep animals out or chickens in.

House 3

House 4

House 10