Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers 9781407305981, 9781407335506

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Landscape Studies
2. Individual Site Studies
3. Medieval and Ottman Mytilene
4. Vernacular Architecture
5. Ceramics and Material Culture
6. Early Modern Ethnoarchaeology
7. Heritage and Perception

Citation preview

l na tio ne di nli ad l o ith ria W ate m

BAR S2023 2009  BINTLIFF & STÖGER  MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL GREECE

Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece The Corfu Papers Edited by

John Bintliff Hanna Stöger

BAR International Series 2023 9 781407 305981

B A R

2009

Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece The Corfu Papers Edited by

John Bintliff Hanna Stöger

BAR International Series 2023 2009

ISBN 9781407305981 paperback ISBN 9781407335506 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407305981 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers

Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers Table of Contents..............................................................................................................................................i Preface: Dimitris Tsougarakis ..................................................................................................................... iii Introduction: John Bintliff ............................................................................................................................ v

1.

Landscape Studies

1.1

Three Forts in a Sea of Mountains: The Lidoriki District and the Medieval History of Aetolia ............................................................................. 1 Sebastiaan Bommeljé

1.2

Byzantine and Ottoman Maritime Traffic in the Estuary of the Strymon: Between Envrionment, State and Market ...................................................................................................... 15 Archibald Dunn

1.3

The Strymon Delta Project: The Palynological Evidence ........................................................................... 33 Margaret A. Atherden and Jean A. Hall

1.4

Settlement Patterns in Medieval and Post-Medieval Sphakia: Issues from the Archaeological and Historical Evidence .............................................................................. 43 Lucia Nixon, Simon Price, Oliver Rackham and Jennifer Moody

1.5

The Contribution of Pollen Analysis to the Study of Medieval Crete ........................................................... 55 Jean A. Hall and Margaret A. Atherden

1.6

The Archaeologist and the Historian: Methodological Problems Faced by Historians Participating in Archaeological Surveys ...................................................................................... 67 Dimitris Tsougarakis and Helen Angelomatis-Tsougarakis

1.7

Villages désertés a Chypre (fin XIIe- fin XIX siècle) : bilan et questions..................................................... 73 Gilles Grivaud

1.8

Ceramics, Metadata, and Expectations: The Problems of Synthetic Interpretation of Survey Data for Medieval Greece ............................................................................................................. 79 Timothy E. Gregory

1.9

The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project: Archaeology, History and Ethnography of the Medieval and Modern Periods ....................................................................................... 89 Jack L. Davis and John Bennet

2.

Individual Site Studies

2.1

Christian Archaeology and the Archaeology of Medieval Greece ............................................................... 93 William Bowden

2.2

A New Approach to an Old Archaeological Site: The Case of Delphi ........................................................ 101 Platon Petridis

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Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers

3.

Medieval and Ottoman Mytilene

3.1

Medieval and Ottoman Mytilene ................................................................................................................. 107 Hector Williams

3.2

Human Remains from the Fortress of Mytilene .......................................................................................... 115 Sandra J. Garvie-Lok

3.3

The Ottoman Clay Smoking Pipes from Mytilene ...................................................................................... 121 John Humphrey

4.

Vernacular Architecture

4.1

Social and Spatial Organisation in the Peninsula of the Mani (Southern Peleponnese): Medieval, Post-Medieval and Modern Times .............................................................................................. 133 Yanis Saitas

4.2

The Morea Vernacular Architecture Project ................................................................................................ 153 Mary B. Coulton

5.

Ceramics and Material Culture

5.1

A Method for the Activity Analysis of Medieval Sites: From the Stratiké Surface Survey Project, Acarnania (Western Greece) ................................................................................. 157 Franziska Lang

5.2

Breaking Pots: Medieval and Post-Medieval ceramics from Central Greece .............................................. 167 Joanita Vroom

5.3

Material Culture Studies: The Case of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Cyclades, Greece (c. AD 1200-1800) .......................................................................................................................... 177 Athanasios K. Vionis

6.

Early Modern Ethnoarchaeology

6.1

Population and Settlement in Post-Medieval Doris, Central Greece ........................................................... 199 Peter Doorn

6.2

Connecting the Archaeological Past with the Ethnographic Present: Local Population Records and Settlement Development on 19th Century Methana .............................................. 215 Hamish Forbes

7.

Heritage and Perception

7.1

The Concept of diachronia in the Greek Archaeological Museum: Reflections on Current Challenges ...................................................................................................................................... 233 Marlen Mouliou

7.2

Material Remains and Past Ethno-Cultures in Greek Archaeology: The Contribution of Landscape Archaeology .............................................................................................. 243 Kostas Sbonias

7.3

Coevolution of Environment and Culture in the 21st Century: The Impact of Modern Development and the Role of Cultural Resource Management ..................................................... 251 Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory Please note that the CD referred to on p. ix has now been replaced with a download available at www.barpublishing.com/additional-downloads.html

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Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers

Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers Preface The idea of a congress which would focus on the new and interdisciplinary ways of conducting studies of the landscape, surface surveys and the history and evolution of settlements was first discussed between John Bintliff and myself many years ago in Athens. Eventually the congress was successfully realised in Corfu, jointly organised by the History Department of the Ionian University, the Department of Archaeology of the University of Durham and the British School at Athens. The organizing committee, John Bintliff, Helen Angelomatis-Tsougarakis and myself, invited speakers who were involved in regional studies of Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece and were not only experienced historians and archaeologists, but also active participants in the kind of interdisciplinary field work the Corfu Congress was concentrating on. During the two full days of sessions, a total of thirty-eight papers were presented, which dealt with varied and very interesting topics. This collection represents a completely updated version of contributions to the original conference, plus three additional papers, solicited to expand the wealth of data of Greece in this period. The papers are grouped in seven sections, according to their particular theme, with the majority of the contributors being archaeologists and historians, but with other specialists also represented. The papers highlight both the different points of view through which the history of a particular region can be approached and the methodological problems which arise when scholars and scientists from various disciplines work together in an interdisciplinary research project. A number of important points become, I think, clear through these papers. Firstly, the aim of regional studies is to give a holistic picture of the area, through multi-dimensional research. Secondly, for this purpose, archaeologists, historians and other scholars (demographers, geographers, botanists, ethnographers) can no longer work separately, but need to combine their individual research and studies and take account of each other’s expertise. Finally, that the methodology of this co-operation is not yet entirely clear and that in some cases has yet to be defined. Particularly the study of archaeological finds, whether from excavations or surface surveys, in conjunction with research in the written sources is paramount and should be considered de rigueur, since we speak of historical periods for which archival sources are usually available. Today of course these points seem much clearer than they did ten years ago. A greater number of studies have been or are being carried out in different areas and greater experience has been accumulated. Still, a volume such as this, which gathers a considerable number of highly specialised studies, but with a broader aspect, should become a vademecum for everyone interested or involved in this kind of research. I would like to thank those who financed and sponsored the Congress in Corfu, particularly the Ionian University and the local Corfiot institutions, as I would like to thank those who laboured for the production of this volume, in particular John Bintliff and Hanna Stöger.

Dimitris Tsougarakis Ionian University Corfu

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Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers

Introduction John Bintliff strategies for its exploration, notably an extensive, targeted surface survey rather than the intensive approach more appropriate to lowland landscapes. Despite these challenges, the Dutch Aetolia Project has brought remarkable and convincing light to the long-term or Longue Durée development of Aetolia, not least in the Medieval and Post-Medieval eras which are here discussed. As with most parts of Greece, the problem of the Post-Roman/Early Byzantine era of the 7th - 9th centuries appears, and one expects that with time we shall obtain clearer evidence for this poorly-documented phase. One rather expects that large-scale immigration of highlycompetent Slav farmers (Malingoudis 1991, 1992), following a widespread depopulation resulting from the 6th century AD Plague and varied Barbarian invasions of Greece, will have brought significant elements of recovery. But our knowledge of the material culture of this era remains too limited to allow us to test this likely scenario. The rich corpus of Medieval fortified sites recorded in Aetolia certainly offers future opportunities for documenting the Post-Roman period in the Greek provinces, and one hopes that more of these sites might eventually be carefully planned, since we still possess limited corpora of architectural analyses for the development of such sites since the fine example set by Bon in the Peloponnese (1969), apart from the excellent recent work by the Minnesota team which is presented by Coulton elsewhere in this collection of papers, and individual scholars such as Sigalos and Vionis (see Vionis this volume). Later in our edited book, Peter Doorn, another member of the Dutch Aetolia Project, provides a clear example of the use of Ottoman and Early Modern population and economic records for writing the historical geography of Aetolia.

It is a pleasure to be able to present a series of papers in the Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology of Greece, based on a conference organised at the University of Corfu in 1998. Although this publication has been longdelayed, the editors were able both to extract totallyupdated chapters and also to elicit additional material to mark new developments since the initial conference. The financial and intellectual support provided at Corfu by Dimitris Tsougarakis and Kostas Sbonias made the meeting a stimulating and sociable event. The bulk of the work of extracting revised chapters and corresponding with the authors, and all the technical work of preparing this book for publication, has been in the very capable hands of Hanna Stöger. As can be seen from this volume’s contents, in the last generation, Post-Roman Greece has been one of the most exciting growth fields in Greek Archaeology. Great credit goes to the stimulus provided by the conference organised by Peter Lock and Guy Sanders, later published (1996) as The Archaeology of Medieval Greece. Peter Lock has reinvigorated archival research into the High Medieval era with his classic textbook The Franks in the Aegean (1995), whilst Guy Sanders and Charles Williams have made the Corinth urban excavations a new treasurehouse of insights into Byzantine and Frankish townlife (Williams and Bookidis 2003). Not long afterwards, the excellent long-term project of mapping the Byzantine Empire, based in the Austrian Academy of Sciences, further encouraged new approaches to Byzantium through the organisation of a conference on that civilisation’s historical geography – Byzanz als Raum (Belke et al. 2000). Most recently, a conference at Cincinnati focussed on the Venetian and Ottoman archaeology of Greece, organised by Siriol Davies and Jack Davis, rapidly published (2007) as Between Venice and Istanbul. Over the same period, regional survey projects have been giving increasing attention to the Medieval and Post-Medieval occupation of their chosen landscapes, especially those appearing more recently (e.g. Methana – Mee and Forbes (1997), Asea – Forsen and Forsen (2003), Boeotia – Bintliff 2000a, and projects presented in this volume).

Another highly-impressive regional project is that in coastal Macedonia, summarised for us in the next two papers. Archaeologist and historian Archibald Dunn skillfully combines a wide range of sources of evidence for the Medieval and Post-Medieval evolution of this landscape, likewise stressing the Longue Durée and shedding particular light on economic developments and the interaction between the district studied and the wider world. The accompanying paper by Atherden and Hall provides the essential scientific understanding of the important physical changes the landscape has undergone, both in terms of geomorphological transformations but also through measuring the history of local vegetation from palaeobotanical analyses, and inferences regarding landuse.

LANDSCAPE STUDIES

Sebastiaan Bommeljé and his Dutch collaborators have for many years been pioneering the archaeology and historical geography of one of many rather neglected regions of Greece, the rugged mountainous province of Aetolia in the northwest mainland (Bommeljé and Doorn 1987). This is primarily an inland district dominated by agropastoral economies and difficult communications between patchy expanses of fertile land and good grazing. For field research this is certainly a ‘difficult landscape’, and the Dutch team has necessarily developed specific

On Crete, a further regional survey project, in the Sphakia province, here presented by Nixon et al., complements those in Aetolia and Macedonia by adding to the familiar evidence from surface pottery and archives, careful examination of surviving churches and domestic houses v

Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: The Corfu Papers

and Snodgrass 2007). Gregory also emphasizes the need for Greece to catch up with the long-tradition in NorthWest Europe of village-origins research and the study of deserted villages. The extraordinary wealth of recentlyavailable settlement records from the Ottoman and Venetian archives and their archaeological potential is just beginning to be tapped on a general level for Greece (cf. Bennet et al. 2000, Bintliff 1995, 2000a-b, Davies 2004, Davies and Davis 2007, Kiel 1987, Karidis and Kiel 2002, Sanders 1996, Sigalos 2004, Vionis 2006a-b, Vroom 1998, 1999).

(vernacular architecture). The remarkable detail obtainable from Venetian and Ottoman documents is worth highlighting, a feature which also is being put to major advantage on the current Pylos Project (PRAP) presented later in the paper by Davis and Bennet. Here as in Aetolia, one wonders if the Post-Roman Dark Age is not being overestimated as a result of our restricted knowledge of contemporary material culture, and decline in datable imports and coins. Staying on Crete, Hall and Atherden have been picking up the task left by the sad early death of Sietze Bottema, to spread our data points in Greek pollen analysis wider and introduce greater chronological refinements. Here the difficulty lies in the relationship between general historic events and the reaction of the landscape, not least what sort of relationship we might expect and whether vegetational history is a simple mirror for political events.

Davis and Bennet, although not present at the original Corfu Conference, were invited to summarize for this volume their impressive ongoing Anglo-American project (PRAP) in the province of Messenia, South-West Peloponnese, and its role in expanding our understanding of the Post-Roman eras in this region. The already extensively-published research (see the PRAP website, Davis ed. 1998, references in Davies and Davis 2007; and in this chapter), combines detailed Venetian, Ottoman and Early Modern archival records (including invaluable cadasters) at the village and farm level with the surface archaeology of small areas. The richness of Venetian records cannot be matched in every part of Greece, where Ottoman sources are clearly less detailed for archaeological purposes, and hence the Messenia work provides invaluable understanding of the processes of landscape change at the micro-regional level.

Tsougarakis and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis rightly criticize the past misuse of regional survey project results by historians, whilst noting that historians have not been sufficiently involved with archaeological projects, and show the correct way themselves, based on their extensive experience collaborating with such research for Post-Roman Crete. Moving to another large island, Cyprus, Grivaud finds that much of the preceding regional surveys on Cyprus have been problematic for assisting historical reconstructions of the Medieval and Post-Medieval eras. Using his own and others’ intensive research in historical archives allows him to document a general overview in the Longue Durée of a series of desertions and colonisations affecting the whole island. There are clear contrasts to the sequence on Mainland Greece, but this is in large part the consequence of divergent historical trajectories, although both share in the severity of the 14th century troubles. According to the author, even the most recent intensive survey work such as the Sydney Cyprus regional survey project (Given and Knapp 2003), falls short in his view in providing adequate detail for a historian or in relating fieldwork to the complex questions set by detailed archival sources.

INDIVIDUAL SITE STUDIES

Byzantine Archaeology has long been rather obsessed with churches. Bowden explains in his chapter how and why this came about. The overconcern with ecclesiastical design and decoration has indeed tended to distract Byzantine archaeologists from devoting greater time to settlements and everyday material culture, where Greek studies lag far behind those in North-West Europe. One important point made here is that we need to return to churches with a broader agenda. For example, even if many Late Roman churches were abandoned for some centuries, then reused in Middle Byzantine times (9th 13th centuries), they formed a focal point for a concept of Greekness with a special Orthodox face, something which continues to unite the Greek world inside the modern state and in the Greek global diaspora. Bowden’s complaint that churches need including in the planning of new Medieval archaeology projects in Greece has already been met, notably by the intensive survey projects of the last 15 years, and examples of such work can be found in this volume in the papers by Nixon et al., Williams and Tzortzopoulou-Gregory.

Gregory gives us an invaluable review of the role of regional survey in current research into Medieval Greece, discussing the potential of texts and ceramics, whilst also highlighting some limitations of method and theory in comparison to Western Europe, where such work has been much earlier established and is clearly still far more advanced than in Greece. The complexities of dealing with the debris of Medieval and Post-Medieval activity in the Greek countryside are a major current focus for research, and here parallel methodological and analytical issues are being tackled in Roman archaeology by the Eastern Corinth Survey (EKAS) on which the author is one of the project directors (Pettegrew 2007). A detailed case-study where these problems in the interpretation of surface finds are explored in great detail can be found in Fascicule 1 of our own Boeotia Project (Bintliff, Howard

An interesting example of the comparative neglect till recently of the promotion of Post-Classical monuments in Greece, comes in the chapter by Platon Petridis on the post-sanctuary life of the settlement at Delphi. Visitors and presentation-media have minimal knowledge of the flourishing Late Roman and Christian phases of the town, which can be traced into the 7th century AD. vi

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firstly, the evolution and functioning of settlement-plans, and secondly, the development of individual structures. These results have been obtained through field mapping of traditional settlements, old maps and cadasters, and archives from Venetian, Ottoman and Early Modern sources. There emerges a fascinating case study of a militarised feuding society with a nested social organisation, but nuanced down this inhospitable rocky peninsula by North-South differences imposed by ecology and varying contact with the wider world. This work is so extraordinarily-detailed, that the numerous illustrations can merely, by reasons of scale, give a good impression of the intensity of knowledge achieved.

MEDIEVAL AND OTTOMAN MYTILENE

A long-lived team-project on the North-East Aegean island of Lesbos, delivered three contributions to the Corfu papers, so deserves a special section of its own. This is collaborative Canadian research with the local archaeological authority (Ephoreia) on the Medieval and Post-Medieval phases of the town of Mytilene. Williams provides the overview of the archaeological evidence for the development of the castle and lower town in these eras, followed by insightful and almost unique studies of the castle’s burials by Garvie-Lok and of one very diagnostic category of Post-Medieval artefact from there, the clay tobacco- or hashish-pipe, by Humphrey, explaining its chronology and cultural significance. Lesbos and Mytilene are now even-better served thanks to another model for future researchers in Post-Roman Greece, the study of the island’s Ottoman archives in relation to the plan and surviving buildings of the town and the island’s villages by Karidis and Kiel (2002).

The following chapter by Coulton summarizes a pioneering and desperately-needed project by a small international team, to document, village by village, the main details of surviving traditional houses in the Peloponnese. It cannot be stressed enough, that although the recent modification to Greek Antiquities’ legislation, protects objects and monuments more than a century old from wanton destruction, the concept that traditional houses are a central element in that heritage has yet to be implemented through a wider application of the regional recording here described. Our own parallel work in Boeotia, like the project presented here an offshoot from a regional survey project, has noted the increasingly-rapid disappearance of these traditional houses, which were ubiquitous a generation ago. Visiting the nearest modern settlement to our current archaeological focus, the city of Koroneia, the large village of Aghios Georgios, two years ago, despite archival evidence for the village’s foundation by the 15th century AD, revealed less than half-a-dozen Pre-Modern houses, all in non-domestic use or ruined (Bintliff et al. 2009). One can only applaud the efforts of the Peloponnese project, and note the swift and invaluable first publication (Cooper 2002). The fortunate timing that the fieldwork has coincided with the availability of relatively inexpensive digital fieldwork hardware and software, allows a degree of speed and accuracy impossible to imagine even a decade ago, combining innovative use of GIS, GPS and digital elevation-recording. The large database leads the investigators to identify schools of itinerant builders and regional traditions. In the chapter by Vionis, later in this volume, a more fortunate situation is met, where traditional settlement forms have widely-survived from the Medieval era to today, and are now protected by heritage legislation as well as their attraction for tourism (cf. Vionis 2001).

VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE

It is in many ways ironic, that for some decades now, the most detailed information relating to everyday material culture in the Pre-Modern era of Greece has been collected by other scholars than archaeologists. Domestic houses form an immense store of preserved lifestyle traditions in every corner of the Aegean, and a varied body of researchers – architects, conservators, folklorists, sociologists and anthropologists, and geographers, have drawn, photographed and catalogued a very considerable corpus of traditional homes. The excavation record remains minimal, from Byzantine to recent epochs. Despite this wealth of material, highly suitable for incorporation into an archaeological perspective, it was only recently that it began to be tied into archaeological agendas, where the ties to historical change and the meaning of material culture could be fully-explored. Indeed most of the published older vernacular studies were more concerned with house-styles and ethnicity, or doubtful origins in Classical or even Prehistoric ‘Greek’ lifeways, than in dating houses and probing their social meanings. For a magnificent overview of this field, past, present and future, let us cite the excellent monograph by Sigalos (2004), one of the speakers at our Conference, but whose paper is not included as it has been superseded by his masterly publication. It is also essential to mention that polymath genius Machiel Kiel, who has combined the firsthand study of Ottoman tax records with that of Ottoman public buildings (Kiel 1990, 1996) as well as collaborating with several regional survey projects (e.g. Kiel 1997).

CERAMICS AND MATERIAL CULTURE

One of the oldest areas of Post-Roman archaeology to develop in the Aegean, and one of the few which went well beyond church architecture and its art, was the study of Byzantine ceramics. Nonetheless this tended to focus on the decorated tablewares (cf. Papanikola-Bakirtizi and Mavrikiou et al. 1999) and gave much less attention to the entire assemblage used in Medieval households. Moreover, little attention was paid to the Post-Medieval period. It has been largely archaeological field survey in

One of the great exceptions to the typical rule noted above, that architectural handbooks of regional traditional, domestic architecture have neglected social and chronological elements, has been the long-running research of the author of our next chapter, Saitas. His dedication to the spectacular tower-societies of the PreModern Mani peninsula in the southern Peloponnese has given us an extraordinary degree of detail, concerning vii

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the myth of static societies over millennia or even centuries, and hence the contemporary use of ‘traditional’ lifestyles never assumes that the Past can be read from the Present as a mere given fact. Rather, more subtle arguments are made concerning the valuable insights available for remoter periods by understanding the dynamics of Early Modern Greece.

Greece which over the last generation has produced innumerable rural settlements with full assemblages of everyday pottery. The normal procedure on such projects has been to give full treatment of all forms and fabrics regardless of era or function, and since the domestic and coarse-wares, and even much of the glazed and decorated wares, in Medieval and Post-Medieval times, appear to have been regionally produced, increasing effort has gone into characterising local sequences and the full range of pottery in use in the household or institution under investigation. The three chapters in this section are by ceramic experts whose work developed out of intensive surveys.

The first paper in this pair of chapters, by Doorn, illustrates this very well. The province of Aetolia in North-West Greece is extremely rugged and communications are problematic, whilst the resources for making a livelihood are limited and spatially stronglypatterned by physical geography. Over decades now the Dutch Aetolia Project (see also the earlier paper by Bommeljé et al.) has been painstakingly mapping the roads, tracks, bridges, occupied and abandoned settlements of this remote province, at the same time carrying out a largescale programme of community interviews to record life in living memory. The availability of population and economic records from Ottoman and Early Modern times allows the team to compare the known settlement patterns and lifestyles of these periods with the deeper understanding of the constraints and possibilities offered by the region’s natural geography and economic potential. Further insights into longer-term landscape dynamics naturally also emerge from the study of these recent periods of human settlement.

Firstly, Franziska Lang treats us to a very carefully thought-out analytical programme for interpreting the Medieval ceramic finds from the Stratike Survey in North-West Greece, allowing her to reconstruct the changing dynamics of settlement and land-use over time. Moreover intensive inter-site comparisons of shapes and fabrics not only allow the creation of local assemblages for sub-periods of the Post-Roman era, but can suggest different site functions across the landscape. Vroom summarizes her experiences on the Boeotia Survey, utilising in the absence of local, well-published excavation sequences, a method developed on this project for all period finds, that of the internal comparison of numerous surface sites of varying age, ‘horizontal stratigraphy’, so as to identify discrete assemblages for individual sub-phases of the Post-Roman era. A particular speciality of the author is also discussed, the use of ceramics to study changing dining habits and cultural connections, which allow us precious insight into wider issues of lifestyles and mentalities.

The next chapter, by Forbes, is written by a scholar whose experience of combining Ethnography and Archaeology in the Aegean is without parallel. Since his PhD research, in which he recorded traditional society on the Peloponnesian peninsula of Methana on behalf of the South West Argolid intensive survey project (Jameson et al. 1994), the author has continued to extract deeper and deeper understanding of rural life in Early Modern Greece, as well as offering archaeologists of earlier periods advice on how to understand the countryside of Antiquity and Prehistory. The classic collaboration came with the Methana survey which he co-directed with prehistorian Chris Mee (Mee and Forbes 1997). The current chapter explores the value of linking oral history on Methana with archival records and fieldwork. A major innovation achieved here for the Aegean is to focus on the concept of the Past as lived-experience.

The chapter by Vionis represents justly, as the author claims, a total integration of material culture, iconographic and historic sources, modelled on the holistic approach to History advocated by Fernand Braudel and the French Annales School of historians. In his research on the Medieval and Post-Medieval Cyclades, Vionis as in the previous two chapters, works with the total assemblage of ceramics from table-bowls to cooking pots, and seeks the mentalities behind functions. The changing roles of influences from the Near East or Western Europe are investigated, and here we find a remarkable expansion from analysis of ceramics into housing, settlement plans and dress-codes.

HERITAGE AND PERCEPTION

One of the most-striking recent developments within Greek Archaeology of all periods has been the development of a ‘reflexive’ approach, in which the Historiography of the disciplines of History and Archaeology has come under explicit scrutiny, in parallel with similar developments elsewhere in Social Science scholarship (cf. Fotiadis 1995, 2001; Hamilakis and Yalouris 1996, Hamilakis 2007; Morris 1994, 2004; Shanks 1997). Greece in some ways has been handicapped by the political importance of its national past, which has led to a disproportionate amount of attention being given to the highlights of indigenous

EARLY MODERN ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY

Ever since Western Travellers from the 17th century on toured the Aegean to rediscover ancient cities and sanctuaries known only from texts, comparisons have been made between everyday traditional life and PreModern eras. This was often done in a socialevolutionary framework, however, where Greek peasants were considered to be survivors of more primitive stages of development, preserving, with historic continuity, ancient lifestyles and cultural traditions. Social anthropologists and historians have long since punctured viii

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civilisation (Bronze Age palatial culture, Archaic and Classical Greece), to the neglect of periods of foreign domination (Roman, Frankish and Ottoman). Moreover, even in the representation of ‘Greek’ climax culture, it has been normal to emphasize the most positive aspects rather than probe more problematic areas. The last group of papers, significantly all by Greek researchers, raises many issues resulting from the turn to reflexivity or selfexamination of the motives and agendas at play in studying and presenting the Greek Past.

collaborate to study, protect and present to the general public the material evidence for local history. EDITORIAL NOTE

For better reproduction and further study all images are available on the CD included with this volume. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennet, J. and Davis, L. et al., 2000, ‘Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, Part III: Sir William Gell’s Itinerary in the Pylia and Regional Landscapes in the Morea in the Second Ottoman Period’, Hesperia 69, 343-80. Bintliff, J.L., 1995, ‘The Two Transitions: Current Research on the Origins of the Traditional Village in Central Greece’ in J. L. Bintliff and H. Hamerow (eds), Europe Between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Recent Archaeological and Historical Research in Western and Southern Europe, Oxford: BAR Publishing, BAR International Series 617, 111-130. Bintliff, J., 2000, ‘Reconstructing the Byzantine countryside: New approaches from landscape archaeology’, in K. Belke, F. Hild, J. Koder and P. Soustal (eds), Byzanz als Raum, Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 37-63. Bintliff, J., 2000a, ‘Deconstructing 'The Sense of Place'? Settlement systems, field survey, and the historic record: A case-study from Central Greece’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 66, 123-149. Bintliff, J., 2003, ‘The ethnoarchaeology of a 'passive' ethnicity: The Arvanites of Central Greece’, in K. S. Brown and Y. Hamilakis, The Usable Past. Greek Metahistories, Lanham-Boulder: Lexington Books, 129-144. Bintliff, J.L., 2006, ‘Multi-ethnicity and population movement in Ancient Greece: Alternatives to a world of 'Red-Figure' people’, in E. Olshausen and H. Sonnabend (eds), "Troianer sind wir gewesen" - Migrationen in der antiken Welt, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 108-114. Bintliff, J.L., Howard, P., et al. (eds), 2007, Testing the Hinterland: The Work of the Boeotia Survey (1989-1991) in the Southern Approaches to the City of Thespiai, Cambridge, MacDonald Institute Monographs, University of Cambridge. Bintliff, J.L., Slapsak, B. et al., 2009 (2007), ‘The Leiden-Ljubljana Ancient Cities of Boeotia Project, Summer 2007-Spring 2008’, Pharos. Journal of the Netherlands Institute in Athens 15, 18-42. Belke, K., Hild, F., Koder, J. and Soustal, P. (eds), 2000, Byzanz als Raum, Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Bommeljé, S. and Doorn, P.K. (eds), 1987, Aetolia and the Aetolians, Studia Aetolica I, Utrecht: Parnassus Press.

Mouliou offers a deep and thoughtful discussion of the way that the national Past is displayed in Greek museums, and stresses the need for a more neutral version of a diachronic treatment, and also museums which are more interactive with their public. She wants to give the viewers more opportunity to think for themselves about presentations, and be less told what they are seeing and its significance, in what often can be characterised as a too dogmatic and didactic strategy for viewer enlightenment. Sbonias likewise raises sensitive issues regarding the creation of ethnic and national identities in Medieval to Modern Greece, which at the time of achieving its independence in the early 19th century was a very diverse mosaic of languages and cultures. Important though this theme is, it has not been well-explored by archaeologists of these eras. Given the abundant literature and growing interest in cultural and ethnic identity in contemporary Europe and in Archaeological Theory, and key relevant publications from Ancient Greece (Hall 1997, 2002, McInerney 1999, cf. Bintliff 2006), the author has correctly identified a fascinating path to further explore for the Post-Roman era. The potential is of wider interest well beyond the Aegean, given the richness of Medieval and later rural archaeology and often highly-detailed records of local populations, although sensitivity to the beliefs of contemporary inhabitants of Greece suggests that an unusual degree of care needs to be taken in the wider popularisation of such academic work (Bintliff 2003). With the final contribution by Tzortzopoulou-Gregory we are directly confronted with everyday management issues regarding the recent heritage of Greece. As Greek and foreign academics and politicians, local and national, demand greater interest in the neglected eras of the Greek Past, more and more investment in personnel and finance is required by the public regional archaeological services, to cope with site investigation and subsequent conservation of a rapidly-expanding body of archaeological sites and monuments. The pace of urban and rural development in Greece shows no sign of slackening-off, posing permanent stresses for an essentially rescue-focussed archaeological profession. Working more closely with local communities may be a major way of increasing funds and human resources in the protection and management of the Post-Roman heritage, but this only works when the various ‘stakeholders’: the Ministry of Culture, local authorities, and foreign archaeological teams, can smoothly ix

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Central Greece, Oxford: BAR Publishing, 315-358. Lock, P., 1995, The Franks in the Aegean 1204-1500, London: Longman. Lock, P. and Sanders, G.D.R. (eds), 1996, The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxford: Oxbow. McInerney, J., 1999, The Folds of Parnassos: Land and Ethnicity in Ancient Phokis, Austin: University of Texas Press. Malingoudis, P., 1991, Slavi sti meseoniki Ellada, Thessaloniki: Vanias. Malingoudis, P., 1992, I Thessaloniki ke o kosmos ton Slavon, Thessaloniki: Vanias. Mee, C. and Forbes, H. (eds), 1997, A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Morris, I., 1994, Archaeologies of Greece, in I. Morris, Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 8-47. Morris, I., 2004, Classical Archaeology, in J.L. Bintliff (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Archaeology, Oxford: Blackwell, 253-271. Papanikola-Bakirtizi, D., Mavrikiou, F.N. et al., 1999, Byzantine Glazed Pottery in the Benaki Museum, Athens: Benaki Museum. Pettegrew, D.K., 2007, ‘The busy countryside of Late Roman Corinth: Interpreting ceramic data produced by regional archaeological surveys’, Hesperia 76, 743-784. Sanders, G.D.R., 1996, ‘Two kastra on Melos and their relations in the Archipelago’, in P. Lock and G. D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxford: Oxbow, 147-177. Shanks, M., 1997, The Classical Archaeology of Greece, London: Routledge. Sigalos, E., 2004, Housing in Medieval and PostMedieval Greece, BAR International Series 1291, Oxford. Vionis, A., 2006a, ‘The Thirteenth-Sixteenth century Kastro of Kephalos: a contribution to the archaeological study of Medieval Paros and the Cyclades’, The Annual of the British School at Athens 101, 459-492. Vionis, A., 2006b, ‘The archaeology of Ottoman villages in central Greece: ceramics, housing and everyday life in Post-Medieval Boeotia’, in A. Erkanal-Öktü, E. Özgen, S. Günel et al., Studies in Honour of Hayat Erkanal: Cultural Reflections, Istanbul: Homer Kitabevi, 784-800. Vionis, A.K., 2001, ‘The meaning of domestic cubic forms: interpreting Cycladic housing and settlements of the period of foreign domination (ca. 1207-1821 AD)’, Pharos. Journal of the Netherlands Institute in Athens 9, 111-131. Vroom, J., 1998, ‘Early Modern archaeology in Central Greece: the contrasts of artefact-rich and sherdless sites’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 11(2), 131-164.

Bon, A., 1969, La Morée franque: Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d'Achaïe (1205-1430), Paris, BÉFAR 213. Cooper, F., 2002, Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnesos (1205-1955), Athens: Melissa Press. Davies, S., 2004, ‘Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, Part VI. Administration and settlement in Venetian Navarino’, Hesperia 73(1), 59-120. Davies, S. and J. L. Davis (eds), 2007, Between Venice and Istanbul. Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Athens: American School of Classical Studies. Davis, J.L. (ed.), 1998, Sandy Pylos, Austin: University of Texas. Forsen, J. and. Forsen, B. (eds), 2003, The Asea Valley Survey. An Arcadian Mountain Valley from the Paleolithic Period until Modern Times, Stockholm: Swedish Institute in Athens. Fotiadis, M., 1995, ‘Modernity and the past-still-present: Politics of time in the birth of regional archaeological projects in Greece’, American Journal of Archaeology 99, 59-78. Fotiadis, M., 2001, ‘Imagining Macedonia in Prehistory, ca. 1900-1930’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 14(2), 115-135. Given, M. and Knapp, A.B., 2003, The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Survey, Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Hall, J.M., 1997, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, J.M., 2002, Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hamilakis, Y. and Yalouris, E., 1996, ‘Antiquities as symbolic capital in modern Greek society’, Antiquity 70, 117-129. Hamilakis, Y., 2007, The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jameson, M.H., Runnels, C.N. et al., (eds), 1994, A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Karidis, D.N. and Kiel, M., 2002, Mitilinis Astigraphia ke Lesvou Chorographia, Athens: Olkos. Kiel, M., 1987, Population growth and food production in 16th century Athens and Attica according to the Ottoman Tahrir Defters, in Proceedings of the VIth Cambridge CIEPO Symposium, J.-L. Bacque-Grammont and E. van Donzel, IstanbulParis-Leiden: The Divit Press, 115-133. Kiel, M., 1990, Studies on the Ottoman Architecture of the Balkans, Aldershot: Variorum. Kiel, M., 1996, ‘Das Türkische Thessalien’, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, Dritte Folge no. 212, 109-196. Kiel, M., 1997, ‘The rise and decline of Turkish Boeotia, 15th-19th century’, in J.L. Bintliff (ed.), Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of x

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John Bintliff Faculty of Archaeology University of Leiden [email protected]

Vroom, J.C., 1999, ‘Medieval and Post-Medieval Pottery from a Site in Boeotia: A Case Study Example of Post-Classical Archaeology in Greece’, Annual of the British School at Athens 92, 513-546. Williams, C.K. and N. Bookidis (eds), 2003, Corinth, the Centenary: 1896-1996, Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Hanna Stöger Faculty of Archaeology University of Leiden [email protected]

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1.1 Three Forts in a Sea of Mountains: The Lidoriki District and the Medieval History of Aetolia Sebastiaan Bommeljé Dedicated to the memory of S.C. Bakhuizen played a similar role). In the second century BC the Romans effectively destroyed the Aetolian ethnos, and Aetolia was no longer a regional polity after the foundation of Nicopolis in 30 BC. The area disappears from the written sources, and the archaeological record suggests that save for some larger settlements, the landscape was relatively devoid of human activity during the first centuries AD.3

INTRODUCTION

If the past is a foreign country, the Medieval past of Aetolia must be an alien galaxy. Those who set their hopes on saying anything about the history of this Northwestern Greek mountain region during the centuries between the Roman era and the Ottoman period, have something of an arduous journey ahead. There are at least two problems. First, Aetolia did not quite exist in the Middle Ages and second, it sometimes seems that the Middle Ages did not quite exist in Aetolia. I do not refer here to the well-known problem of defining ‘The Middle Ages’ in Greek lands, which is partly rooted in the differences between what archaeologists and what historians mean by the term Middle Ages. Neither do I intend to underline the complexity of the relationship between archaeological finds, written sources, and the development of historical argumentation, if only to stay clear of little enticing theoretical debates (post-processual or otherwise).

In Medieval times the name ‘Aetolia’ was no longer attached to the ancient Aetolian territory, but drifted about in Northwestern Greece, if it was used at all. Parts of the landscape were now known under names like ‘(Little) Vlachia’, ‘Navpaktus’, ‘Akarnania’, and ‘Lagonia’, although occasionally ‘Aetolia’ was still used for the area, or for sections of it, sometimes even for Northwestern Greece as a whole.4 A clearly bounded geographical designation ‘Aetolia’ was restored after 1821; it then covered only the heartland of the ancient Aetolian territory, and by no means the complete extent of it. To make things even more complicated, I shall use the name ‘Aetolia’ here for the research area of the Aetolian Studies Project, which comprises the 4th century BC habitat of the Aetolian ethnos. Thus the area under study is substantially larger than the modern geographical entity Aetolia, which is confined to the eastern part of the nomos (province) of Aitoloakarnania.

In fact, the two problems in the case of Aetolia are rather more basic. The first is that the clear geographical and political entity ‘Aetolia’ of the Classical and Hellenistic period ceased to exist during the Roman domination over Greek lands, only to be revived as a modern province during the 19th century. Besides, we do not really know which name referred to which part of this region in Medieval times. This makes the interpretation of the few written sources we have for that period hardly easy, and it casts a shadow of false continuity over the expression ‘Medieval Aetolia’. The second problem is that even in the perspective of Medieval archaeology in the Aegean, which is still in the exciting stage of producing more questions than answers, the material evidence, which could help us to understand what happened between c. AD 600 and 1400 in Aetolia, stands out as quite scarce and problematic. This lament is not intended as an excuse, but as an explanation of the small steps which follow, as I will discuss the dating, the function and the identification of three fortified sites in Eastern Aetolia.

During the 1980s and 1990s the Aetolian Studies Project of the Netherlands Institute at Athens (NIA) has carried out a regional survey of this Aetolian ethnos-territory that is roughly the area between the Gulf of Corinth to the South and the snow-capped Mt. Tymfrystos to the North, and between the Akheloos River to the West and the high peaks of Mt. Gkiona to the East.5 The designation ‘Aetolia’ in this article refers to those 5,500 square kilometres of mostly mountainous terrain (Fig. 1). Aetolia is one of those regions of Greece which are diagnosed as ‘unsurveyable’ by most modern surveyors. The differences between Aetolia, with some of its peaks rising well over 2,000 m, and the low-lying and more easily accessible landscapes in which most surface surveys are executed, are quite striking. This is one of the reasons why the Aetolia survey, in contrast to most field work nowadays, is not aimed at very intensive coverage of a small selected area. The Aetolian landscape, which extends from a narrow coastal strip, via the hills around Lake Trikhonis to the vast mountain ridges in the interior, makes continuous field-by-field coverage not a very plausible strategy for regional research.

AETOLIA AND THE AETOLIAN STUDIES PROJECT

Aetolia has always been a marginal mountain landscape.1 The region received its name in Antiquity as the territory of the ancient Greek ethnos of the Aetolians.2 Its sudden rise to prominence in Hellenistic times, as a natural fortress towering over a war-ridden Greek world, is the only punctuation of the peripheral status of this area throughout history (save perhaps for World War II, when it

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Fig 1 - ‘Aetolia’ in Central Greece

50 or so Medieval sites with some 300 sherds, which were identified as ‘Byzantine’ or ‘Medieval’, or in many cases ‘possibly Medieval’7 (Fig. 2). These 50 sites comprise well-known sites such as the 13th -14th century stronghold Angelokastro along the Akheloos River in the extreme West of the region and the multi-period town of Navpaktos, where survey is impossible. Furthermore there are also some 30 isolated Middle and Late Byzantine churches and monasteries included, most of which were already known.8 Although some rural sites with good diagnostic Medieval material have been located in the course of the Aetolia-survey, these sites yielded only limited to very limited numbers of sherds. The scarcity and the often poor quality of the pottery stand in sharp contrast with the ceramic abundance at Medieval sites in Boeotia and Thessaly.9

Instead of trying to gather very detailed information on sherd density and site thresholds for one small surveyable section, the Aetolia Project opted for an attempt to gain insight into the outlines of the long-term development of habitation in a historical landscape as a whole. The line of approach chosen for this regional study is as much historical and geographical as it is archaeological.6 The data of the Aetolia Project cover the period from Prehistory to present day. When I speak here of the Medieval past of Aetolia, I mean the period between the Late Roman era and the arrival of the Ottomans. In the case of Aetolia this refers to the time span from c. AD 600 to 1400. AETOLIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES

In Medieval times Aetolia seems to have been not much more than a marginal and mountainous border area between the large geographical entities which were established in Post-Classical mainland Greece: first the Late Roman Provinces of Achaea and Epirus, then the Byzantine themes of Hellas and Nikopolis, and later the Duchy of Athens, the Despotate of Epirus, and the Duchy of Neopatras. Both the archaeological data and the written sources suggest that apart from the coastal town of Navpaktos and a few inland strongholds, the region was only sparsely populated during the entire Medieval period. Medieval sites in rural Aetolia are few and mostly small. It is perhaps telling to compare in the longue durée perspective of the Aetolia-survey the almost 1,000 recorded (Classical-) Hellenistic sites in the region, and the over 12,000 sherds sampled on these sites, against the

Fig. 2 - Aetolia’s long term history of habitation (based on archaeological and textual evidence)

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history after the 15th century. To be able to draw a picture of the habitation history of the region during the five centuries since then, one has to rely on the written sources; in particular the Ottoman tax registers. This change in emphasis from archaeological to textual evidence occurs in most survey projects in Greek lands, while the case of Boeotia, with its many Ottoman and Early Modern sites, remains the exception here.13 Still, this seems hardly uplifting for anyone who sets out to study the Post-Classical history of Aetolia in the centuries before 1400, about which so little information of either sort is available.

The textual evidence seems to corroborate the picture of Medieval Aetolia as a sparsely populated landscape. In the beginning of the 13th century at least, life in Aetolia was hardly a thing of beauty and even less a joy forever. This much can be concluded from the reports by John Apocaucus, metropolitan of Navpaktos, who noted: “…all our country is not protected by walls - neither the shore, nor the higher places; and in the nights the people gather in the mountains with all their possessions, only to return to the lower regions the following morning [...]. The harvest is abundant, but far less abundant are the workers [...] fearing raids all the time they disperse each to a different place. Concerning the towns, even the fortified ones, they don’t lack courage, but they are empty of men, and they are likewise afraid for their existence…”.10

THE EARLY BYZANTINE PERIOD

The last traces of Roman pottery in Aetolia date from about AD 600 (at the latest); while the first signs of Byzantine recovery from the turmoil thereafter date from the 10th century. There seems to be no evidence in Aetolia before AD 600 for the Late Roman flourishing which is reported in other parts of Central Greece. Apart from some clearly increased activity at major sites (Navpactus, Kallion), only a handful of sites with Late Roman material have been recorded. Moreover, in the course of the survey, as well as during excavations, hardly any diagnostic material later than the 6th century has been found (Figs 3 - 4).14 Owing to the lack of knowledge of the continuation or dis-continuation of Late Roman pottery styles in the provinces, let alone of local products, we lose track of the archaeological record in Aetolia until at least the 10th century. This is of course not to say that an important coastal town like Navpaktos was uninhabited during these Dark Ages. In fact, the written sources indicate that the place was a bishopric from the late 4th century onwards.15

The first surviving Ottoman tax registers for the region (such as the ones for Eastern Aetolia which date from 1466) list the great majority of settlements as katuns (newly founded hamlets, possibly even seasonal settlements, a substantial part of which was inhabited by Albanians) and not as regular karye or villages.11 It would seem overstretching the evidence to simply project the situation the Ottomans found at the end of the 14th century, which was a tumultuous and dangerous period even for Greek lands (not to mention the plague epidemic which swept through the Aegean in 1347-1348), to the seven centuries before that time. But although there are some indications of increasing activity from the Middle Byzantine era onwards, there is no evidence that Aetolia was ever a thriving and densely populated area during the Middle Ages. It should be noted that in terms of archaeological remains we have little to go by in Aetolia, not only for the Medieval era, but also for Ottoman and Early Modern times. For the latter periods the written sources clearly indicate a rapidly growing population in a stable settlement pattern, especially during the 15th, 16th, and 19th centuries. Of course, there are churches and monasteries, as well as bridges dating from the Ottoman era. In the fields near Agrinion in the West of the region, the remains of a minaret still struggle to stand upright, and yes, some good Early Modern pottery was sampled in deserted settlements in the centre of Aetolia. However, the mountain areas have yielded little diagnostic pottery from these periods. This lack of Ottoman and Early Modern finds in the survey samples may be partly due to the research strategy, but more likely it is the result of very low levels of ceramic use in the mountainous parts of Greece during these periods. This a-ceramic way of life is clearly recorded for the first half of the 20th century, as elderly Aetolian villagers still remember how they cooked their food in copper casseroles, ate from wooden plates with spoons made of onion-skins, drank from wooden cups, and possessed no items of ceramic at all.12

Fig. 3 - ‘Aetolia’: Roman sites

The effects on Aetolia of the Slav incursions in Greek lands during the 7th century and later are totally obscure. Quite a few Slav toponyms have been known in the region and dozens more have been recorded in the course of our field work.16 However, these names are also found to describe features of the Aetolian landscape in very remote parts of inhospitable mountain ranges. Added to all other

In fact, while we have quite an extensive amount of archaeological evidence for the Prehistoric and ClassicalHellenistic periods, a sobering imbalance exists between the material and textual evidence related to Aetolian 3

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historical and archaeological uncertainties surrounding the ‘Slav incursions’, this makes one wonder whether these toponyms originate from the Dark Ages at all.17

Perhaps the emergence of Lidoriki as a bishop’s see and a place worth mentioning, suggest in its own right some kind of recovery of human activity in the mountains of Aetolia during the 10th century.24 MIDDLE AND LATE BYZANTINE OCCUPATION

Middle Byzantine occupation is recorded at several sites in Aetolia, although the number of sampled sherds (and coins) which date from the 11th century is really quite small. It should be noted that most of the Middle Byzantine finds (especially in Eastern Aetolia) originate from prominent multi-period sites in well-defensible positions. Almost all of these sites had been continuously occupied from the Bronze Age into Late Roman times. Concerning the Middle Byzantine period it is impossible to tell whether we are dealing with a totally new resettling of these strong sites, or the recovery of a lowlevel but continuous form of multi-period habitation (Fig. 5). Fig. 4 - ‘Aetolia’: Late Roman sites

What we do seem to note in Aetolia, are small signs of recovery from AD 900 onwards. Although perhaps a little bit later than in the rest of central Greece, at least a handful of churches were built in the course of the 10th century throughout the Aetolian countryside. The famous Early Byzantine church near Mastron in the extreme west of the region has been traditionally dated from the 7th to the 9th century. It was either reconstructed or perhaps even only built during the 10th century, as the earlier dating has recently come into doubt.18 However, the dating of all these churches has until now been exclusively based on architectural features, which may be somewhat hazardous, especially in this part of Greece. It is certain, though, that during the 11th century several monasteries were founded in Aetolia.19 Fig. 5 - ‘Aetolia’: Middle Byzantine site

Furthermore, we know that already in the 9th century the road from Navpaktos to Thebes, leading through Eastern Aetolia, was referred to as an important road by the Arabic geographer Idrisi.20 It is also clear that by the 10th century the Byzantine theme system had been extended effectively over the western mainland of Greece. Western Aetolia now belonged to the recently formed theme of Nicopolis with its capital Navpaktos, while Eastern Aetolia remained under the theme of Hellas.21

However, what can be said is, that the archaeological record suggests an increase in the number of sites and intensity of activity at sites in Aetolia starting perhaps from the late 12th but certainly from the early 13th century, the beginning of the Late Byzantine (or ‘Frankish’) era. Finds of proto-majolica, majolica and sgrafitto ware, as well as coins indicate a more settled landscape. Still, it should be underlined that the amount of sampled sherds at these sites is by no means comparable to the amounts of pottery found at 13th century sites in lower lying parts of Greece (Fig. 6).

The ecclesiastical organization of Central Greece suggests that since Early Byzantine times the division between ‘West’ and ‘East’ in Greek lands extended right across the Aetolian mountains. From about AD 900, the place Lidoriki (or Odrich, Lodorich, Ledorix, Loidorikion, Lydoridzii, Laedoricium) in Eastern Aetolia is mentioned as a bishopric, not of the recently established Metropolis of nearby Navpaktos, but of the Metropolis Larissa and the Church Province of Second Thessaly to the North.22 Around the same date, Lidoriki is also mentioned in a scholium of Arethas of Caesarea in which the place is said to be located ‘in the Phocian country’ (the ancient region east of ancient Aetolia).23

During the 13th century, Aetolia did not fall under the rule of the Frankish duchies which were established in Greece after the fall of Constantinople in 1204. Instead, the region came under the Despotate of Epiros (the independent Greek state which emerged in the territory west of the Pindos which was allotted to the Venetians). This holds true also for Eastern Aetolia with the bishopric of Lidorikion, the area bordering on the Frankish county of Salona. However, it cannot be ruled out completely that there was a very short-lived Frankish presence in 4

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Lidoriki between 1204 and 1212. In the second half of the 13th century, when the Duchy of Neopatras was established as an offshoot of the Epirote Despotate, the Lidoriki region fell under this new state with its central stronghold at the edge of the Sperkheios valley.25 This mountainous eastern part of Aetolia remained outside the 14th century turmoil in the West, where Epirots, Byzantine forces, expanding Serbs and invading Albanians wrestled continuously for power.26

Hellenistic Kallipolis or Kallion) have been studied by the late Dr. S.C. Bakhuizen.28 It concerns here probably a rather primitive but well-built and strongly fortified mountain castle with a donjon or keep, several cisterns, a windmill and something of a hamlet within the walls (Fig. 8). The enceinte was built from small and larger broken stones, filled in with roof tile fragments and cemented with mortar. It measures c. 75 x 250 m and follows the contours of the acropolis of ancient Kallipolis on top of Veloukhovo hill (614 m). It makes much use of the Hellenistic fortifications, partly as foundation and as building material. The site has an extensive view over the surrounding river valleys, including the valley of the River Mornos, some 250 m below the castle. The dating of the structures is unclear, but the dating for surface material ranges from the 11th to the 15th century, with most material from the 13th and 14th centuries. Even a 17th century coin from the Kingdom of Naples was picked up.29

Fig. 6 - ‘Aetolia’: Late Byzantine sites

It was during these turbulent 13th and 14th centuries that Eastern Aetolia played a small but not insignificant role in the new, fragmented and unstable power structure of Central Greece. From a Medieval perspective, Eastern Aetolia was the area between the towns of Navpaktos in the Southwest, Neopatras (ancient Hypate) in the North and Salona (ancient Amphissa) in the East (the latter two are outside the research region); in a modern perspective it is the eparkhy of Doris. The combined use of the archaeological data, the written sources and the topography of Eastern Aetolia, now makes it possible to gain a better understanding of this Medieval landscape. THREE FORTIFIED MEDIEVAL SITES IN EASTERN AETOLIA

Fig. 7 - Medieval fortifications in Eastern ‘Aetolia’ (fortifications  sites )

In Eastern Aetolia only a handful of Medieval sites have been recorded, but three of them are fortified. One is situated atop Veloukhovo hill (614 m), and is built over the acropolis of the large Hellenistic fortification of Kallipolis at the Narrows of Steno below Mt. Vardhousi (2,406 m) in the very heart of the region. The second one is at the coastal site of the ancient polis of Oeantheia near modern Erateini, while the third one is in the North at the multi-period site in the steep valley of the Mornos/Megas River, near the village of Sykea below Mt. Gkiona (2,500 m.). Outside these fortified sites, very few rural sites from the Medieval period were found here, in spite of the fact that the area belongs to the most intensively surveyed parts of the research region (Fig. 7).27

The Medieval remains at the coastal site near Erateini seem to consist of two features. One is an enceinte of loosely piled uncut rocks atop the low acropolis hill of ancient Oeantheia (the spolia of which were re-used in several ruined churches of unknown date). The other more interesting feature is a large square tower (c. 8 x 8 m), located at the sea-side extent of the ancient site. The tower is preserved to a maximum height of about 5 courses measuring c. 2.50 m. It was built from re-cycled ancient blocks cemented with mortar. Around both features ceramics dating from the 13th to the 15th century can be observed.30 The third fortified Medieval site is located on an isolated rocky hill which rises steeply from the bed of the Mornos River (here called Megas) near the village of Sykea in the North of Eastern Aetolia. This river valley constitutes the

The fairly well preserved remains of the Medieval castle at the commanding site of Veloukhovo Hill (the site of 5

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passage for the route through Aetolia from the Corinthian Gulf (Navpaktos) to the Sperkheios valley (Siderokastron and Neopatras), and further to Thessaly. The remains include some poorly preserved stretches of wall, built of loosely jointed re-used ancient blocks and broken, unworked stones, cemented with mortar and filled in with tile-fragments. Our samples produced a coin possibly dating to the 11th century, as well as a substantial amount of ceramics from the 12th to the 15th centuries.31

MEDIEVAL EASTERN AETOLIA: A NEW PROPOSAL

To understand the presence of the three Medieval fortifications in Eastern Aetolia, it is useful to view the archaeological evidence within a wider historical perspective. After 1204, upland Central Greece was in chaos. Frankish rule in this area was weak, and was probably never extended over any part of Aetolia. Already in 1218 large parts of Thessaly were back in Greek hands, including Neopatras. After 1250 the Greek Despotate of Epiros fell apart into a western half under Arta and an eastern half under Neopatras. The Duchy of Neopatras became an independent state, and it remained so until it was conquered by the Catalans in 1318.

Until now, the third site was only known as an ancient settlement and not as a Medieval fortification,32 while the coastal site at modern Erateini has been known for a long time. The latter has been identified as Medieval Vitrinitsa (Vedriniza, La Veternica, Vetrenice, Veteranisse, Vetranicza), and it was often thought to have served as the harbour of Frankish Salona after 1204.33 Then again, the castle at the acropolis of Kallipolis has been only tentatively identified as Medieval Lidoriki by the Catalan scholar Rubió y Lluch at the beginning of the 20th century. It has not been studied since, and the remains are not mentioned in the Tabula Imperii Byzantini, in which the location of Lidoriki had been left open.34

The first ruler of Neopatras was John I Doukas, a bastard son of Michael II of Epiros. He was described by the Venetian chronicler Marino Sanudo as ‘Signor de la Parte, d’Odrich e finalmente della Blachia’, or ‘Lord of Neopatras, Lidoriki and finally of Vlachia’. Another source states that he ruled over ‘the land of the Pelasgians and the Phthiotians, the land of the Thessalians, and the land of the Ozolian Locrians’.35 Both descriptions agree that the territory of Neopatras existed as three distinct parts, a central part around the capital Neopatras (the land of the Pelasgians and Phthiotians), a northern part (called Vlachia or Thessaly), and a southern part (called Lidoriki or Ozolian Locris). It seems certain that the lords of Neopatras had a keen interest in their southern district around Lidoriki with its entries to the Corinthian Gulf.36 When the Franks acquired rights over Navpaktos in 1294 by intermarrying with the rulers of Epiros, Neopatras reacted immediately by seizing the city,37 and could only be expelled after tiresome negotiations.38 The traditional view that Vitrinitsa fell under Frankish rule and was the usual harbour on the route from the Morea to Salona and beyond cannot be maintained. It is based on a misinterpretation of a passage in the Chronique de Morée, as well as a lack of knowledge of the actual landscape here. The Chronique mentions Vitrinitsa in ca. 1303 as a harbour for Franks who travelled from Vostitsa to Thessaly to join forces with Guy II de la Roche, Duke of Athens, to defend Thessaly against an attack from Epiros.39 However, by this time, due to complicated intermarriages which had taken place in 1275, the Frankish Duke of Athens was the maternal uncle of the infant ruler of Neopatras, and hence had obtained the rule over several towns, which had formerly fallen under Neopatras.40 Under these particular and exceptional circumstances, when early in the 14th century the shifting of coalitions between the various states in Central Greece was at a height, there was momentarily no objection against the Franks to sail to a harbour under the rule of Neopatras. However, to perceive Vitrinitsa as the normal harbour of Frankish Salona is clearly untenable. Vitrinitsa is at least 25 difficult kilometres away from Salona, which was during most of the 13th century hardpressed and surrounded by hostile Greek territory, and,

Fig. 8 - The Medieval castle of Veloukhovo (After Bakhuizen 1994)

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according to the Chronicle of Galaxidi, was not even under Frankish control between 1210 and 1223.41

THE CASTLE AND DISTRICT OF VITRINITSA

Contrary to the traditional view, Vitrinitsa is not mentioned by name in the Catalan documents before 1360, neither as a harbour, nor as a castle, nor as a fief or district. In fact, Vitrinitsa is referred to for the first time in a Catalan document from the 1360s, describing events in 1361 and 1362. Mention is made of ‘the castles of Salona, Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa’, and of a ‘territorio Veteranisse’.46 Apparently, Vitrinitsa was now fortified and had become a separate district. In Ottoman times, Vitrinitsa remained a district, as a nahiye of the kaza of Salona (territorial subdivision, mostly a major city with its surrounding villages), which in its turn formed part of the sandjak (larger - originally military - district) of Egriboz (Negroponte or Khalkis). Vitrinitsa was a grandfief (ziamet) with a special status.47 In 1821 the Vitrinitsa region was once again joined with the Lidoriki area in the eparkhy of Doris, in which it became a dimos.

THE CASTLE AND DISTRICT OF LIDORIKI

In the 13th century the toponym Lidoriki stood not only for a central place and a bishop’s see, but also for an entire region. This becomes even more obvious in 1311 when the victorious Catalan Company took over ‘the wives and the castles’ of the defeated Frankish knights of the Duchy of Athens. The Catalans expanded their territory further after King Frederic II of Sicily appointed his natural son Alfonse Fadrique of Aragon as vicar-general of the Duchy in 1317. Between 1318 and 1325, Alfonse conquered several possessions of John II, Komnenos Doukas Angelos, the last sebastokrator of Neopatras who had died without naming a successor. It seems that Neopatras itself fell to the Catalans already in 1318 and with it also Lidoriki and its region. The Duchy of Neopatras was now a Catalan polity. The main seat of the Fadrique family, however, became Salona (La Sola), which had been taken from the Franks in 1318. Salona became the place from which most dependencies were ruled, until it was conquered by the Turks in 1394.

The fortification of Vitrinitsa and its becoming a separate district by 1361 may be related to the armed conflict of the Catalans with the Albanians in West-Aetolia and especially with the despot of Angelokastro, Gjin Bua Spata. This conflict started in 1360 when control over the northern shore of the Corinthian Gulf played an important part in this struggle. Eventually, the Spata family got to rule over Arta and the Xeromera (ancient Akarnania), as well as over Acheloos, Angelokastron and Navpaktos in Aetolia.48 Probably, Vitrinitsa became a ‘castrum’ because it was the westernmost port which was securely in Catalan hands, while their hold of Navpaktos in 1361 was only short-lived.

In documents dating from 1325 and from 1327 Lidoriki is described as ‘a castle’ and as ‘a castle with its county’ (‘castra Lodorichi’ and ‘Lodorich castrum cum contrata’) recently acquired and held by the Catalans.42 The term ‘contrata’ refers to districts of considerable proportion.43 The castle and region of Lidoriki had been bestowed upon Don Alfonso Fadrique as a fief, probably as reward for his conquest of the territory of Neopatras for the Sicilian crown. The Catalan documents indicate that Lidoriki was considered to be a separate territorial entity. This is clear from a letter of c. 1350 in which mention is made of ‘terras Sole et Lodoridzii cum castris, pertinenciis ac juribus’ or ‘the fiefs of Salona and Lidoriki with their castles, belongings and rights’.44

THE CASTLE BETWEEN LIDORIKI AND NEOPATRAS

Since we lack textual evidence related to the fortification in the Mornos/Megas valley, it is not possible to go beyond the observation that the site guards the route between the Lidoriki district and the Neopatras district to the North. Near the site, this route forks out into a westerly branch along Mt. Oiti to Neopatras, and an easterly branch to Siderokastron. Given its location, the site most probably fell under Lidoriki.

From this and other documents it may be concluded that Lidoriki and Salona were two different fiefs, separate political, military and administrative entities, united in the hands of the same Fadrique family as feudal lord. There is no reason to consider the fief of Lidoriki as a dependency of a county of Salona. Between 1350 and 1394, when the Ottomans under Bayazet I conquered the region, the fief of Lidoriki changed hands several times between various members of the Fadrique family.45 The archaeological records as well as the defters suggest that the Ottomans did not occupy the castle, although Lidoriki remained the central place of the area (as the Ottoman town of Olunduruk, apparently now relocated to its current position several kilometres to the east of the castle, along the north-south route). Olunduruk functioned as the capital of the nahiye (region) of Olunduruk, which was from 1393 to c. 1530 part of the sandjak (province) Trikala, and thereafter part of the sandjak Navpaktos.

CONCLUSION

Several conclusions can now be drawn, which seem at least in part to amplify, refine and contradict traditional views on this remote part of Medieval Greece (such as those expressed in the otherwise formidable Tabula Imperii Byzantina). First, the Medieval remains on Veloukhovo hill (built on the acropolis of the Hellenistic polis of Kallion) above the strategic Narrows of Steno may be identified as Medieval Lidoriki. Second, the district of Lidoriki fell under Epiros and Neopatras during the 13th century, and was a separate Catalan fief during most of the 14th century. Third, during the 13th century, Vitrinitsa did not belong to the Frankish lords of Salona, but was the harbour of the Greek district of Lidoriki. Finally, the Medieval fortification at the site 7

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of Sykea finds its raison d’être in its position along the strategically important route between Neopatras and the district of Lidoriki, which were joined in one polity from the middle of the 13th century into the 14th century.

it may (more likely) have been a stronghold built by the Greek rulers of Epirus or Neopatras. Perhaps the most simple and most plausible suggestion is that the castrum of Lidoriki in its final form, with its donjon and bailey, was built by Alfonse Fadrique of Aragon around 1325, as the fortified central place of the fief of Lidoriki, and that he and his dynasty enjoyed the income from this domain up to 1394. Most probably, the Fadriques lived in Salona castle, while a dependent castellanus of unknown rank managed the affairs of Lidoriki. There is no evidence to suggest that the castle on Veloukhovo Hill was occupied after 1394. On this conjecture, the castle of Lidoriki may be considered as a 14th century crusader castle, comparable with other crusader castles of Greece.

The extensive archaeological remains, the written evidence as well as the structure of the landscape, with the nodal points of four long distance routes converging at the Narrows of Steno, all support the conclusion that the castle at the site of Veloukhovo/Kallipolis is to be identified as the Medieval castrum and central place of Lidoriki. This is the commanding location in which this entire region finds its centre of gravity. It did so in ancient times, when the polis of Kallipolis was the capital of the East Aetolian ethnos of the Kallieis. In Byzantine times the bishop’s see of Lidoriki was established here. In Frankish or Catalan times a strong castle was built here, while in Ottoman times the town of Olunduruk (Lidoriki) was the centre of the nahiye of Olunduruk, and finally in Early Modern times when Lidoriki became the capital of the eparkhy of Doris. Throughout history, the site of Vitrinitsa has alternately been the centre of a separate coastal region or functioned as the harbour for the inland area of Lidoriki. In Antiquity, it was the site of the Ozolian Locrian polis of Oeantheia. But after it had been taken by the Aetolians, it became the place from which the Aetolians gathered from their mountains to raid the Peloponnesus and other parts of Greece. In Medieval times, Vitrinitsa was apparently at first the harbour of Lidoriki, but then became the fortified centre of a separate district in the second half of the 14th century, a situation which continued into Ottoman times. In Early Modern times, the administrative (and economic) ties between the coast and the mountainous Hinterland were reconfirmed by the establishment of the eparkhy of Doris, and they were underlined by the construction of the very first macadam road in this eparkhy between Vitrinitsa and Lidoriki.

Fig. 9 - East ‘Aetolia’: lines of communication and major settlements – diachronic perspective

The route from Lidoriki leading northward to the fortress in the Mornos valley and further to Neopatras is not only fairly easy and without steep climbs (which may seem surprising considering the very high mountains all around), but its use is attested throughout history. In Antiquity the Aetolians used this route to attack Thessaly and to gather in Hypata (Medieval Neopatras) and Herakleia (near Medieval Siderokastro). In Medieval and Ottoman times its existence is reported several times, and today the route is after new bulldozing and recent asphalting – by far the fastest way to travel from Navpaktos to Lamia and the lands further north, although in winter one may be hampered somewhat by avalanches or falling rock (Fig. 9).

NOTES 1

Cf. Woodhouse 1897; Philippson and Kirsten 1955, 299-412; Bommeljé and Doorn 1987 with further literature. 2 Bommeljé 1988b; on ancient Aetolia see also Antonetti 1990; Grainger 1999, and especially Scholten 2000 as well as Funke 2004. 3 See Bommeljé and Vroom (1995) for an overview on the archaeological evidence, with perhaps a slightly too gloomy picture of the Roman habitation in Aetolia. Cf. Alcock 1993 for a general perspective on Roman Greece. See also Bintliff and Howard 2004 for a radical rethink on approaches to rural landscapes in Roman times. 4 In Byzantine texts ‘Aetolia’ is regularly used as a synonym for Epirus (Nic. Greg. 1,74, 130, 164, 538; Laon. Chalc. 1, 196-8). ‘Aetolians and Acarnanians’ were also called Artinans after Arta, the capital of Epirus (Nic. Greg. 2). A Late Byzantine list of toponyms reports that Aetolia was ‘now’ called Lechonia (Codinus, ed. Boar 404; in fact, Lechonia is a place near Volos in Thessaly), while another list states that Aetolia was called Navpaktos (Diller 1970, 27-42, 31, l,55; 34, l,10). The name Acarnania for the whole of Western Greece including Aetolia was used by John Cantacuzenos (I, 499-501). Little Vlachia was a designation for Acarnania and Western Aetolia (Nic. Chon. 18.13-5; cf. Loenertz 1973, 369-370). 5 Bommeljé and Doorn 1987; see also Bommeljé, 1981, 1988a, 1990, Bommeljé and Vroom 1995, Bommeljé and Doorn 1996).

As Lidoriki is known in the written sources as the central place of its region since about AD 900, the Medieval fort of Lidoriki may have existed in some form before the Catalans took possession of it, and it may have even been a Byzantine construction on the remains of the ancient acropolis. It may also have been a Frankish fortification, if indeed they ever got a short-lived hold on the region, or 8

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6

The Aetolian survey is not ‘extensive’ in the way of a 19th century topographical reconnaissance. Survey strategies in Aetolia range from short visits to desolate mountain peaks to fairly intensive field walking in ‘exploitation areas’. The intensity depends on accessibility, traces of long-term exploitation, and diagnostic judgement (based on various factors, such as the wider pattern of sites, finds of off-site scatters, and reports from locals). The Aetolian interior is a patchwork of these exploitable areas (mostly located at altitudes between 400 and 1,000 m), divided by rough terrain used for livestock grazing. The extent of past human activity in these areas can be established by recording the remains of first and second generation terraces. See Doorn and Bommeljé (1991, 81-97) for a historical-geographical perspective on Aetolia. See Doorn 1993 on the reconstruction of historical settlement and communication; and Doorn 1994 on mapping the historical landscape of Aetolia. Refer to Bommeljé and Doorn 1996 for land routes in Aetolia. 7 See TIB 1 (Koder and Hild 1976) and TIB 3 (Soustal 1981) on the scarcity of sites in Aetolia as indicated by the ‘Thematische Karten’ included in the two relevant volumes of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini. TIB 1 and 3, which together with Setton 1975, Nicol 1984 and Lock 1995 offer the wider historical context for a reconstruction of the Medieval history of Aetolia. 8 See Paliouras 1985 on Byzantine churches in Western Aetolia. For Eastern Aetolia, several monasteries should be added, like the one of Theotokos Varnakovas, known as the Varnakova Monastery. It was founded not far from Navpaktos in 1077, and was enlarged in 1148 (CIG IV.8730, 337). The small monastery of Agia Moni (Koimesis Theotokou) should also be named. Its ruins are now drowned in the new Mornos Lake, but contained a foundation inscription of 1198 (Bommeljé and Doorn 1987, 90, 98). See now Bowden (2003, 106-160) on Early Byzantine church architecture and chronology in Northwestern Greece; see also Bowden this volume. 9 Cf. Vroom 1998; 2000, 245-259; see also Bintliff 1996, 1-18; 2000, 37-63; see Vroom 2005 on the problems of dating Medieval ceramics in Greek lands. 10 Apocaucus no. 1: 241-2 in Vasilievsky, as well as no. 26: 26-7 in Petrides. The Chronicle of Galaxidi (Sathas 1914) also draws a gloomy picture. The chronicle reports that in 1054 the area around Navpaktos had severely suffered from a pestilence (193-195); in 1064 the region was under a ‘barbarian attack’ (by Uzes?; 131, 195); in 1081 the coastal area was threatened by Norman pirates (196), and in 1147 it was raided by Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily (197f;) cf. Nicetas Choniates II, 97-99. While the Chronicle was compiled in the early 18th century only, and its historical value is not entirely clear, the many hardships Medieval Aetolia had suffered seem to have been quite real. The northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth suffered from a Bulgar attack as early as 918 (Migne 1864, 449-452); the region around Navpaktos was so heavily infested with pirates and brigands that a journey to the city was considered an example of bravery (Miller 1908, 9). In 1223, sailing through the straits of Navpaktos was described as ‘a voyage to Acheron’ (Miklosich and Müller 1860, 90, document III, 61 document XIII). In about 1380, Bishop John Boyle of Megara was robbed of no less than 160 golden ducats while travelling through Aetolia (Setton 1975, 165). 11 See Doorn 1989. The Ottoman registers regarding Aetolia (translated for us by Machiel Kiel) provide a clear if complex picture of the habitation history at village level during the 15th and 16th centuries, not matched until the Early Modern censuses had started in the 19th century. For the 20th century the censuses are supplemented by data from our detailed structured interviews held with elderly inhabitants about their pre-war genre de vie. These interviews were conducted in all modern communities (c. 400) within the research region (cf. Doorn 1985, 275291; Doorn 1993, 35-71, and Doorn this volume). 12 Loukoupoulos 1984, see Vroom 1999 on a comparison between aceramic Early Modern Aetolia and Boeotia. 13 Cf. Davis 1991, 131-215. On Ottoman Greece in general see Zarinebaf et al. 2005 and Davies and Davis 2007; both with further literature. 14 Bommeljé and Vroom 1995, see also Vroom 1993. Note that in the mid 6th century AD the ‘Plague of Justinian’ (in fact the first great pandemic of the bubonic plague) probably wiped out a quarter of the population in the Eastern Mediterranean. In addition, during the year 551 the Gulf of Corinth was hit by severe earthquakes as a result of which Navpaktos heavily suffered and surely the other inhabited places in the area (Procop. Goth. 8.25.16f; Io. Mal. 417f.). 15 TIB 3: 81, 83, 210-211, with further literature. In the 4th century Navpaktos belonged to the ecclesiastical Province of Achaea under the Metropolitan bishop of Corinth; by the end of the 9th century Navpaktos

was Metropolis of the Church Province of Old Epirus, now renamed as Nikopolis after the newly founded Theme. Navpaktos is listed at place 35 in the list of Metropoleis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. See also Stavrakos (2007) on Navpaktus. 16 The problem of Slav settlements in Greece is as much discussed as it is obscure; for example cf. Koder (1978) and Weithmann (1978), both with further references. Not only is the archaeological evidence very scanty and hard to interpret, but also the written sources are not very helpful. They are few in number and for the greater part concentrating on events outside Greece, and were mostly written or compiled in later periods with explicit propaganda purposes. The ethnography of the invaders remains often unclear. The texts speak i.e. of Slavs, Antae, Bulgars, Huns, Avars, Cumans, Patzinaks, Getae and Scythians, and even of ‘Serbalbanitobulgarovlachs’ (Epeirotica 2.237). Even the bestknown texts on the Slavic incursions, such as the Miracles of St. Demetrius and the Chronicle of Monemvasia, constitute historical information of which the reliability is just not as certain as is sometimes assumed; contra Weithmann (1978, 33-47). 17 Vasmer (1970) also compiled a list for Eastern Aetolia, noting that it is one of the Greek regions with a relatively very high number of Slavic toponyms; see also Koder (1978, 322-325). Although it seems possible to make a distinction between early and later Slavic names (early Slavic names originate from before the change of the Slavonic language in about the 10th century), it remains questionable whether the survival of early names gives an indication of the existence and of early Slavic settlements. 18 See Bowden this volume. 19 Cf. Paliouras (1985, 197-200) for the church of Mastron, dating it to the 8th or 9th century; while TIB 3 suggest a 7th or 8th century date. These dates are based on architectural arguments only and may be too early. The church stands on a low eminence overlooking the Akheloos River; on this eminence are the remains of an Early Christian basilica. To the southwest of the church, we identified a thin but extensive scatter of Medieval pottery (mostly 12th to 14th century). Interesting enough, a revival of monastic activity in Aetolia during the 11th century is also witnessed by the successful foundations of the brotherhoods of Theotokou tis Navpaktiotissis and of Haghia Maria Navpaktiotissa (Paliouras, 1985, 39). 20 Al-Idrisi 633; II 122 (ed. Jaubert 1936-1940); cf. Philippson and Kirsten 1995, 703. Although Aetolia was a peripheral district in Byzantine times, it was transsected by a rather important road from Nikopolis to Thessaly and the East, leading along the coast of the Corinthian Gulf, and then from Navpaktos through the Mornos valley to Neopatras, or to Salona, Thebes and Athens. The Late Roman itineraries already refer to this route (Tabula Peut. 8; Itin. Ant. 325: 2ff; Geogr. Rav. 4.8; 5.13; Guid. Geogr. 112). The importance of the Mornos River route through Aetolia is still evident in 1260, as Alexios Strategopoulos, general of Nicaea, marched from Neopatras through the Mornos valley towards Navpaktos, only to meet heavy defeat there (see Georg. Pach. 1.89; Palaiologus de vita sua 6) see also TIB 3, 273, 641 and Nicol (1984, 189, 195). 21 Between the years AD 103 and 114, the Province of Epirus was founded, comprising the territories of ancient Acarnania and Epirus. The Akheloos River formed its eastern border with the Province of Achaea, the ancient Aetolian-Acarnanian border (Ptol. 3.15.2; Kahrstedt 1950, 549-561; TIB 3, 47; contra TIB 1, 50). In the 5th century not much had changed; the Synecdemos (‘travel-companion’) of Hierocles, which, although edited around 527/528 probably refers to the previous century (Honigmann 1939). It indicates that the Province of Hellas (the former Roman Province of Achaea), with 79 cities under the capital Corinth, comprised the Peloponnese, Central Greece, and apparently also ancient Aetolia. Navpaktos is listed under the most important cities of Hellas (Hier. 642.12; 644.1). 22 Miklosich and Müller (1860-1890, I, 588); Parthey (1967, III.498, X.604, XIII.455); Gelzer (1890, 1655 = p.75) and Gelzer 1901, II.551, IX.234, 635; see also Abramea 1974, Tables B-C; and TIB 1: 205 with further references. 23 Arethas of Caesarea (scholium to Dio Chrysostemus. Or. 77.4.11) seems to identify Lidoriki as (Thermo Pylae): “That Pylae was situated in the Phocian country; I think it is the place which is now called Loidoriki.”(See Sonny 1896, 128; cf. Abramea 1974, 178). He could possibly also refer to the ‘Pylae’ at the Narrows of Steno directly under the castle of Lidoriki. Arethas travelled in Central Greece in AD 905906. Note that the designation of Eastern Aetolia as part of the territory of the ancient Phocians or Ozolian Locrians, persisted into Early Modern times (see Pouqueville 1820-1821, IV, 44-45). 24 See Herrin (1980) for signs of a developing economy and expanding

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population in Central Greece during the 12th century, as witnessed by the rapid growth of the episcopacy. 25 The Despotate of Epirus emerged when Michael I Doukas Komnenos, a Byzantine official who had initially collaborated with the Latins, proclaimed himself as dux of the ducatus of Nikopolis and surrounding provinces. He succeeded in gaining control over ‘Aitolia and the lands bordering on Nikopolis, as well as the region extending toward Epidamnos’ (Nic. Greg.: 638, 43-5). Although Western Greece was allotted to the Venetians, they allowed Michael to establish his power in his new capital Arta without much interference. Between 1217 and 1230 ‘Akarnania and Aetolia’ were ruled by his brother Konstantinos. It is said that ‘large numbers of Greeks came across into Aetolia from the Morea, many of them members of the aristocracy’ (Dem. Chom. Analecta Sacra: 490-494; Nicol 1984, 16). From 1218 onward Michael’s successor Theodoros I conquered parts of Thessaly and the Sperkheios valley. By 1250 this part of the Despotate became the independent Duchy of Neopatras. 26 During the 14th century, Western Aetolia witnessed a series of clashes with Neopatras, mounting Byzantine pressure and growing Angevin involvement. In 1348 the Serbs under Stephan Dushan (1331-1355) conquered large parts of Northern Greece, facilitating the further penetration of Albanians and Vlachs into the Aetolian mountains. Dushan appointed his half-brother Symeon Urosh as ‘Despot of Aetolia’, but in 1358/1359 the region around the Akheloos River fell into the hands of the Albanians after they had defeated an army under Nikephoros, the last heir to the Despotate of Epiros (Chron. Ioan. 3ff; Cantac. 4.43.3; TIB 3: 70; Nicol, 1984, 136). In 1367 Akarnania and West Aetolia came under the rule of the Albanian tribes under Gjin Boua Spata (John the Sword) and Piotr Losha (Peter the Pockmark). The Serbian ruler Urosh was now forced to abandon ‘the whole of Aetolia’ to the Albanians. Navpaktos fell briefly into their hands in 1361, and was definitively conquered around 1380 (TIB 3: 210-211; Nicol 1984, 148). The situation became even more confused in the early 15th century. In 1407 Navpaktos was captured by the Venetians who wanted to protect their commercial interests in the Corinthian Gulf against the Ottomans. Some years earlier, Carlo I Tocco (1381-1429), the Florentine ruler over Kephallenia and Zakynthos, had tried to re-establish the Despotate of Epiros (Nicol, 1984, 197f). From Epirus he marched against the Albanian leader Bona Sgouros who held Aetolia in 1405. After the Tocco family had secured its domination around 1418, even more Albanians came southwards (see TIB 3, 71-73 with references). 27 See Bommeljé and Doorn (1987) for a general description of these fortifications; specifically on Kallion-Lidoriki see Bommeljé and Doorn 1987, 84-85, for Sikea see 1987, 108; and for Tolophon-Vitrinitsa see 1987, 109-110. 28 Shortly before his death, S.C. Bakhuizen completed a detailed description and discussion of the Medieval castle of Lidoriki, which remained unpublished to this day. See also Bakhuizen 1994; 1989, 3-6; 1991, 13-15; 1992. 29 See Vroom 1993. 30 In recent years the Ephorate of Antiquities at Delphi has carried out excavations and cleaning of the remains of the Medieval coastal tower in Erateini (Vitrinitsa). 31 Until now this site was only known as an ancient fortified settlement, thus it is not included in TIB 1 or TIB 3. 32 The many Pre-Medieval finds on this site range from Late Bronze Age to Early Roman, see Bommeljé and Doorn 1987, 108 (for Sikea); in earlier literature the site is apparently also know as ‘Gla’ and ‘Palaiokastro of Koniakos’, cf. Woodhouse (1897, 371) and Philippson and Kirsten (1955, 583, no.51). 33 For the roots of the traditional ‘Frankish’ view of Vitrinitsa see Lognon (1911, cx-cxii), and also TIB 1, 135-136. 34 Rubió i Lluch, 1913-14, 468, note 1. 35 ‘Marino Sanudo Torsello, Istoria del regno di Romania’, in Hopf (1873, 99-174, chron. 107); the text was written in 1330, but refers to the situation of c. 1259; for the identification of ‘Odrich’ as Lidoriki see Hopf 1873. The second text is by Nicephoros Gregoras, written c. 1351, however describing the situation just before 1268 (Nic.Greg. IV, 9; cf. van Dieten ed. (1973, 119-120, 251-252, note 201). 36 The Chronicle of Galaxidi reports that in the course of the 13th century the inhabitants of Lidoriki came several times to the assistance of their rulers in Neopatras against the Franks of Salona (209f; 213f), cf. endnote 10 above. Although Euthymios, the monk who compiled the Chronicle in 1703 assures his readers that his work is based on old manuscripts and imperial chrysobulls from the Monastery of Christ the

Saviour in Galaxidi, this does not mean that his text is to be taken as an unproblematic and accurate historical account. However, this seems to be the case in Rosser 1996, 139-145. 37 The forces from Neopatras must have marched by way of the Mornos valley and Lidoriki. 38 See Nicol (1984, 48-49, 65, 66). This particular interest in their southern belongings was probably linked to the production of silk. Already in the 12th century, silk production was known in Central Greece, and was especially important in Thebes (Herrin 1980, 136f). It is known that the rulers of Neopatras exported silk to Sicily, cf. Lock (1995, 99); both Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa were centres of silk-production in Ottoman times. 39 See Lognon (1911, 889-891). 40 See Lock (1995, 95-104); the Duke of Athens had even accepted the title ‘Lord of Vlachia’. 41 Chronicle of Galaxidi, 134, 196-168, 201. 42 The documents can be found in Rubió i Lluch (1947); see also Loenertz (1978). The first text is document 129 in Rubió i Lluch, (1947, 159-161) (‘... quod Catellani, qui dominantur ibidem, acquisiverunt et tenent in Blachia, Lapater, et castra Lodorichi, et Sidero-Castri, Gitonis, Gardichie, Donchie et Ferselle ...’ or ‘… that the Catalans, who became rulers there, acquired and hold in Vlachia, Neapatras, and the castles of Lidoriki and Siderokastro, Zetuni (Lamia), Gardiki, Domokos, and Pharsalos…’). The second text was written in 1327: ‘... Cathelani tenent Patram que quidem est archiepiscopatus, et caput Blachie, et Lodorich castrum cum contrata, et Ferxelam, et Domocho cum contrata ...’ see Cerlini (1940, 321-359) on Marino Sanudo’s letters, though is commentaries are to be taken with caution. 43 The ‘contrata’ which went with the castle of Domokos extended all the way to Almyro, some 50 km to the East (cf. Cerlini 1940). 44 Document 223 in Rubió i Lluch (1947, 298-299), written by King Frederic III of Sicily in 1355. 45 Between 1350 and 1355 Alfonso’s eldest son, Peter Fadrique, was forced to give back the domains of Salona and Lidoriki to the Duchy of Neopatras. At his death, however, his brother Jacob regained the castles of Salona, Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa. The vicar-general Peter of Pou robbed him of these domains, which Jacob received back only after paying a sum of money. Jacob Fadrique died before 1366. Thereafter his brother John obtained the castles of Salona and Lidoriki, but he had also died in 1366. Then Salona, Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa came into the hands of yet another brother, Bonifatius. In 1380 Salona was still the domain of the Fadrique family, Louis now being in charge. After his death in 1382 his daughter Mary took responsibility; however, in 1394 she acknowledged the suzerainty of Bayezid I. 46 Document 272 in Rubió i Lluch (1947, 356-357), written by King Frederic III of Sicily to Bonifatius Fadrique of Aragon, concerning the three castles which had been taken in 1361 by the then vicar-general Pere de Pou: ‘...castra eorum scilicet Sole, Lidolichi et Vitranize, posita in dictis ducatibus...’. And the documents 300 and 304, letters from King Frederic dated 1362 in which mention is made of a ‘castellanus castri nostri Veteranisse’, who grew ‘victualia’ in the ‘territorio Veteranisse’. Cf. Nicol (1984, 142) and for the traditional (and untenable) interpretation of the sources see for instance Loenertz (1955, esp. 109 ad regestae 8 and 9). The importance of Vitrinitsa as a fortified harbour is underlined by its frequent changing hands between Venetians, Ottomans and the Greeks of the Morea during the early years of the 15th century. 47 On the Ottoman history of the District of Vitrinitsa see Kiel (2004, 219 – 237). 48 TIB 3: 70ff. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abramea, A.P., 1974, I Vyzantini Thessalia mekhri tou 1204, Athens: University of Athens. Alcock, S., 1993, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Antonetti, C., 1990, Les Étoliens; Image et Religion, Annales littéraires de l'Université de Besançon 405, Paris. Bakhuizen, S.C., 1989, ‘Velouchovo-Kallipolis 1988: A Field Report’, Newsletter of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 2, 3-6. 10

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Bakhuizen, S.C., 1991, ‘Velouchovo 1991: A Field Report’, Newsletter of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 4, 13-15. Bakhuizen, S.C., 1992, ‘The Town Wall of Aitolian Kallipolis’, in S. Van de Maele and J.M. Fossey (eds), Fortificationes Antiquae, Amsterdam: Gieben, 171-184. Bakhuizen, S.C., 1994, ‘Velouchovo-Kallipolis 1993’, Pharos. Journal of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 2, 21-29. Bintliff, J., 1996, ‘The Frankish countryside in Central Greece: the evidence from archaeological field survey’, in P. Lock and G. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 1-18. Bintliff, J. 2000, ‘Reconstructing the Byzantine countryside: New approaches from landscape archaeology’, in K. Belke et al. (eds), Byzanz als Raum: Zu Methoden und Inhalten der historischen Geographie des östlichen Mittelmeerraumes, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 7, Vienna, 37-63. Bintliff, J. and Howard, P., 2004, ‘A Radical rethink on approaches to surface survey and the rural landscape of Central Greece in Roman times’, in F. Kolb and E. Müller-Luckner (eds), Chora and Polis, München: R. Oldenburg Verlag, 43-78. Bommeljé, S., 1981-1988, ‘Strouza (Aigition), Aetolia’, Archaiologikon Deltion Chronika 36, 236-248. Bommeljé, S., 1988a, ‘Aetolian Studies Project’, Newsletter of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 1, 3-23. Bommeljé, S., 1988b, ‘Aeolis in Aetolia. Thuk. III.102.5 and the Origins of the Aetolian ethnos’, Historia 37 (1988), 297-316. Bommeljé, S., 1990, ‘Aetolian Studies Project: Research in the nomos Evrytania, 1987-1990’, Newsletter of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 3, 77-86. Bommeljé, S. and Doorn, P.K. (eds), 1987, Aetolia and the Aetolians: Towards the Interdisciplinary Study of a Greek Region, Utrecht: Parnassus Press. Bommeljé, S. and Vroom, J., 1995, ‘Deserted and untilled lands: Aetolia in Roman times’, Pharos. Journal of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 3, 67-130. Bommeljé, Y. and Doorn, P., 1996, ‘The long and winding road: land routes in Aetolia (Greece),’ in H. Kamermans and K. Fennema (eds), Interfacing the past: Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 28, 2 Vols, Leiden, 343-351. Bowden, W., 2003, Epirus Vetus: The Archaeology of a Late Antique Province, London: Duckworth. Cerlini, A., 1940, ‘Nuove lettere di Marino Sanudo il vecchio’, La Bibliophilia 42, 321-359. Davis, J. L., 1991, ‘Contributions to a Mediterranean rural archaeology: Historical case studies from

the Ottoman Cyclades’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 4.2, 131-215. Davies, S. and Davis, J.L. (eds), 2007, Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Diller, A., 1970, ‘Lists of old and new geographical names’, Byzantinische Zeitung 63, 27-42. Doorn, P.K., 1985, ‘Geographical analysis of early modern data in ancient historical research: the example of the Strouza Region Project in Central Greece’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 10:3, 275-291. Doorn, P.K., 1989, ‘Population and Settlements in Central Greece: Computer Analysis of Ottoman Registers of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries’, in P. Denley, S. Fogelvik and C. Harvey (eds), History and Computing II, Manchester, 193-208. Doorn, P.K., 1993, ‘Geographical location and interaction models, and the reconstruction of historical settlements and communication: the example of Aetolia, Central Greece’, Historical Social Research 18, 3, 35-71. Doorn, P.K., 1994, ‘Mapping the history of Aetolia, Central Greece: eight problems of coordinate files’, paper presented at AHC-workshop ‘Coordinates for historical maps’, Florence, 1314 May 1994; also published in: M. Goerke (ed.), Coordinates for Historical Maps, St. Katharinen, Halbgraue Reihe zur historischen Fachinformatik A25, 49-67. Doorn, P.K. and Bommeljé, S., 1991, ‘Transhumance in Aetolia, Central Greece: a mountain economy couaght between storage and mobility’, in R. Maggi (ed.) Archeologia della pastorizia nell’Europa Meridionale, Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguria, Bordighera, 81-97. Funke, P. 2004, ‘Aetolia’, in M.H. Hansen and T.H. Nielsen (eds), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 379-390. Gelzer, H., 1890, Georgii Cyprii descriptio Orbis Romani, Leipzig: Eger. Gelzer, H., 1901, ‘Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum: ein Beitrag zur byzantinischen Kirchen- und verwaltungsgeschichte’, Abhandlungen der Bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaften, I Cl.21/3, München, 531-546. Grainger, J.D., 1999, The League of the Aitolians, Mnemosyne Supplement 204, Leiden: Brill. Herrin, J., 1980, ‘The ecclesiastical organisation of central Greece at the time of Michael Choniates: new evidence from the Codex Atheniensis 1371’, in Actes du XVe congrès international d’études byzantines, Athènes sept. 1976, Athens, 131-137.

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Parthey, G., 1967 (2nd edition) [1866], Hieroclis Synecdemus et Notitiae Graecae episcopatuum. Accedunt Nili Doxopatrii Notitia patriarchatuum et locorum nomina immutata, Berlin, reprinted in Amsterdam (1967). Petrides, S., 1909, ‘Jean Apokaukos, lettres et autres document inédits’, Transactions of the Russian Archaeological Institute at Constantinople XIV (2-3), 1-32. Philippson, A. and Kirsten, E., 1955, Die griechischen Landschaften. Eine Landeskunde: Der Nordwesten der griechischen Halbinsel, Vol. II, Frankfurt: Klostermann. Pouqueville, F.C.H.L., 1820-21, Voyage dans la Grèce, 5 Vols, Paris. Rosser, J., 1996, ‘Byzantine “Isles of Refuge” in the Chronicle of Galaxeidi’, in P. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 139-145. Rubió i Lluch, A., 1913-14, ‘La Grecia catalana des de la mort de Roger de Lluria fins a la de Frederic III de Sicilia (1370-1377)’, Anuari de l’Institut d’estudis catalans 5, 393-485. Rubió i Lluch, A., 1947, Diplomatari de l’Orient Català (1301-1409), Collecció de documents per a la història de l’expedició catalana a Orient i dels ducats d’Atenes i Neopàtria, Barcelona: Institut d'estudis Catalans. Sathas, C., 1914 (2nd edition) [1865], Chronicle of Galaxidi, Athens: Kassendreus. Setton, K.M., 1975 (2nd edition) [1948], Catalan Domination of Athens, 1311-1388, London: Variorum. Scholten, J. B., 2000, The Politics of Plunder; Aetolians and their ‘Koinon’ in the Early Hellenistic Era 279-217 B.C., Berkeley: University of California Press. Sonny, A., 1896, Ad Dionem Chrysostomum Analecta, Kiev: Zavadzkian. Soustal, P., and Koder, J., 1981, Nikopolis und Kephallenia, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 3, Wien. Stavrakos, C., 2007, Die Stadt Naupaktos als Hauptstadt des Themas Nikopolis: Neues über ihre Rolle in der Küstenregion des Ionischen Meeres’, in K. L. Zachos (ed.), Nicopolis B; Proceedings of the Second International Nicopolis Symposium (1115 September 2002), Preveza: Actia Nicopolis Foundation. TIB 1 = Tabula Imperii Byzantini 1, see Koder and Hild 1976. TIB 3 = Tabula Imperii Byzantini 3, see Soustal and Koder 1981. Van Dieten, J.L., (ed.), 1973, Nikephoros Gregoras, Rhomäische Geschichte I, Stuttgart: A. Hirsemann. Vasilievsky, V.G., 1896, ‘Epirotica saeculi XIII’, Vizantiysky Vrymennik III, 233-299. Vasmer, M., 1970 (reprinted) [1941], ‘Die Slaven in Griechenland’, Abhandlungen der Preussischen. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-

Honigmann, E., 1939, Le Synekdèmos d'Hiéroklès et l'opuscule géographique de Georges de Chypre, Bruxelles: Editions de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves. Hopf, K. (ed.), 1873, Chroniques gréco-romanes inédits ou peu connues, Berlin: Weidmann. Jaubert, P.A. (ed.), 1836-1840, Géographie d’Édrisi, Paris: Impr. Royale. Kahrstedt, U., 1950, ‘Die Territorien von Patrai und Nikopolis in der Kaiserzeit’, Historia 1, 549-561. Kiel, M., 2004, ‘The Central Greek District of Vitrinitsa (Tolophon) and the North Anatolian Town of Amasya in the 15th -17th Centuries According to Unknown and Rarely-Used Ottoman Turkish Sources’, Anatolica 30, 219-237. Koder, J., 1978, ‘Zur Frage der slavischen Siedlungsgebiete im mitteralterlichen Griechenland’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 71, 315-331. Koder, J. and Hild, F., 1976, Hellas und Thessalia, Tabula Imperii Byzantium 1, Wien. Lock, P., 1995, The Franks in the Aegean, 1204-1500, London: Longman. Lock, P., and Sanders, G.D.R. (eds), 1996, The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford. Loenertz, R.-J., 1955, ‘Athènes et Néopatras. Regestes et documents pour servir à l’histoire ecclèsiastique des duchés catalans (1311-1395)’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 25, 100-212. Loenertz, R.-J., 1973, ‘Aux origines du Despotat d Épire et de la principauté d Achaïe’, Byzantion 43, 369-370. Loenertz, R.-J., 1978, ‘Les Fadrique et leurs fiefs’, in R.J. Loenertz, Byzantina et Franco-Graeca: Articles choisis parus de 1936 à 1969 republiés avec la collaboration de P.M. de Contenson, Enrica Follieri et Peter Schreiner, II, Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 234-265 Lognon, J. (ed.), 1911, Livre de la Conqueste de la princée de l’Amorée; Chronique de Morée, 1204 à 1305, Paris: Renouard. Loukoupoulos, D., 1984 (2nd edition) [1925], Aitolika oikiseis, skevi kai trophai, Athens: Dodoni (reprint). Migne, J.P. (ed.), 1864, ‘Vita S. Lucae minoris’, in J.P. Migne (ed.), Patrologaiae cursus completus, Series Graecae 111, Paris. Miklosich, F. and Müller, J., 1860-1890, Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana, 6 vols., Wien: Vindobonae. Miller, W., 1908, The Latins in the Levant: A History of Frankish Greece (1204-1556), London: John Murray. Nicol, D.M., 1984 (2nd edition) [1957], The Despotate of Epiros, 1267-1479, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paliouras, A.D. 1985, Vyzantini Aitoloakaranania. Symvoli sti Vyzantini kai Metavyzantini mnimeiaki tekhni, Athens: Arsinoe.

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Historische Klasse 1941/12, Berlin, (reprinted Leipzig 1970). Vroom, J., 1993, ‘The Kastro of Veloukhovo (Kallion): a note on the surface finds’, Pharos, Journal of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 1, 113-138. Vroom, J., 1998, ‘Medieval and Post-Medieval pottery from a site in Boeotia: a case study example of Post-Classical archaeology in Greece’, Annual of the British School at Athens 93, 513-546. Vroom, J., 1999, ‘Early Modern Archaeology in Central Greece: the contrast of artefact-rich and sherdless sites’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 11.2, 3-36. Vroom, J., 2000, ‘Piecing together the past: survey pottery and deserted settlements in Medieval Boeotia (Greece), in Belke et al. (eds), Byzanz als Raum. Zu Methoden und Inhalten der historischen Geographie des östlichen Mittelmeeraumes, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 7, Vienna.

Vroom, J., 2005, Byzantine to Modern Pottery in the Aegean: An Introduction and Field Guide, Utrecht: Parnassus Press. Woodhouse, C., 1897, Aetolia: Its Geography, Topography and Antiquities, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Weithmann, M.W., 1978, Die slavische Bevölkerung auf der griechischen Halbinsel. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Ethnographie Südosteuropas, Beiträge zur Kenntnis Südosteuropas und des Nahen Orients 31, München. Zarinebaf, F., Bennet, J. and Davis, J.L. et al., 2005, A Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece: the Southwestern Morea in the 18th Century, Hesperia Supplement 34, Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Sebastiaan Bommeljé Aetolian Studies Project Email: [email protected]

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1.2 Byzantine and Ottoman Maritime Traffic in the Estuary of the Strymon: Between Environment, State, and Market Archibald Dunn Survey Project (see also Atherden and Hall in this volume) hopes to be able to justify. The role of historical and archaeological materials of the Ottoman era within a ‘multi-period’ approach to structures and trends within Byzantine regional economic history also proves to be particularly valuable.

REGIONALISING BYZANTINE ECONOMIC HISTORY: THE INTERDISCIPLINARY ROUTE

While for Byzantine Eastern Macedonia, alone of the regions of mainland Greece (I do not speak about insular Greece), it has become possible to move, on the basis of documents, towards some accounts of the scale of agricultural production in its variety at the level of the village (Kondov 1965, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977; Laiou 1977; Lefort 2006, I-IV, V-IX), progress towards complementary accounts of the scale of exchange and redistribution of products at any level (household, community, region) remains limited and of course very challenging. The better-documented and naturally important themes of landownership, taxation, and rent in Macedonia have received much more attention (Nesbitt 1972; Laiou 1977, 2002a; Lefort 2006). But without studies of the range of economic pathways taken by agricultural surplusses (Smyrlis 2006), and other primary products (Dunn 1992, 2007), without studies of their movements, whether under fiscal, commercial, and/or manorial control, and their commodification and sale, then the complex and dynamic roles of economic relations in particular, and of states, elites and markets in general, in the development of Byzantine settlements, communities, and regions, is hobbled. Of course there are useful studies of trade which refer to the Medieval Greek mainland – one thinks particularly of the works of Jacoby (1979, 1997, 2001), and of Thiriet (1977, 1959-1975) and his successors for the Medieval Venetian dominions (mostly insular) of the works of Laiou (2002b, 2002c), and Harvey (1989) for the Byzantine world in general, and of Zakythinos for the Peloponnese (Zakythinos 19321953). But these authors tend not to discuss the extent of redistribution of surplusses by the state; and instead most discuss landowners’ and farmers’ engagements with markets in terms of what the geographically Greek references may contribute to broader generalizations about the Byzantine world (which is of course a valid choice). The historical problems of local and regional aspects of redistribution and exchange need therefore to be considered, though within as broad a framework as possible, to rectify an imbalance in the study of the economy and society of the Byzantine Greek mainland. The response to this problem of Byzantine regional economic history will vary of course, but needs now to exploit the archaeologies of settlement and landscape, historical topography, and in general the ‘multi-period’ approach, at the centres, putative or proven (but in either case archivally poor), of redistribution and exchange. This is a mode of response which the Strymon Delta

It is possible to identify, particularly around the Greek coastline, definite or probable sites of exchange and redistribution, something of whose historical characteristics can be posited on the basis of a variety of written sources, many of them Western or PostByzantine. But to supplement these sources (meagre even for the largest settlements), and to test some of their implications, we must explore the interdisciplinary approach. The kind of project devised obviously reflects specific evidence and problems. The project partially presented here, concerning settlements and installations around the mouth of the river Strymon in Eastern Macedonia, was a response to one such set of circumstances, which have been discussed elsewhere in detail by the project's initiators, Richard Catling (Oxford), the undersigned (Birmingham), Khaido Koukouli-Khrysanthaki (18th Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities), Stavroula Samartzidou (2lstEphoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities), and members of the Greek Centre for Marine Research (Koukouli-Khrysanthaki et al. 1996). This Anglo-Greek project sought, successfully, to confirm by survey of exposed but ‘undisturbed’ areas around the mouth of the Strymon, the locations and chronologies of the historically recorded ‘predecessor’ (Eion: Fig. 1, Site 2) and Medieval ‘successor’ (Khrysoupolis: Fig. 1, Site 1) of Amphipolis, the rivermouth’s principal Classical-to-Early Byzantine settlement, whose position (see Fig. 1, Site 11) was long ago recognised (Lazaridis 1972; Papazoglou 1988, 392-397). It also sought to explore the physical environment of this sequence of urban centres, especially the conditions for maritime traffic and riverine settlement as they may have evolved throughout the Proto-Historic and Historical eras. There were already historical and topographical indications that the configurations of the shoreline and riverbed had changed since the Proto-Historic-toClassical eras when Amphipolis’ predecessor Eion, at the southeastern corner of the present estuarine plain, was occupied. All forms of fieldwork, archaeological, topographical, and environmental, obviously concerned the physical conditions of redistribution and exchange rather 15

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both), the surveying techniques required by our questions about the ancient and Medieval eras demanded that the topography, archaeology, and environment of the rivermouth be sampled and recorded without bias. In fact, as we shall see, the patchily published Post-Byzantine and Ottoman sources concerning the Strymon ‘Delta’ raise interesting questions, not only about the rise and fall of cities and ports around the river-mouth, but also about that elusive range and scale of redistribution and exchange for mainland regions mentioned above. So despite, or perhaps because of, the destruction of nearly all the most relevant archives, commercial, fiscal, and manorial, of the Byzantine (or Frankish) mainland, and the state of publication, or obscurity, of true commercial archives (as opposed to fiscal archives) for the mainland in the Ottoman era, the problems of Medieval and PostMedieval redistribution and exchange on the Greek mainland prove to be worth exploring within the framework of the now familiar ‘multi-period’ interdisciplinary survey. The approach is therefore the same as that adopted towards the problems of the Protohistoric and Greco-Roman eras (KoukouliKhrysanthaki et al. 1996). In view of the general questions and problems of research identified above, data from the Anglo-Greek survey will serve here as a review of: the problems of the historical topography of the estuary of the river Strymon, hence the problems of the loci of maritime traffic in Medieval to Early Modern times; and an exploration of the problem of the long-term historical nature of this traffic.

than outcomes (i.e., range and scale of economic activities). But the fieldwork also concerned the chronology and relative importance of the loci of maritime traffic where exchange and redistribution occurred. Information might be obtained under all these headings, which is risky or impossible to extract or infer from texts. Finally, interpreting the relationship between changing physical conditions and the topography, chronology, and relative importance of loci of maritime traffic presupposes a model of historical conditions, for present purposes essentially long-term political, administrative, and economic conditions, in their regional aspects. The interdisciplinary form of survey which was devised, reflected the value of a ‘multi-period’ approach to the problems of each cultural era, and the desirability of assessing all available historical and topographical evidence for the changing physical conditions of redistribution and exchange by modelling the environmental history of the ‘Delta’ (more correctly ‘estuary’ or ‘estuarine plain’) using palynology and sedimentology. Investigating the Post-Byzantine or Ottoman era became on this basis integral to the project. The Ottoman era could be studied for itself, like other eras from the Prehistoric to Byzantine, but also to see whether, as expected, the Post-Byzantine or Ottoman heritages, in some ways the best documented textually, and quite significant archaeologically, could illuminate aspects of the preceding era. Also, whether as ‘rescuearchaeology’ or as problem-oriented research (it was

Fig.1 - The Strymon Delta Survey: sites in relation to pre-modern topography (© A.W.Dunn)

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Fig. 2 - The walls of Khrysoupolis in relation to the Lakkovikeia Cone (© G.D.R.Sanders)

Ophryni has been burying the 14th century outer wall of Site 1 (Khrysoupolis), therefore also any features between this and Site 2 (Eion). At least 2 meters of deposits have accumulated against Khrysoupolis’ outer wall since its destruction in, probably, the 1380s by the Ottomans (Dunn 1988), and the Lakkovikeia-Cone has obviously affected the archaeology of the edges of two important physical features, now wetlands, north and south of the site of Khrysoupolis (Figs 1 and 2). These two sets of factors do not, as shall be shown, restrict discussion of the Late Byzantine and Post-Byzantine periods to the eastern river channel. There are, for instance, 13th/14th century archival references and 16th 20th century cartographic sources for the disturbed western channel. But for the Late Roman-to-Early Byzantine period there are no such means of circumventing the restrictions placed by the first set of factors upon the discussion of loci and physical conditions of maritime traffic.

LOCATING, IDENTIFYING, AND EXPLAINING THE LATE ROMAN AND BYZANTINE SEQUENCE OF LOCI OF MARITIME TRAFFIC

The historico-topographical problems of the Medieval era, here the Byzantine-to-Early Ottoman era (7th to 16th centuries), and preliminary conclusions about them, have already been outlined in some detail (Dunn 1998a, 1999). The problems of the 16th to 19th centuries have only been briefly mentioned so far, though. But to integrate the Ottoman era (or most of it) into the discussion it is necessary to summarise the project's research into the Medieval, and indeed Late Roman (or Early Byzantine) topography of the Strymon Delta. Firstly, two factors which affect reconstructions of human occupation of the estuarine (deltaic) plain throughout its Pre-Modern configurations must be mentioned, the first of which affects our understanding of all eras, while the impact of the second decreases in significance, although remaining active, as one approaches the Present. The first is the drastic disturbance of the surface and land-forms on the western side of the Delta in the 1930s by the recutting of the western channel of the river, and excavation of a small harbour (officially called ‘The Harbour of Amphipolis’), and the widespread burial under upcast of original surfaces (which our project however delineated using aerial photographs from 19441945). The second factor is the burial of features on the eastern and northern sides of the deltaic plain by five colluvial cones. The one descending from Lakkovikeia/

There is a total absence of Late Roman-to-Early Byzantine historical references to the Delta. But a juxtaposition of the results of the intensive survey of the entire remaining ‘natural’ surface with the linked analyses of sediments, pollen, and C14 traces, from cores extracted in areas undisturbed by the works of the 1930s, suggests that the eastern side of the Delta contained in the Late Roman-to-Early Byzantine period at least one new locus of maritime traffic while the northern end of the Delta was ceasing to be accessible to maritime traffic (Atherden and Hall this volume). In this period, by the 17

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conditions pertained, and historical conditions presuppose one (probably at Site 1). The archbishopric of Serres is attested by surviving documentary seals of the 7th and, I would argue, 8th centuries (Zacos and Veglery 1972, Vol. I/1 no. 1046, and Vol. I/2, no. 1914), whereas the new Byzantine administrative unit, the Arkhonteia Stromonos (i.e. ‘of the Strymon’), is attested by seals from the early 9th century onwards (Nesbitt and Oikonomides 1991, nos. 37, 1-8). It is at present impossible to examine the archaeology of either the Late Roman-to-Early Byzantine Delta or of the Dark-Age Delta within a regional framework that would address questions concerning the range and scale of traffic or the nature (commercial, fiscal, and private non-commercial) of the traffic (Dunn 1993). The regional input to such a debate will eventually be archaeological, but even the potential wider framework is currently the subject of considerable if not fundamental disagreements (Dunn 1993; Durliat 1998; Oikonomides 2002; Dunn 2005).

eastern channel (deliberately cut off since the 1930s) were a number of small installations, not villages, from which Late Roman fine wares seem absent (at Sites 4, 5, 7, and 8, Fig. 1), and one area of uncertain dimensions on the north side of Site 1, likewise characterised by plain and coarse wares, by the lagoon which was, on the basis of C14-linked pollen-analyses, a small marine embayment in Late Antiquity (Atherden and Hall this volume). At the northern end of the Delta, below Amphipolis, also in this period a great weir was built of spolia from the pagan public buildings and cemeteries of that city (Bakalakis 1974). Fourth century imperial restorations of the Via Egnatia (Collart 1976; Khatzopoulos and Gounaropoulou 1985) are the probable circumstances of its construction. Crossing the Strymon just to the South of Amphipolis, it would have had the effect of defining the point which maritime traffic could reach (Fig. 1, east of Site 15). Its precise position went unrecorded when dismantled (Bakalakis, pers. comm.). Immediately to the East of it, in the same period, the parallel series of pollen-samples and C14 samples indicate that the area was in transition from a marine environment to a saltmarsh (Atherden, Hall this volume). One can therefore detect at the northern and southern ends of the Delta changing physical conditions, changing loci of maritime traffic, and the connections between them, during Late Antiquity. The appearance of the earliest recorded sites in the centre of the Delta, the Late Roman-to-Early Byzantine phases of Sites 7 and 8, indicates the stabilisation of dry land and the formation of a riverbed there. This change fits well with the disappearance of marine estuarine conditions nearer to Amphipolis in this era, and with the appearance of the low-status settlement by a then-marine embayment at Site 1. This does not exclude the possibility of a lost emporium on the western side of the Delta (necessarily below the Late Roman weir), but the ascendancy, in the medium term, of the eastern side of the Delta is indicated by the major developments at Site 1 in the Middle Byzantine era (i.e. at Khrysoupolis).

The subsequent ascendancy of Site 1 on the eastern side of the Delta, both as successor of Amphipolis, as urban centre and as successor of the Delta’s earlier loci of maritime traffic, is confirmed by the Middle Byzantine abandonment of the acropolis of Amphipolis; by the fortifications and diagnostic 10th century and later pottery of Site 1; and by its identification, now demonstrated clearly, with the kastron of Khrysoupolis, which, in the sources of the 10th to 14th centuries, has the features of a fortified town and port, including a skala, (a site of maritime or riverine traffic), where maritime taxes were levied (Dunn 1999, 406-407). The Late Roman to Early Byzantine phase of Site 1 is situated on the south side of a lagoon. The walls of its Medieval successor clearly respect this ‘waterbody’ where almost certainly the ‘skala of Khrysoupolis’ (of the sources), operated. By the 14th century however it can be shown historically (Dunn 1998a, 342-343) that there was another skala, the ‘skala of the river’ (Skala tou Potamou) or ‘skala of the rafts’ (Skala tôn Skhediôn), operating to the west of Khrysoupolis on the terrain of the now vanished village of Khantax/ Khantaka(s) (Fig. 3).

Before these developments however comes the Byzantine ‘Dark Age’. The recognisable ceramic types of this era have not been detected in the deltaic plain between the sites of the Delta’s successive urban centres (Sites 2, 1, and 11). But this does not mean that we are dealing, around the Delta, with that ‘discontinuity’ which all archaeologists used to ‘find’ in the seventh to ninth or tenth centuries (Dunn 1998a). Firstly, much of Site 1 is inaccessible to surface-collection. Secondly, on the basis of new epigraphic evidence, Amphipolis (Site 11) was not abandoned before the 8th century, although in decline since the mid 6th century (Bakirtzis 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994; Doukata-Demertzi and Kommatas 1998, nos. 12 A-B, Pl. 15-16). Thirdly, a diagnostically Dark-Age decorated body-sherd from a storage-jar was found on Site 2 (ancient Eion). Thus low-level Dark-Age occupation is assured at the sites of the Delta’s three successive urban centres (two of which, 2 and 11, already offered some security). Though a Dark-Age locus of maritime traffic has not yet been identified, the physical

Crucially the palynology and C14-readings of the lagoon of Khrysoupolis show that by this time its transformation from marine environment to saltmarsh had begun (Atherden and Hall this volume). Moreover by the early 20th century, as maps (British Royal Engineers 19161919), aerial photographs (Ministry of Co-ordination, Greece 1919 onwards), and drawings (WentworthBennett 1916-1918) show, it was at least seasonally dry (its modern lagoonal status being due to the re-entry of the sea after the eastern channel of the river was deliberately disconnected from a re-oriented main channel in the 1930s). Clearly, by means of rafts, goods could be shipped over the Late Roman spolia-built weir, which it can be argued was the ‘Ford of Marmarion’ of Middle-to-Late Byzantine documents (Dunn 1999, 411-412), Marmarion being the name of a village and monastic estate (Fig. 3), 18

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causis piraticis contra Graecos (Tafel and Thomas 1856-57, 207). And two loci (skalai) were clearly in existence by the 14th century (for which see above). The explanation of this doubling may be that the natural harbour of Khrysoupolis was silting up, although there might long have been emporia, or at least centres of redistribution, on each channel once the two-channel configuration had emerged (a configuration that probably pertained by the Late Roman period, on the basis of the chronology and situations of Sites 7 and 8).

which developed on the site of Amphipolis (Papangelos 1990). The goods then entered the western channel, which still appears on the first scientific maps of the Delta, of 1916-1919 (although by this time it was disconnected and silted up, see Figs. 1 and 5).

Individual loci of maritime traffic were shifting in response to environmental change, and gaining or losing in importance in response also to politico-administrative and economic changes. In the Post-Byzantine era the locus of traffic on the eastern side, which moved away from Khrysoupolis, was clearly less important than that of the Delta’s western side (see below). But there is no reason to believe that the environment of the Delta as a whole impeded Medieval or Post-Medieval maritime traffic. There is indeed no reference to a built harbour, only to skalai, whose Byzantine connotations did not include permanent infrastructure. But rafts solved the problem of communications with the interior, as on the other great rivers of the southern Balkans (Dunn 1998a, 348). And the Post-Byzantine sources show that some merchant vessels, presumably the smallest, were beached, some still entered the western channel as far as ‘Marmara’ (i.e. the weir and ford of Marmarion: see Fig. 1) in the 16th century, while others, the largest obviously, used lighters to make contact with the skalai (for which see below).

Fig. 3 - Terrains of Middle and Late Byzantine settlements in relation to modern topography (© A.W.Dunn)

This outline of the evolution of Late Roman, Byzantine, and 16th century loci of traffic indicates almost certainly the continuity of their functioning in the Strymon Delta. This near-continuity partly reflects the Delta’s inescapable function as gateway between the Aegean and the vast Strymon valley and its surroundings (Fig. 4), traditionally rich in the resources of agriculture, wetlands, herding, and mining (Geyer 1986, 3-48, 99-116), and as crossroads between routes running northwards into the Balkans and the Via Egnatia and its Byzantine successor (a vasilikos dromos, an imperial road) running east-west. The relative importance of the Delta’s skalai is indicated by the growth of a new town from the 9th – 10th centuries onwards by the eastern one, a town that was still growing in the Late Byzantine period, as we have learnt archaeologically, to cover at least 12 hectares (KoukouliKhrysanthaki et al. 1996, 651, fig. 2). The importance of the skalai is indicated too by the itemisation of the town in Middle Byzantine maritime commercial treaties; by the inclusion, implicitly, of both skalai on portulan charts; by the 12th century Arab geographer Idrisi’s statement that Akhrysoboli ‘handles a lively trade’ (Tomaschek 1886, 357); by the historian William of Tyre’s statement that Western merchants fleeing for their lives from Constantinople in 1182, seized there (circa Chrysopolim, urbem Macedoniae) ten ships (Willermus Tyrensis 1844, Vol. I/2, 1086); and by the Pisan handbook of c. 1200 (Gautier-Dalché 1995).

The Late Medieval distinction between the ‘skala of the river/rafts’ and the ‘skala of Khrysoupolis’ seems also to be reflected in Western portulan charts, which from at least 1311 onwards, record both the river Strymon (‘Stromola’ vel sim.) and Khrysoupolis (‘Grizopoli’ vel sim.) (Kretschmer 1909, 638; Youssouff Kamal 19261952, Vol. IV/i). Most rivers were demonstrably neither marked nor named on portulan charts (Dunn 1998a, 343344), so the economic importance of the ‘Stromola’/ Strymon is clear. During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods (including probably during the ‘Dark Age’) there was therefore at least one locus of maritime traffic in the Strymon Delta. One (or the principal one) was probably moving at the beginning of the Late Roman period to Site 1 (the future Khrysoupolis) for environmental reasons. Only one (‘Chrysopolis’) is named in lists of ports where Byzantine emperors granted commercial privileges to Venice’s merchants in 1082, 1148, and 1198 (Tafel and Thomas 1856-57, no. XXIII [1082], no. LI [1148], LXXXV [1198]; Borsari 1988, 135-138). Only ‘Grisopoli’ is mentioned in the earliest known nautical handbook, the Pisan handbook of c. 1200 (Gautier-Dalché 1995, TEXT, lines 57, 1065-1066). But ‘Stromula’ rather than ‘Chrysopolis’ was already the specified destination of one Western merchant in the 1270s, as we learn from the Judicum Venetorum in 19

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Fig. 4 - Eastern Macedonia in the Byzantine Era (© A.W.Dunn)

to have established that significant economic activity persisted for centuries in the absence of built harbours. But the range and scale of Medieval redistribution and exchange at this natural gateway to Eastern Macedonia remain obscure. It is possible to speculate further, on the basis of what is known now about Late Byzantine agricultural production in the hinterland. But an examination of the relatively better-preserved documentation of the Ottoman Strymon Delta provides points of reference that are methodologically useful at this stage in the development of historical enquiry at the regional level.

THE PROBLEM OF THE RANGE OF GOODS SHIPPED, AND OF THE ECONOMIC SCALE AND NATURE OF TRAFFIC IN THE MEDIEVAL DELTA

The Strymon Delta’s import-trade in the Byzantine era, as for the overwhelming majority of loci of maritime traffic, is almost completely undocumented (the exception being the incident in the Judicum Venetorum), and the objects of exportation in the Byzantine era are insufficiently documented. There are references to important primary products of the Delta itself (salt and fish), and to important primary products in transit through it (grain and flax), but no references to transactions (Dunn 1998a, 349).

LOCATING, IDENTIFYING, AND EXPLAINING THE OTTOMAN SEQUENCE OF LOCI OF MARITIME TRAFFIC

I have argued elsewhere, on the basis of Mid-to-Late Byzantine patterns of landownership, and the characteristics of most Mid-to-Late Byzantine sites around the Strymon Delta, that it was a relatively important centre of redistribution from estates, as well as a regional trading centre (Dunn 1998a, 349-351).

The historico-topographic evidence regarding the physical conditions of redistribution and exchange in the Ottoman Delta has yet to be evaluated. The available evidence regarding the range and scale of redistribution and exchange needs to be brought together too. There has been much unwitting confusion about the topography and indeed toponymy of the Delta’s Ottoman loci of maritime traffic. The range and scale of redistribution and exchange were considered mostly by interested Western European parties in the 18th and 19th centuries. 19th century observers and 20th century scholars have presented, and sometimes calculated (in various currencies), the values of a particular aspect of exchange or turnover in a sometimes toponymically confused

The Byzantine evidence of trade and of skalai (mostly documentary), of estates’ granges (essentially archaeological), and of the trading town of Khrysoupolis (documentary and archaeological), is illuminated by the environmental evidence. Changing physical conditions are shown (above) to have influenced the movement and number of the Delta’s loci of maritime traffic and the movement of the urban centre itself. It is also important 20

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1347), situated to the East and eventually abandoned, there was on the western side of the Delta (1) the Byzantine ‘Skala of the Rafts’ (1333) or (2) ‘Skala of the River’ (1346), which should be equated with Late Medieval Western references to (3) the ‘Stromola’/‘Stromula’ as one locus of maritime traffic (Dunn 1998a, 349-451). The earliest known Ottoman fiscal survey of Eastern Macedonia, now dated to 1454/1455, records a ‘skala’ (iskele) without its own name attached to a village whose name is, with hesitation, rendered by the editor as ‘Khinka’ (T.T.3 [1454/1455] 1978, 289-290). A detailed argument about the economic characteristics of this ‘Khinka’, and of its topographic associations within the document, which there is no space to deploy here, would demonstrate that ‘Khinka’ is really the ‘Khantax’ or ‘Khantaka(s)’ of Byzantine and PostByzantine documents, on whose terrain (Fig. 3) I have shown elsewhere that the ‘Skala of the River’/ ‘of the Rafts’ was situated (Dunn 1998a, 343, 358, fig. 1). This fiscal reference to (4) a Skala of Khantax from 1454/1455 is a vital amplification of the portulan charts’ repetitions, from the 14th through 16th centuries, of ‘Stromola’ (vel sim.) as a ships’ destination to the West of Khrysoupolis. Equally relevant is the eyewitness Pierre Belon’s reference of estimated 1546/1547 to (5) ‘Marmara’ (i.e. Marmarion: see above) as a commercial haven on a western channel (reached as he travelled from west to east, i.e. before Khrysoupolis on the eastern side of the Delta) (Belon 1555, 125). This testimony too falls within the lifespan, on parchment and paper, of the name ‘Stromola’. Unlike most other names for the westerly haven ‘Marmara’ may well have been used by all comers, but it seems to fade along with the village (which is not reported after the 16th century). (6) Staying with Western sources, there are references, traceable to the 1560s on the earliest relevant land-maps, to a ‘settlement’, eventually placed on a cartographically distinct western channel of the rivermouth, which is named Contessa (Sphyroeras, Avramea and Asdrachas 1985, 29, maps nos. 34 and 57). Although this is clearly a corruption of ‘Komitissa’, the name of a coastal village situated to the southwest (on the east coast of the Khalkidiki), it was repeated so often on the land-maps which were replacing portulan charts (on which this name never appears by the Strymon) that Western travellers, merchants, and officials often used ‘Contessa’ to name either the western rivermouth’s locus of traffic or the (by-then) ruined and otherwise nameless Khrysoupolis itself (e.g. Braconnier [1707] 1902, 1029). A topographically western locus of traffic is called ‘Skala Kontesas’ (which, uniquely, is a Hellenised from) as late as 1811 on an Italian map by Geatan Palma (Palma 1811). (7) Meanwhile on other Western land-maps from this time, and in some Westerners’ reports, also in the earliest English guidebook, another name appears by the western channel. From at least 1680 (Johannes van Keulen), and until at least 1827 we find the name Emboli (by 1680) or Empoli (Samson 1700). The only comment ever offered upon this name, to my knowledge, was by the map-maker Bourguignon d’Anville, who interpreted it as a corruption of ‘Amphipolis’ (Bourguignon d'Anville 1757, 28). But

Strymon Delta, typically however while exploring aspects of a wider economic history. The historico-topographic data (largely until now unprocessed) and the economic data that have fortunately been presented by travelers, merchants, consuls, and modern historians, deserve to be assembled, re-expressed where necessary, and their interrelationships to be considered. Trying to resolve the problems of the historical topography of Post-Byzantine loci of maritime traffic involves keeping in focus the problems of the Delta’s changing toponymy, changing configurations, the shifting of settlements and other installations, the ‘shifting sands’ that are many of the historical sources, as well as the problems of Ottoman archaeology. Regarding historical sources, although Post-Byzantine data about toponymy and topography are more plentiful than the Byzantine and Frankish, the Post-Byzantine sources pose greater problems than the Byzantine and Frankish (which are typically archival or contemporary chronicles). The originality and applicability of the information contained in many Post-Byzantine (that is, Greek, ltalian, and Ottoman) portulan handbooks and portulan charts, and in 16th - 19th century land-maps (some of which were products of a revived Ptolemaean geography, which was less accurate than the best Medieval charts!), are questions which cannot be discussed here in detail, but which, being far from resolved, obviously require that conclusions based upon such sources be qualified. Also, although monumental Ottoman remains are (or were) prominent around the Delta at five locations (including parts of Khrysoupolis), they require special study, which has so far only been possible at one site (Maké Han); and Post-Byzantine or Ottoman pottery is less well understood currently than the Byzantine. Finally, on the environmental front there are sadly no Post-Byzantine C14 readings (Atherden and Hall this volume). Nevertheless, progress is possible. Evidence cited above suggests that already before the new Ottoman era, and before the demise of the Delta’s town of Khrysoupolis, the toponymy of loci of maritime traffic was fluid. The name of the western locus of traffic was not ‘fixed’. Names were emerging which, as we shall see, were peculiar to one or other of the ethnically or culturally different groups of users, Greek, Ottoman, and Western European; names which therefore co-existed, but whose lifespans were in several cases ‘prolonged’, like that of Khrysoupolis itself, by inaccurate charts, maps, or navigational handbooks. No less than ten Late Medieval and Early Modern names for the Strymon Delta’s western locus of maritime traffic are identifiable, and two for the Delta’s eastern locus of shipping! The topography, multi-ethnic toponymy, status, and functions, of the Delta’s Ottoman loci of maritime traffic: the western locus (1-5) Contemporaneous co-existing Late Medieval names for the western locus: Besides the Byzantine ‘Skala of Khrysoupolis’ (1342, 21

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(8) Furthermore, some Western sources refer, between the 16th and 19th centuries, to the Delta’s locus of maritime traffic as the ‘port of Orphano’, or simply ‘Orphano’ (Guys [1857] 1950, 299-304; Heurschling [1860] 1971, 352-370; Viquesnel 1868, Vol. II, 249). Such sources refer to the sea before it as the ‘Gulf of Orphano’ until the 1920s. The earliest such reference to be recorded is probably that of the Venetian observer Gabriele Cavazza, who calls the rivermouth that ‘of Orphano’ in 1591 (Cavazza [post-1591] 1947, 138). The real Orphano, Byzantine Orphanion, with its Ottoman fortress, principal successor of Byzantine Khrysoupolis, long continued to be a military and administrative centre, concerned for instance with taxation and the Imperial Post and was situated 6 km east of the Strymon Delta (Cavazza [post-1591] 1947, 138; Heywood 1996; Dunn 1998a, 354; Papazoglou 1987). But it need not surprise us if a de facto port which lacked a contiguous settlement, and one without a name common to all its users, should also eventually be known to some users by the name of the nearest administrative centre. So much for Western and Greek toponymy.

the name Amphipolis had already been replaced in the Middle Byzantine period by the evocative ‘Marmarion’, meaning ‘[place] of marble’, whence Post-Byzantine ‘Marmara’ (Papangelos 1990). ‘Empoli’ is of course an ancient, Byzantine and Post-Byzantine word, one or more of whose meanings offer unproblematic etymologies. One ancient meaning, ‘entrance’, including ‘entrance to a river’, is echoed in a Post-Byzantine meaning: ‘channel whereby water is led somewhere’. But there is another equally suggestive cluster of meanings, Late Antique and Byzantine: the loading of a ship, the annual public shipment of primary products to Constantinople, that part of the land-tax regularly levied in kind to supply the army’s annona, consequently the annona itself, and in general, and still in the Late Byzantine period, the importation of goods (Du Cange 1844, vol. III; Sophocles 1887; Liddell, Scott, and Jones 1940; Glare and Thompson 1996; Kriaras 1978, Vol. 6). This word, functioning as a Greek place-name, could have had any or all of these connotations before and after the Ottoman conquest (see below). But the possibility cannot yet be excluded that ‘Emboli’ is another map-maker’s error (like ‘Contessa’) which then became a ‘fact’ for Western Europeans, since an ‘Embolos’ is recorded, correctly, on some early maps as a coastal toponym by Thessaloniki.

Fig. 5 - Synthesis of maps of 1916-1919 showing preserved Ottoman monuments in relation to pre-modern topography and the Lakkovikeia Cone (© A.W.Dunn)

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of a warehouse from which ‘the grain of the Strymonic plain ...is exported ...in large quantities to Constantinople’; and to Cousinéry’s account of a depot for the shipment of the ishtira, i.e. the fiscal tithe of grain. These three statements are absolutely complementary. Maké Han is right by the old eastern rivermouth, so made no use of the increasingly silted lagoon (for which see above) of the former Khrysoupolis (Dunn 1998a, 352353). There are no references earlier than these three of c.1800, but this is not decisive for Maké Han’s origins, owing to a dearth of 18th century descriptions of the area. Also the ceramic material, although Ottoman, can as yet only be classified as later than Early Ottoman (as found at Sites 1 and 12, Fig. 1). The shipping of the tithe from the Delta was in fact already a major operation by 1758 (for which see below). But it is possible that Maké Han, as we see it today, was only built during the Ottoman administration’s re-organisation of the fiscal grain-levy which occurred during the 1790s and 1800s (Guran 19841985, 27-41). It probably ceased to function in the 1840s when the universal levy in kind ceased to exist. The toponym, as preserved by the Greeks, might be derived from Ottoman mek(k)e (‘wheat’), or from Ottoman mahat (a kind of station or wharf). Both are equally relevant.

(9) Meanwhile the Ottoman toponymy of loci of maritime traffic seems to have been as distinct as the PostMedieval Western European, and the Post-Byzantine Greek, toponymies. What the Ottoman name for the western skala on the terrain of Khantax was, is not revealed by the defter of 1454/1455 (although conceivably it was ‘of Khantaka’, see above). But the Ottoman portulans are more useful. The portulan handbooks of the famous admiral Piri Re’is refer (1521, or perhaps 1520-1523) to the existence of more than one place of anchorage and/or beaching of vessels around more than one ‘promontory’ of the rivermouth, and (1525/1526) to ‘small vessels’ anchoring by ‘the ruined fortification’, i.e. Khrysoupolis. Toponymically they only speak of the ‘river (water) of Serres’. But on the second of Piri Re’is’ more famous portulan charts (1525/1526), in the sea before the river-mouth(s) are the Turkish words Siroz limanı (‘Harbour of Serres’), indicating an Ottoman name for the locus of maritime traffic, a name repeated on Sejjid Nuh’s map of 1648-1650, and in a version of 1687 (Dunn 1998a, 354). (10) Finally, by the late 18th century, or beginning of the 19th century, another Turkish name was attached to the locus of maritime traffic on the western channel: Çay Agzı (‘Chai Agzi’: Rivermouth). The Frenchman Cousinéry, who travelled and worked in Macedonia in 1773-1793 and again in 1814-1818, calls it ‘Tchai Aghese’ (Cousinéry 1831, Vol. I, 121). Colonel Leake, who studied the region in 1806, calls it ‘Tjai Agsi’ (Leake 1835, Vol. III, 172), while Clarke, who passed through in 1801-1802, specified that ‘some vessels are lying at anchor within a small port more to the southwest’, in fact, really west of ‘Eski Kale [Old Castle], today's ‘Kaledes’, the site of Khrysoupolis (Clarke 1818, Vol. II/VIII, 26). The name Çay Agzı appears with various non-standard spellings on 20th century maps on the western side of the Delta, where it is still remembered today. It is represented on the earliest scientific maps (of 1916) by large buildings whose ruins are still identifiable by the shore within the Koinotita of Nea Kerdyllia (Fig. 5, Site 14). They or the location, can be associated with numerous references to maritime trade and traffic (for which see below). The topography, multi-ethnic toponymy, status, and functions, of the Delta’s Ottoman loci of maritime traffic: the eastern locus

Fig. 6 - Restored plan of Maké Han: The Ottoman state’s ishtira depot (© A.W. Dunn)

As for the dwindling eastern locus of maritime traffic, the name Khrysoupolis continues to appear on Western European portulan charts long after the abandonment of the town in the 16th century. More significantly, however, to the traces of the multilingual toponymy, and archaeology (as yet unexplored), of a ‘small port’ on the old western channel must be added the evidence, toponymic and archaeological, of another Ottoman locus of maritime traffic situated by the old eastern channel (Dunn 1998a, 352-353). Known locally today (1998) as Maké Han, although not named on any published maps (Fig. 5, Site 9; Fig. 6), the site corresponds to Clarke's account of a ‘large han’ [my Italics]; to Leake’s account

Historical toponymy therefore, together with the very scattered direct references to shipping, of the 16th - 19th centuries, indicate the continuity from the Byzantine through Ottoman eras, of a multi-focal regional centre of maritime traffic in which a strong redistributional element is clear. Some aspects have been illuminated by our survey (e.g. Fig. 6). However, for the present it is historical topography that best illuminates continuity. The portulan handbooks of the 15th - 16th centuries, and relevant travellers’ accounts of the 16th to early 19th centuries, suggest, as I have argued elsewhere, that ships were already mooring offshore or in a western channel by the end of the Middle Ages; and that there was a shift of 23

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and Turks, seemed to have its own name(s) for it. A few map-makers placed their symbolic images for a town or city by the western channel at ‘Contessa’/‘Emboli’, for instance Bernard Randolph (1665) and Roux (1764, feuille XII). But in the Post-Medieval era such a coastal town would have left substantive historical and archaeological traces. If there were a town in this area, it should perhaps be sought at Orphanion/‘Orphano’ (for which see above).

emphasis from the eastern to western side of the Delta. The inconsistently scientific land-maps of the 16th - 18th centuries, for instance from Gerardus Mercator (1590) to Bourguignon d'Anville (1756), all record, with increasing conformity to the configurations recorded in 1916-1919, distinct western and eastern channels, and thus the possibility of continued riverine communication with the interior. Evidence concerning the historical topography of towns in the 16th-19th centuries provides another useful if apparently paradoxical ‘long-term’ perspective within which to consider the toponymic and anecdotal historical indicators of continuity of traffic. Politically the Byzantine era had ended in this locality in 1383 with the fall of Serres. The walls of Khrysoupolis were, according to an Ottoman tradition recorded in the early 18th century, ‘destroyed’ by Murad I (1362-1389) (Moskhopoulos 1938, 495-496). Geophysical survey has demonstrated their destruction to foundation-level in parts, whilst other parts remain well preserved (Dunn 1988, 457-458). It is obviously the ‘ruined fortification’ associated with a village and harbour for ‘small vessels’ recorded by Piri Re'is in his second portulan handbook of 1525/1526 (Piri Re'is [1525/1526] 1935, folio 108). On the basis of Venetian, Ottoman, and French sources respectively, Khrysoupolis was abandoned after 1502, probably by 1530/1531, and certainly by 1546/1547 (Sanuto [1502] 1947, 106; Dunn 1998a, 354, note 74; Belon 1555, 125). The combined evidence of toponymy, travelers’ observations, and other casual references, supports the idea that the abandonment of the Byzantine town did not lead to a long-term decline of trade and traffic between Eastern Macedonia and the Mediterranean. Indeed Pierre Belon’s clear reference to the abandonment of the town of Khrysoupolis also contains the first detailed reference to (as opposed to toponymic indications of) mercantile ships and trade in the western channel (Belon 1555, 125). Piri Re'is’ naming of the inner gulf of the Strymon as ‘the harbour of Serres (Piri e'is [1525/1526] 1935, folio 115), and the Ottoman map-maker Ali Macar Re'is’ reference to the Strymon in 1567/1568 as ‘the river of Serres’ (Ali Macar Re'is [1567/1568] 1935), indicate the underlying basis of continued economic activity at the rivermouth: the attraction and needs of Serres, a great provincial city, and of the Plain of Serres and of its hinterland. Aspects of this are illuminated in the early 17th century by the Greek Chronicle of Papasynadinos of Serres, which refers, for the year 1623, to an annual fair of Saint Demetrius (around October 26th, after the harvest) at Khantax (i.e. near the western channel), and to the sale of, i.e., wheat by the landowners of ‘Serres’ (i.e. the Strymon Valley)to the foreign merchants’ karavia (ships), and that this was continuing there even during a famine in 1622 (Odorico et al. 1996, 92, 86). That Khrysoupolis was not replaced by a settlement at the western channel’s ‘small port’, although not yet proven archaeologically, is strongly indicated by the fluid multilingual toponymy of the port (as here demonstrated for the first time). The absence of a settlement, and the domination of the site by transients, could explain why each group of users, Franks, Greeks,

Maritime traffic, it is therefore argued, was probably almost continuous in Post- Roman times on the western or eastern channels which characterised the Strymon Delta, until the 19th century; despite the gradual distancing of its successive towns or administrative centres from the sea, and their slow demise; despite the gradual siltation of successive natural loci of traffic; despite the inadequacies of functioning loci - as revealed by Piri Re'is ([1525/1526] 1935, folio 115) despite the absence of built harbours; and despite the demise in Ottoman times of all forms of permanent settlement in the deltaic plain, as demonstrated by the intensive survey at Sites 1,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 17 (Koukouli-Khrysanthaki et al. 1996, 647-648). The range of goods shipped, and the economic scale and nature of traffic in the Ottoman Delta A true history of this traffic may be unattainable, but aspects of its structure – its range and scale (as mentioned at the outset), more problematically the relative importance of trade and redistribution over time – are not beyond a qualitative assessment, which will now be attempted. The Middle-to-Late Byzantine exports from the Strymon Delta included wheat, flax, salt, and presumably the fish (perhaps salted) of the Delta itself (Dunn 1998a, 349). Pierre Belon witnessed the exportation of wheat, textiles, and hides in 1546/1547 (Belon 1555, 125). And the Byzantine imperial salterns, the Almyroi Lakkoi, having become an Ottoman fiscal ‘farm’ (Dunn 1998a, 349) (Fig. 5, Site 18) remained important until the 19th century (Nicolaidy 1859, Vol. I, 58). A regular, if usually illegal, exportation of the grain-surplus of the Plain of Serres and its hinterland was recorded in the 17th century, as we now know. But for most of the Ottoman era, although the mouth of the Strymon is distinguished on the new NonPtolemaean Western maps as one of the two or three significant loci of maritime traffic on the northern Aegean littoral, commercial documentation appears to be lacking. The only published reference to clearly defined activities and their scale, earlier in date than the 19th century, is to the scale of fiscal traffic, the grain tithe (ishtira) – actually a twelfth – for the year 1758 (Svoronos 1956, 380, 398). The scale of the trade in grain is itself unknown, a fact which, if the trade was at most times technically illegal, is hardly surprising. Only after the general liberalisation of trade in 1838-1841, and the Tanzimat Decrees of 1839 onwards (Pamuk 1987, 191196), do we encounter records of the range and scale of 24

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useful to have established that without the infrastructure of a harbour or a town, and before the technical agricultural revolution of the 20th century had begun to transform the landscapes and land-usage of the Plain of Serres / Strymon Valley, the Strymon Delta was nevertheless a relatively important site of the Mediterranean-wide trade in agricultural produce in the 18th to mid 19th centuries (Fig. 7).

trade in both grain and other products, as opposed to just records of redistribution, such as those of 1758 and the travellers’ observations of c. 1800 (Fig. 7). The relevance of this late Ottoman evidence to the study of Medieval to Post- Medieval times lies in the fact that it, firstly, reveals the scale of movement of the traditional primary products of Eastern Macedonia through the Strymon Delta before any aspect of the Western agricultural revolution (including land drainage) had affected the region. Moreover, it allows comparison between equally unaffected regions; it allows the reinsertion of the historically well known items of trade (e.g. grain, hides, salt) within a probably full range of pre-industrial commodities; and, by enabling a comparison between the value of all exports, it enables us, after taking account of the Post-Medieval introductions (e.g. cotton), to visualize with some confidence important characteristics of the region’s Medieval maritime traffic.

What then of the traditional range of items exported from the Delta, and of the importance of the Byzantine and Early Ottoman ‘major’ (known) exports? Arguably one can be fairly confident about the range of goods exported throughout Byzantine and Ottoman times, and the respects in which it changed over time. Several published sources serve the construction of a list of the exports of the Delta around the mid 18th and mid 19th centuries. They include the four specifically Ottoman crops of rice, maize, cotton, and tobacco, whose importance had been growing relative to that of other more traditional exports such as grain, but since these were well established by the 18th century, they concern us.

The Strymon Delta emerges from this correlation of different kinds of source, despite its general lack of infrastructure, as one of Central and Northern Greece’s major loci of maritime traffic until the coming of the steamship and the railway. It was defined by the Ottoman administration in 1758 as the largest provider of the grain tithe in the Greek space, larger than Piraeus, Thessaloniki (for Central and Western Macedonia), or Volos (for Thessaly) (Svoronos 1956, 380).

From a document of 1842 we learn of the exportation of oil, bones and horns (Anonymous [1842], 1942, 31-35); from various accounts of the 1840s to 1850s we learn of the exportation of salt (Viquesnel 1868, Vol. I, 286, 312); from a document of 1849 we learn of the exportation of wheat, barley, maize, sesame, linseed, pulses, raw cotton, raw wool, tobacco, honey, wax, leeches, silk, sheepskins, goatskins, rabbit skins (prodigious quantities!), cows’ and bulls’ hides (all skins implicitly untreated), timber, woodfuel, charcoal, animals (unspecified), “teints en rouge chiffrons” [sic], onions, raw suet, tanned leather, stamped cotton cloth, “manufactures du pays”, “etc.” (IoannidouBitsiadou 1977, 169-173). The last ‘heading’ might include the various natural dyes and drugs listed by Svoronos when writing about Southern Macedonia’s exports in the mid 18th century (1956, 269, 280). With very few exceptions these documents record the primary products of agriculture, pastoralism, wetlands (freshwater and saline), mining, woodlands, culling and hunting. As such, excluding three of the four new crops, and finished cotton, it could be a Byzantine or Early Ottoman list (rice having been introduced to Macedonia in the Early Ottoman period).

It was in 1847 the fourth largest commercial exporter of grain from the Greek area to the great entrepôt of Marseilles, after Thessaloniki, Volos, and Kavala (Viquesnel 1868, Vol. I, 270). But this probably does not denote decline at all. Crop-growing strategies in the Plain of Serres were already changing in the 18th century (Asdrakhas 1982, 14; Vakalopoulos 1976, 150). Nevertheless, it is not easy, using published figures, to place the Strymon Delta (‘Chai Agzi’/‘Orphano’) in a league-table for total commercial turnover of ports. The port of Thessaloniki’s total turnover in 1841-1844 varied between £213,741 and £329,199 (Vakalopoulos 1980, 56-60). Chai Agzi’s turnover in 1845-1848 fluctuated between £155,196 and £325,694 (Viquesnel 1868, Vol. I, 340-341). The two principal ports of northern Anatolia, Trabzon’s and Samsun’s, total turnovers in the early 1840s have each been estimated to have been on average of c. £300,000 per annum (Kasabe 1988, 61, Table I). On the basis of turnover, the Strymon Delta appears to be in a category of major provincial Ottoman loci of maritime traffic, although there were Middle Eastern provincial ports with consistently larger turnovers than the Delta’s (Inalcık and Quataert 1994, 798-841). Records of total ships’ numbers per annum offer another admittedly crude yardstick for comparison. In the 1850s ‘Orphano’ (Chai Agzi) comes third, among northern Greek ports after Volos and Thessaloniki, and before Kavala (Heurschling 1971 [1860], 362). Since it would be extremely hard to evaluate the relative importance of traditional loci of maritime traffic in Medieval to Post-Medieval times, it is

Absolute figures for the value of the reported Byzantine and Early Ottoman exports, and as a proportion of the value of a fuller (unreported) range of goods shipped, will never be known. But the mid 19th century documentation, since it demonstrably concerns a regional economy which had not yet experienced either the agricultural or industrial revolutions (Ancel 1930), is arguably useful. Tabulating for the first time nearly all the published data expressible in absolute figures shows that, for the year 1847, one can express the value of the traditionally major export of wheat or the broader “grain” as a proportion of the total value of exports and as a proportion of total commercial turnover (Fig. 7). In that year the Strymon Delta’s exports of grain apparently constituted almost 25

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Byzantine fine wares (Dunn 1999, 409-410). Site 17 can with some confidence be identified with the historically documented metokhion of Nesi(o)n of the Late Byzantine monastery of the Pantokrator on Mount Athos (Dunn 1999, 411). How then is one to account for the massive discontinuity apparent at all these sites from the end of the Byzantine era? It does not seem, on the basis of the available evidence, and it is inherently unlikely, that trade between the Mediterranean and the region of Serres had ended. Indeed Serres itself was growing in importance in Early Ottoman times (Petmezas 1996, 429-458). The eastern side of the Delta was becoming unsuitable for shipping, but not the western side. And thanks to the research of Evangelia Balta we know that the villages of Nesi(o)n, which our survey can locate at Site 12, and the village of Khantax, whose terrain included the western Skala, were flourishing in the 15th and 16th centuries (Balta 1995, 26, 56, 67-70, 127). The Delta’s great economic productions, its salterns and fisheries, continued to flourish. But the Ottoman state’s well documented struggle to control the exportation of grain by Western merchants, and its massive attribution of land under the timar, waqf, and hass systems to individuals and to the institutions of the new state and religion (T.T. 3 [1454/1455] 1978; Lowry 1986, 23-37), obviously disrupted old estate structures and the established patterns of traffic and trade. Archaeological discontinuity at the Delta’s small Byzantine high-status rural complexes (Sites 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 17) may illustrate these disruptive factors.

46 % of total exports by value and almost 25 % of the total commercial turnover at the Delta (see Fig. 7 for absolute values) (Viquesnel 1868, Vol. I, 270, 340-341). THE OSCILLATING SHIFT BETWEEN REDISTRIBUTION (PUBLIC AND PRIVATE) AND EXCHANGE, AND THE RISE AND FALL OF TOWNS AND LOCI OF MARITIME TRAFFIC

Given that the new Ottoman ‘cash crops’ are known to have displaced some cultivation of traditional crops, and that cotton had become a major item of exportation from the Plain of Serres, and so of Eastern Macedonia, one could reasonably infer that in the Byzantine and Early Ottoman eras wheat, or grain in general, would have constituted the major export of Eastern Macedonia and therefore of the Strymon Delta. Indeed our reference to the western ‘Skala of the River’ (1346) implicitly singles out ‘grain’ (wheat and barley mainly) as its principal export by speaking of the exportation of ‘grain and other products’ (Diplomata graeca IX [1346], 68, lines 32-34). However, precisely this major item of exportation had been, until the liberalising measures of 1838-1841, the most subject to fiscal control (Dunn 1998a, 352, note 66; Guran 1984-1985; Issawi 1980, 25). If one twelfth of the regions’ wheat-production was demanded by the state in 1758 as a levy, that would have represented a considerable proportion of the long-term disposable surplus of production. The wheat-surplus had also been of abiding concern to the Middle Byzantine administration which had founded the kastron of Khrysoupolis. Unfortunately there is no evidence for the Byzantine state’s role in the grain-traffic of the Strymon Delta, although there is indirect evidence (which cannot be discussed here) for other ports and regions. Such administrative concerns could have imposed constraints upon the Delta’s potential as a locus of trade, at least of legitimate trade. A further long-term constraint upon transactions would have been the extent to which landowners other than the state exported the surplusses of their estates for consumption or sale elsewhere. I have argued elsewhere that, from the 10th century onwards, with the rise of estates in the Plain of Serres and its hinterland, owned by the monasteries of Mount Athos, but also by the monasteries of Constantinople, and the Patriarchate, and with the parallel growth there of aristocratic estates and fiscal estates, uncommercialised redistribution, as opposed to trade, may have been considerable in the Delta (Dunn 1998a, 348-352, 359, Fig. 3,).

However over the longer term political and economic conditions favoured a revival of maritime trade around the Delta. From the 16th century onwards (despite fitful Sultanic interventions) de facto control of the timar, waqf, and hass lands of the region of Serres was falling into the hands of a new provincial aristocracy, which could divert agricultural surplusses from their former institutional purposes to personal profit (Petmezas 1996, 456; Balta 1995, 68-70). Many of their dealings, and of the region’s merchants’ dealings, would have been carried out around the unexplored Site 14 (Chai Agzi, see Fig. 1), while the state’s continuing economic interventions seem to be reflected, though from an unknown date, in the remains of Site 9 (Maké Han) (Figs 1 and 6). The Ottoman archaeology of the Delta appears to pose a further challenge to the historical evidence. Although the town of Khrysoupolis was abandoned in the early 16th century before the great revival of private estates; and although the villages of Nesi(o)n, Khantax, and Marmarion were eventually abandoned too; and the surviving centre of maritime trade remained unurbanised, this was the third-to-fourth largest centre of maritime trade in Central and Northern Greece. By some measures it (then called ‘Orphano’) was still fourth in term of its exports as late as 1860, if one excludes certain Greek islands then functioning as international emporia of reexportation (Harlaftis 1996, Appendix 1.10). Why does archaeology (let alone history) not reveal a 16th or 17th to

At the same time the interest of Western merchants in the Strymon Delta from the Middle Byzantine period onwards, and the cited 12th century reference to the ‘lively trade’ of Khrysoupolis, show that the commercialisation of surplusses was significant and growing. The steady rise of the private estate probably encouraged both commercial and non-commercial traffic. The archaeology of the Delta reflects this in the growth of Khrysoupolis, and in the appearance or re-appearance of Sites 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 17 (Fig. 1) as small high-status building complexes associated with Middle and Late 26

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19th century settlement-system within the Delta? Although the slightly distant settlement of Orphanion/ Orphano attracted administrative functions, the sources do not refer to it as a town. It does not seem to have overshadowed the Delta in that sense. But if the principal export of the Plain of Serres, and thus of the Strymon Delta, was grain, and the sale of grain to foreign merchants (notoriously the highest bidders for it) was at most times illegal, then the economic basis of an Ottoman port, on the back of which other exports and imports might be traded, was illegal. Could this long-term situation have discouraged the growth of a permanent settlement? The configuration of the western side of the Delta did not discourage maritime traffic, a potential stimulus for a local revival of urban life, until the 1860s and 1870s. And the volume and value of trade between the Ottoman Empire and the West was all the while growing (Pamuk 1987, 179). Even seasonal fluvial inundations can be ruled out as a significant discouraging factor: the situations of Byzantine and Ottoman sites in the estuarine plain, and their clear visibility from the air and on the ground, indicate that they were not subject to regular flooding and therefore, ultimately, masking by silt. The new chronology of the silting of the Delta’s eastern harbour (Atherden, Hall, this volume) shows that silting was surely a factor in the decline of Khrysoupolis, but it did not reduce activity around the Delta as a whole over the long term. Other conditions therefore militated against urban revival. One suspects that in the Ottoman era the problem of the status of the all-important graintraffic until the 1840s perpetuated the Early Ottoman decline and discontinuity of settlement (a discontinuity which in its totality cannot be explained by environmental factors), while the range and value of the region’s products and the significance of Serres ensured that maritime trade, and therefore installations for production, storage, and shipment, nevertheless persisted around the Delta (Fig. 5). Conversely, the existence of the town of Khrysoupolis in the Delta throughout the Middle and Late Byzantine periods suggests the importance of trade relative to redistribution after the ‘Dark Age’ and before the Ottoman conquest.

era by era, histories of the river-mouth’s arguably defining activities, medium and long-distance redistribution and exchange. It is likely that Macedonia’s Post-Byzantine and Ottoman archives will facilitate the study of this question. Meanwhile the project offers, through its studies of changing environmental conditions at Eastern Macedonia’s principal site of interchange with the Mediterranean world, through the study of the toponymy, topography, chronology, and functions, of its loci of maritime traffic and associated installations and settlements, as well as through the study of trends in the range and scale of maritime traffic of different kinds (exchange and redistribution), the first exploration of the region’s economic engagement with the wider world in the Byzantine era. NOTES 1

Sources for Figure 7: 1. Svoronos 1956, 380; 2. Guy [1857] 1950, 304; 3. Guys [1857] 1950, 302-303 (Refernces to ‘Orphano’; 4-12. Vakalopoulos 1980, 60 13-16. Viquesnel 1868, vol.1, 340-341 17. Viquesnel 1868, vol.1, 270 18-21. Viquesnel 1868, vol.1, 340-341 22. Ioannidou-Bitsiadou 1977, 16 23-24. Ioannidou-Bitsiadou 1977, 172 25-26. Heurschling [1860] 1971, 362 27. O’Brien and Keyder 1978, 47 (Table A.5) 28. Issawi 1980, 331 29. Jardé 1925, vol.1, 32 30. Svoronos 1956, 398, n.1 [399]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ali Macar Re'is atlası [1567/1568], see Kurtoglu (ed.) 1935. Alpagut, H. and Kurtoglu, F. (eds), 1935, Piri Re'is [1525-1526] Kitabi Bahriye, Istanbul. Ancel, J., 1930, La Macédoine, son évolution contemporaine, Paris: Libr. Delagrave. [Anonymous], [1842] 1942, ‘Mazedoniens und Thessaliens Handelsverhältnisse während der Jahre 1838 bis 1841, Journal des österreichischen Lloyd 7’, in N. Michoff (ed.), Beiträge zur Handelsgeschichte Bulgariens II, Sofia, 31-41. Asdrakhas, S., 1982, Elliniki koinonia kai oikonomia 18 kai 19 ai. (Ypotheseis kai prosengiseis), Neoellinika Meletimata 5, Athens. Bakalakis, G., 1974, ‘The "classical" bridge at Amphipolis’, American Journal of Archaeology 74, 289-291. Bakirtzis, Kh. 1988, ‘Anaskaphi khristianikis Amphipoleos’, Praktika tis Arkhaiologikis Etaireias, 135-142. Bakirtzis, Kh., 1989, ‘Anaskaphi khristianikis Amphipoleos’, Praktika tis Arkhaiologikis Etaireias, 216-221. Bakirtzis, Kh., 1991, ‘Anaskaphi khristianikis Amphipoleos’, Praktika tis Arkhaiologikis Etaireias, 212-219.

This has not been a full presentation of the evidence assembled, but it has hopefully justified the Strymon Delta Project’s particular ‘multi-period’ interdisciplinary strategy for studying the Byzantine and Ottoman (Medieval to Early Modern) eras at the sub-regional level. In fact, archaeology, environmental studies, and the study of historical toponymy and topography, have proved to be essential to the integration and interpretation of the surviving archival and other historical sources (which are fragmentary, but, by virtue of dealing with loci of maritime traffic, still far richer than those for much of ‘the interior’). The resulting account of the Delta’s all-important economic activities remains provisional however. The project seeks to understand the long-term history of a comparatively restricted area, but one that is both ‘gateway’ and ‘crossroads’, an area whose position and size ensure that its physical and historical evolution can only be understood within broad frames of reference. We cannot yet seriously compare, 27

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arkhaiotita stin metavyzantini koinonia, I. Serres, 339-360. Dunn, A., 1998b, ‘Review: Van Andels, T., Runnels, C., Beyond the Acropolis. A rural Greek Past, Stanford University Press, 1987’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 22, 292-295. Dunn, A., 1999, ‘From polis to kastron in southern Macedonia: Amphipolis, Khrysoupolis and the Strymon Delta’ in Castrum 5, Casa de Velazquez - École française de Rome, 399-413. Dunn, A., 2005, ‘Review: Laiou, A. (ed.), The economic history of Byzantium, from the seventh through the fifteenth century I – III, Washington DC, 2002’, Speculum 80/2, 616-621. Dunn, A., 2007, ‘Markets and producers in Byzantine Macedonia’, in M. Grünbart, E. Kislinger and A. Muthesius (eds), Material Culture and Wellbeing in Byzantium (400-1453), Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 101-109. Durliat, J., 1998, ‘Les conditions du commerce au Vle siècle’ in R. Hodges and W. Bowden (eds), The Sixth Century. Production, Distribution and Demand, Leiden: Brill, 89-117. Gastaldi, Jacobo [d. 1565], Graeciae universae secundum hodiernum situm neoterica descriptio, Venice [MAP]. Gautier-Dalché, P., 1995, Carte marine et portulan au XIIe siècle. Le Liber de existencia riveriarum et forma maris nostri mediterranei, École française de Rome. Geyer, B., 1986, ‘Les paysages de Macédoine orientale et leur évolution’, in: P. Bellier et al., Paysages de Macédoine. Travaux et Mémoires du Centre de Recherche d'Histoire et de Civilisation de Byzance, Collège de France Monographies, vol. 3, Paris: De Boccard, 3-48. Geyer, B., 1986, ‘Esquisse pour une histoire des paysages depuis l'an mil’, in P. Bellier et al., Paysages de Macédoine, Travaux et Mémoires du Centre de Recherche d'Histoire et de Civilisation de Byzance, Collège de France Monographies, vol. 3, Paris: De Boccard, 99-116. Glare, P. and Thompson, A., 1996, Greek-English Lexicon, Revised Supplement, Oxford. Guran, T., 1984-1985, ‘The state role in the grain supply of Istanbul: the grain administration, 17931839’, International Journal of Turkish Studies III/1, 27-41. Guys, C. E. [ex-consul of France in Thessaloniki] 1857 ‘Le guide de la Macédoine’ in N. Michoff (ed.), 1950, Contribution à l’histoire du commerce de la Turquie et de la Bulgarie III, Svistov, 299-304. Harlaftis, G., 1996, A History of Greek-owned Shipping: The Making of an International Tramp Fleet 1830 to the Present Day, London and New York: Routledge. Harvey, A., 1989, Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 900-1200, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heurschling, X., 1971 [1860], ‘L 'empire de Turquie, territoire, gouvernement, finances, industrie

Bakirtzis, Kh., 1992, ‘Anaskaphi khristianikis Amphipoleos’, Praktika tis Arkhaiologikis Etaireias, 167-175. Bakirtzis, Kh., 1994, ‘Anaskaphi khristianikis Amphipoleos’, Praktika tis Arkhaiologikis Etaireias, 131-137. Balta, E., 1995, Les vakifs de Serrès et de sa région (XVe -XVIe siècles), Athens: National Hellenic Foundation for Scientific Research. Bellier, P. et al., 1986, Paysages de Macédoine, leurs caractères,leur évolution à travers les documents et les récits des voyageurs, Paris: De Boccard. Belon, Pierre, 1555, Les obseruations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouuées en Grèce, Asie, Inde, Έgypte, Arabie et autres pays estranges, Anvers. Borsari, S., 1988, Venezia e Bisanzio nel XII secolo. I rapporti economici, Vicenza: Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Venezie. Bourguignon d'Anville, J. B., 1756, Les cotes de la Grèce et de l'Archipel, Paris [MAP]. Bourguignon d'Anville, J. B., 1757, Analyse de la carte intitulé. Les cotes de la Grèce et de l'Archipel, Paris. [Braconnier, le Père, 1707], ‘Relation d'une mission qu'un père de la Compagnie [de Jésus] a faite à la Cavalle et dans l'isle de Thasse avec la description du voyage’, in H. Omont (ed.), 1902, Missions archéologiques françaises en Orient aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles II, Paris, 1028-1037. Cavazza, Gabriele [post 1591] ‘Viaggio di un ambasciatore veneziano a Costantinopoli nel 1591’ in K. Merzios (ed.), 1947, Mnimeia makedonikis istorias, Thessaloniki, 125-141. Clarke, D.E., 1818, Travels in various countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, part II, Vol. VIII, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Collart, P., 1976, ‘Les milliaires de la Via Egnatia’, BCH 100, 177-197. Cousinéry, E. M., 1831, Voyage dans la Macédoine I -II, Paris. Diplomata graeca, see Soloviev and Mosin 1936. Doukata-Demertzi,S., and Kommatas, D., 1998, ‘Nees epigraphes apo ti khristianiki Amphipoli’ in Oi Serres kai i periokhi tous apo tin arkhaiotita stin metavyzantini koinonia, I, Serres, 127-146. Du Cange, C. et al., 1844, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, III, Paris : Didot. Dunn, A., l988, ‘The survey of Khrysoupolis’, Arkhaiologikon Deltion 35/B, 457-458. Dunn, A., 1992, ‘The control and exploitation of woodland and scrubland in the Byzantine world’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 16, 235-298. Dunn, A., 1993, ‘The Kommerkiarios, the Apotheke, the Dromos, the Vardarios, and the West’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 17, 3-24. Dunn, A., 1998a, ‘Loci of maritime traffic in the Strymon Delta iv -xviii cc.: commercial, fiscal, manorial’ in Oi Serres kai i periokhi tous apo tin 28

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Kondov, N., 1977, ‘Das Dorf Gradec II’, Études Balkaniques 13/3, 71-91. Koukouli-Khrysanthaki, Kh., Samartzidou, S., Dunn, A., Catling, R., Tziavos, Kh. and Anagnostou, Kh., 1996, ‘Arkhaiologikes kai geomorphologikes ereunes sto Delta tou Strymona’, To Arkhaiologiko Ergo sti Makedonia kai Thraki 10/B, 639-661. Kretschmer, K., 1909, Die italienischen Portolane des Mittelalters. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Kartographie und Nautik, Berlin. Kriaras, E., 1978, Lexiko tis mesaionikis dimodous grammateias 1100-1669, 6, Thessaloniki: Centre for Byzantine Studies. Kurtoglu, F. (ed.), 1935, Ali Macar Re'is atlası [1567/1568], Istanbul [MAP]. Laiou-Thomadakis, A. E., 1977, Peasant Society in the Late Byzantine Empire: A Social and Demographic Study, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Laiou, A., 2002a, ‘The agrarian economy, thirteenth – fifteenth centuries’, EHB 1, 311-375. Laiou, A., 2002b, ‘Economic and noneconomic exchange’, EHB 2, 681-696. Laiou, A., 2002c, ‘Exchange and trade, seventh – twelfth centuries’, EHB 2, 697-770. Lazaridis, D., 1972, Amphipolis kai Argilos. Athens: Doxiadis Institute. Leake, W., 1835, Travels in Northern Greece I –IV, London. Lefort, J., 2006, Société rural et histoire du paysage à Byzance, Paris: Centre de recherché et d’histoire et civilization de Byzance. Liddell, H., Scott, R., and Jones, H., 1940, A GreekEnglish Lexikon [edition 9], Oxford. Lowry, H., 1986, ‘Changes in fifteenth-century Ottoman peasant taxation: the case study of Radilofo’ in A. Bryer and H. Lowry (eds), Continuity and Change in Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Society, University of Birmingham - Dumbarton Oaks Institute, 23-37. Mercator, Gerardus, 1590, Nova totius Graeciae descriptio [MAP]. Moskhopoulos, N., 1938, ‘I Ellas kata ton Evlia Tselempi’, Epetiris Etaireias Vyzantinon Spoudon 14, 486-514. Nesbitt, J.W., 1972, Mechanisms of Agricultural Production on Estates of the Byzantine Praktika, (Ph.D. dissertation), University of Wisconsin. Nesbitt, J. and Oikonomides, N., 1991, Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art I, Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Institute. New Redhouse Turkish -English Dictionary, 1968. Istanbul. Nicolaidy, B., 1859, Les Turcs et la Turquie contemporaine: itinéraire I-III, Paris. Odorico, P. et al. (eds), 1996, Conseils et mémoires de Synadinos prêtre de Serrès en Macédoine (XVIIe siècle), Paris: E.H.E.S.S. Oikonomides, N., 2002, ‘The role of the Byzantine state in the economy’, EHB 3, 973-1058.

agricole, manufacturière et commerciale, voies de communication, armée, culte, etc, Brussels – Paris’, in N. Michoff (ed.) 1971, Contribution à l'histoire du commerce de la Turquie et de la Bulgarie VI, Sofia, 352-370. Heywood, C., 1996, ‘The Via Egnatia in the Ottoman period: the menzilhane of the Sol Kol in the late 17th/early 18th century’ in E. Zachariadou (ed.), The Via Egnatia under Ottoman Rule (13801699), Rethymnon: Crete University Press, 129-144. Ioannidou-Bitsiadou, G., 1977, ‘Le role commercial de Serrès au milieu du XIXe siècle dans l'espace balkanique’, Valkaniki Vivliographia 6, Parartima, 163-173. Inalcık, H. and Quataert, D. (eds), 1994, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Issawi, C., 1980, The Economic History of Turkey, 18001914, The University of Chicago, Publications of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, 13, Chicago and London. Jacoby, D. 1979, Recherches sur la Méditerranée orientale du XIIe au XVe siècle: peuples, sociétés, économies, Aldershot: Variorum reprints. Jacoby, D., 1997, Trade, Commodities, and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean, Aldershot: Variorum reprints. Jacoby, D., 2001, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean, Aldershot: Variorum reprints. Jardé, A., 1925, Les céréales dans l'Antiquité grecque. I. La production, Bibliotheque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 130, Paris. Kamal, Youssouff, Prince, 1926-1951, Monumenta cartographica Africae et Aegypti 1-5, Cairo. Kasaba, R., 1988, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: the Nineteenth Century, Albany NY: State University of New York Press. Khatzopoulos, M. and Gounaropoulou,V., 1985, Les milliaires de la Voie Egnatienne entre Heraclée des Lyncestes et Thessalonique, Athens: National Research Foundation. Kondov, N., 1965, ‘Demographische Notizen über die Landbevölkerung aus dem Gebiet des unteren Strymon in der ersten Hälfte des XIV. Jahrhunderts’, Études Balkaniques 2-3, 261-272. Kondov, N., 1971, ‘Das Dorf Gradec (DemographischWirtschaftliche Gestalt eines Dorfes im Gebiet des unteren Strymon zu Beginn des XIV. Jh.)’, Études Balkaniques 7/3, 31-55. Kondov, N., 1973, ‘Produktionsorganisatorische Verschiebungen bei dem Weinbau in der ersten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts im Gebiet des unteren Strymons’, Études Balkaniques 9/1, 67-76. Kondov, N., 1974, ‘Über den wahrscheinlichen Weizenertrag der Balkanhalbinsel im Mittelalter’, Études Balkaniques 10/1, 97-109. 29

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O'Brien, P. and Keyder, C., 1978, Economic Growth in Britain and France 1780 -1914: Two Paths to the Twentieth Century, London: Allen and Unwin. Palma, Gaetan, 1811, Carte de la plus grande partie de la Turquie d'Europe, Trieste [MAP]. Pamuk, S., 1987, ‘Commodity production for world markets and relations of production in Ottoman agriculture, 1840-1913’ in H. Islamoglu-Inan (ed.), The Ottoman Empire and the WorldEconomy, Studies in Modern Capitalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 178-202. Papangelos, I., 1990, ‘O poros tou Marmariou’, Mnimi D. Lazaridi, Polis kai khora stin arkhaia Makedonia kai Thraki, Thessaloniki, 333-356. Papazoglou, F., 1988, Les villes de Macédoine à l'époque romaine, BCH Supplément XVI , Έcole française d'Athènes. Papazoglou, G., 1987, Metaphrasmena tourkika engrapha tou Metokhiou ‘Orphani’ tis Monis Dionysiou tou Agiou Orous (1535 -1733), Kavala. Petmezas, S., 1996, ‘Serrès et sa région sous les Ottomans’, in P. Odorico et al. (eds), Conseils et mémoires de Synadinos prêtre de Serrès en Macédoine (XVIIe siècle), Paris: E.H.E.S.S., 429-569. Piri Re'is [1525-1526] see Alpagut and Kurtoglu 1935. Porcacchi, Tomaso, 1572, ‘Arcipelago’, in V. Sphyroeras, A. Avramea and S. Asdrachas (eds), 1985, Maps and Map-makers of the Aegean, Athens: Olkos, [MAP 34]. Randolph, Bernard, 1665, Greece and part of Anatolia, England [MAP]. Roux, Joseph, 1764, Carte de la Méditerranée en douze feuilles, France [MAPS]. Royal Engineers, 1916-1919, ‘Neohori’ [1:20,000], ‘Orfano’ [1:20,000]; ‘Mouth of the Struma River’ [1:20,000]; ‘Orfano’ [1:50,000] [MAPS]. Samson, le Sieur, 1700, Estats de l'empire des Turqs en Europe, Paris [MAP]. Sanuto, Marin, [1497-1533], ‘Diarii’, in K. Mertzios (ed.), 1947, Mnimeia makedonikis istorias, Thessaloniki: Society for Macedonian Studies, 100-124. Smyrlis, K., 2006, La fortune des grands monastères byzantins (fin du xe-milieu du XIVe siècle), Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance. Soloviev, A. and Mosin, V. (eds), 1936, Diplomata graeca regum et imperatorum Serviae, Belgrade. Sophocles, E., 1887, Greek Lexikon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (from B.C. 146 to A.D. 1100), New York: Frederick Ungar. Sphyroeras, V., Avramea A, and Asdrachas, S. (eds), 1985, Maps and Map-makers of the Aegean, Athens: Olkos, [MAP 34].

Svoronos, N., 1956, Le commerce de Salonique au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Tafel, G. and Thomas, G. (eds), 1856-1857, Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, I –III, Vienna. Thiriet, F., 1977, Etudes sur la Romanie greco-vénitienne (Xe - XVe siècles), London: Variorum Reprints. Thiriet, F., 1959-1975, La Romanie Vénitienne au moyen Age, le developpement et l’exploitation du domain colonial vénitien (XIIe-XVe siècles), Paris: E. de Boccard. Tomaschek, W., 1886, ‘Zur Kunde der Hämus-Halbinsel. II. Die Handelswege im 12. Jahrhundert nach den Erkundigungen des Arabers Idrisi’, Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 113, Vienna, 285-373. T.T.3 [1454-1455] 1978, in A. Stojanovski (ed.), Turski dokumenti za istorijata na Makedonskiot narod. Opširen popisen defter od XV vek, Skopje: Academy of Sciences. Vakalopoulos, K., 1976, ‘To emporio tis Thessalonikis 1796-1840’, Makedonika 16, 73-173. Vakalopoulos, K., 1980, Oikonomiki leitourgia tou makedonikou kai thrakikou khorou sta mesa tou 19ou aiona sta plaisia tou diethnous emporiou, Thessaloniki: Society for Macedonian Studies. Van Keulen, Johannes, 1680, Paskaart van de Archipelagusche Eylanden [MAP]. Viquesnel, A., 1868, Voyage dans la Turquie d'Europe. Description physique et géographique de la Thrace, I -II, Paris. Wentworth-Bennett, C. [1916-1918], ‘Enemy positions at Neohori’ [National Army Museum, London: Acc. no.8206-5.VPP3-13-3] [DRAWING]. [Willermus Tyrensis], Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, in 1844, Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux I/1 – 2, Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris. Zacos, G. and Veglery, A., 1972, Byzantine Lead Seals I, Basel. Zakythinos, D., 1932-1953, Le Despotat grec de Morée, I – II, Paris and Athens. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ABBREVIATIONS

EHB: The economic history of Byzantium from the seventh through the fifteenth century 1 – 3, Laiou, A. (ed.), Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Institute, 2002. Archibald Dunn Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity The University of Birmingham Email: [email protected]

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Fig. 7 - Seaborne trade and traffic at the Strymon Delta’s western locus of maritime traffic: 1750s -1850s (© A.W. Dunn)1

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1.3 The Strymon Delta Project: The Palynological Evidence Margaret A. Atherden and Jean A. Hall Development of sand banks and shoals forced the river further and further east, so that by the Early Byzantine period (c. AD 350) it was flowing in a course due east in the upper part of the delta and then turning south to empty into the western side of what is now a large lagoon but was then still part of the open sea. Later progradation of material at the river mouth led to the virtual closure of this lagoon and the adoption of a more westerly course to the sea by the 16th century. Further development of the delta again shifted the river mouth eastwards until the western course was re-cut in the 1930s. This course has been maintained artificially since that time but changes continue to occur in the delta. The construction of a motorway through the northern part of the delta in the 1980s is the most recent change to affect the area. Thus the present delta, with its complex suite of shingle ridges, sand dunes, marshes and mudflats, represents only the most recent of a series of changing geographies of the region. The approximate positions of the three main settlements which existed in the delta in Prehistoric/Historic times have been plotted in relation to the changing palaeogeography of the delta (Fig. 1). Detailed stratigraphic and palynological analyses were carried out at four sites in order to provide a clearer picture of the settlements, their harbours and relationship with the river (Fig. 2).

INTRODUCTION

The previous paper, by A. Dunn, has outlined some of the archaeological issues surrounding the Strymon delta and the coast of Greek Macedonia during the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods. The Strymon Delta Project is one of a number of interdisciplinary research projects carried out in the eastern Mediterranean region over the past few years. Studies of coastal areas include those of Messenia, the Troad and Thermopylae (Rapp and Kraft 1994) and of the Nestos delta in Thrace (Syrides 1996). This paper will focus on the ways in which pollen analysis has been used to address some of the archaeological questions in the Strymon delta, particularly those concerning the environmental context of the delta and the reasons for the changing loci of its major settlements. Reference will also be made to pollen diagrams from other sites in Northern Greece in order to assess how local or regional a record is represented by the cores from the delta. Pollen diagrams from three of the Strymon delta cores have been described in full elsewhere (Atherden and Hall 1993; Atherden, Hall and Dunn 2000), so this paper will focus on the evidence from Early Byzantine times (c. AD 350) onwards. The pollen diagram from the fourth core has not been published previously and provides further evidence for the dating and interpretation of the recorded changes. For a discussion of the uses and limitations of pollen analysis as a tool for environmental reconstruction see Hall and Atherden (this volume).

Core S1 was taken from Tuzla Marsh in the southeastern part of the delta and was designed mainly to answer questions about the occupation phase at Eion (Late Bronze Age to Late Classical), which is outside the scope of the present paper. Reference to the core from this site will be made only to clarify the dating of the other cores. Core DS I was taken from a marshy area in the northern part of the delta, close to the site of Amphipolis, occupied from Classical to Early Byzantine times. It was hoped that the core would shed light on the reasons for the abandonment of Amphipolis in the late seventh century AD. Cores S7 and S3 were taken from the southeastern and northeastern sides respectively of the central lagoon and close to the site of Khrysoupolis. During the occupation of Khrysoupolis (Middle Byzantine to Early Ottoman times), the river Strymon flowed in the eastern course through the lower delta, its course lined by many minor archaeological sites. One of the purposes of studying these two cores was to establish whether the central lagoon (then open to the sea) could have acted as the harbour for Khrysoupolis. In this case, sedimentation in these two cores should not reveal any development of saltmarsh or terrestrial deposits before Late Byzantine times.

PHYSICAL BACKGROUND

An understanding of the palaeogeography of the Strymon delta is the key to the interpretation of the archaeology of the area. A series of sixteen (unpublished) vibro-cores, taken in the 1980s by Drs. Kh. Tziavos and Kh. Anagnostou of the Greek Institute of Marine Research, has allowed a tentative reconstruction of the development of the delta from Early Holocene times (c. 10,000 BP) onwards. These are augmented for the twentieth century by maps and aerial photographs, illustrating recent changes to the delta as a result of both coastal geomorphological processes and human impact (Fig. 1). The River Strymon entered the Gulf of Orphani in a broad estuary in Early Holocene times and its mouth moved progressively southwards as deposits of mud, sand and shingle accumulated to form a delta. Throughout the Prehistoric period much of the present delta was still open sea, but by Classical times (c. 500 BC) deposits had infilled the northern part of the estuary and the river had already changed its course several times.

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Fig. 1 - Development of the Stryman delta, based on stratigraphic borings; E=Eion, A=Amphipolis, K= Khrysoupolis. S1, S3, S7, DSI = pollen cores

Fig. 2 - Locations of the cores used for pollen analysis in relation to the present configuration

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Samples for pollen analysis were analysed in the laboratory at the College of Ripon & York St John (now York St John University) in York. Contiguous blocks of sediment spanning 10 cm depths were taken from cores S1, S3 and S7. Samples spanning 2 cm depths were taken at 8 cm intervals from the DS I core. All samples were stored under refrigeration and analysed using standard laboratory techniques of alkali digestion and HF treatment (Faegri, Kaland and Krzywinski 1989). Pollen grains and spores were identified under high powered microscopes and a minimum pollen count of 200 grains was made from each level. The pollen diagrams were constructed using a total dryland pollen sum and drawn using the TILIA and TILIAGRAPH computer packages (Grimm 1991). Selected taxa are shown on the accompanying figures (Figs 4 -7).

Another issue to be investigated from these two cores concerned the later history of this part of the delta, particularly the lack of substantial settlement sites. RESEARCH METHODS

Summaries of the stratigraphies of the four cores have been made from the unpublished field notes taken by the oceanographers Tziavos and Anagnostou (Fig. 3). Only the top few metres of the DS I core are shown, as the rest of the core pre-dates the Medieval period. The lower sediments in all the cores consisted of marine sands and clays with varying amounts of shell fragments. In each core, the transition to saltmarsh was seen within the top 1.5 metres, marked by terrestrial clay, sometimes ironstained and with varying quantities of organic matter. The presence of large water-worn pebbles in the DS I core probably indicates a change in the course of the river channel.

Dating of the cores was by a series of radiocarbon dates obtained from the University of Arizona (Table 1). Some of the dates were conventional radiocarbon dates and some were accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates. The small quantities of carbon present in some of the samples, together with the dynamic geomorphological environment of the delta, posed problems with the sequence of dates, especially in the case of cores S3 and DS I (Fig. 3). The latter core in its entirety (21.7 metres) spans most of the Holocene period but good pollen preservation is confined to two zones, one from 13.0 to 9.0 metres, which spans the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic periods, and one from 2.0 to 1.3 metres. The dating of this upper zone is ambiguous, owing to the inversion of the two radiocarbon dates, the upper one suggesting a Roman age and the lower one a date of Early or Middle Byzantine age. Thus it is possible but not certain that part or the entire zone corresponds with the later part of the occupation period at Amphipolis.

Pollen preservation is sporadic in all four cores, as indicated on the stratigraphic diagrams (Fig. 3). This is to be expected in a high energy delta environment, where changes in the distributaries of the river and progradation of features such as shingle bars create changing conditions for sedimentation. The best preservation of organic remains, including pollen grains and spores, probably took place during periods of relative stability, in environments such as saltmarshes or lagoons. On the basis of the stratigraphy and degree of pollen preservation, it is possible to draw tentative conclusions about the local environments of the cores, which in turn lead to inferences about the context of the major settlements in the delta.

Fig. 3 - Reconstructed sedimentary sections for the four cores, based on stratigraphic borings. The periods of occupation of the three main settlements are also indicated (C14 dates are unreliable)

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DS I may correlate with the upper zones on S1 and S7 or it may be later, depending on which of the two radiocarbon dates is correct. The upper zone on S7 should compare with the lower zone on S3, whilst there should be no equivalent to the upper zone on S3. In the following section, the figures for aquatics will not be used in the correlation of the pollen diagrams, as they are believed to be derived from very local pollen sources and for this reason have been excluded from the pollen sums.

Core S1 has four radiocarbon dates, the bottom two of which cannot be separated statistically and indicate a Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age date for the base of the core. The period of occupation at Eion (Fig. 1:"E") spans the lower part of the core, with good pollen preservation in the first part but little or no pollen in the later occupation phase. There is then a section of the core from 2.1 to 1.0 metres with good pollen preservation, dated as late Classical/Hellenistic to Early Byzantine, followed by a disturbed upper section without pollen. Evidence from this core will be used to help interpret core S3, where there are major problems with the radiocarbon dates.

Examination of the four pollen diagrams does indeed reveal that the lower zone of DS I has no equivalent on the other diagrams. It is dominated by tree pollen (AP), the most important components of which are Pinus (Pine) and Quercus (Oak, both deciduous and evergreen types). There is a wide range of AP types, with significant representation of species such as Betula, Ulmus, Tilia, Carpinus and Ostrya, (Birch, Elm, Lime, Hornbeam and Hop-Hornbeam) which are unimportant in all other zones on the pollen diagrams. Corylus pollen (Hazel) is present in greater quantities than in all other zones and there are also frequent records for Abies (Fir). The picture is one of a mostly wooded landscape, dominated by deciduous trees but with a significant admixture of conifers. This is similar to the picture recorded on other diagrams from the area (e.g. Wijmstra 1969, Greig and Turner 1974). Nontree pollen (NAP) values are relatively low and may be derived from the delta itself. There are occasional large (>40 microns in diameter) Poaceae (Grasses) pollen grains and records for Olea (Olive) pollen, which should probably be interpreted as evidence for wild grasses and wild olives rather than as signs of cultivation. The lack of definite anthropogenic indicators during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in this area has also been noted by Willis and Bennett (1994). This lower zone on DS I therefore provides an insight into the regional forests before significant human impact.

Core S7 has two main zones of good pollen preservation, the lower one corresponding to the Roman period and the upper one ending in the late Ottoman period. There is no date for the beginning of this upper zone but it probably falls somewhere in the Byzantine period. The occupation phase for Khrysoupolis certainly includes this upper pollen-rich zone but may extend into the area of the core with poor pollen preservation below it. The core S3 has four radiocarbon dates but the upper two are older than the lower two. There are two main zones with good pollen preservation in this core, the lower dated to the late Byzantine period. This fits in with the proposed reconstructions by the oceanographers (Fig. 1), which suggest that sedimentation in this area began during Byzantine times. There is then a section of the core with poor pollen preservation, from the middle of which there is a date of Early-Middle Byzantine age. Above this is a zone with good pollen preservation, the top of which has been dated as Iron Age. This is clearly extremely unlikely on geomorphological grounds but the pollen evidence can also be used to refute the date (see below). The pollen-rich zones on the four diagrams provide evidence for the vegetation of the delta and its surrounding region during Medieval and Post-Medieval times. The Chenopodiaceae (Goosefoot family) curve (which is not included in the pollen sum) is a useful indicator of the presence of saltmarsh plants. Peaks in this curve, together with the stratigraphic evidence described above, allow the point at which saltmarsh became dominant locally to be identified on each core. In core DS I the date of this transition to terrestrial conditions is within the Late Roman to Middle Byzantine periods. In S1 the change occurred in Early Byzantine times, whereas in S7 it was delayed until the Ottoman period. In core S3 it is near the top and is probably also Ottoman in date, although no firm dating evidence exists for the top part of this core.

The lower zone of S1 should be the next zone chronologically, dated to the late Prehistoric period. Points of contrast with the zone just described are the smaller quantities of AP types present, especially Betula, Ulmus, Tilia and Carpinus; the presence of pollen from the trees Castanea (Sweet Chestnut) and Juglans (Walnut), believed to have been introduced during the Bronze Age (Bottema 1982); the lower representation of Corylus, and the much higher values for Olea, exceeding 30% of total pollen in some samples. Such high values for Olea suggest olive cultivation very close to the site (Behre 1990), probably by the inhabitants of Eion. A zone of high Olea values was recorded by Turner and Greig (1975) at Tenaghi Philippon during the Iron Age, suggesting that olive cultivation was widespread in Greek Macedonia at this time. No other zone on the pollen diagrams from the delta shows these high values for Olea; this confirms the theory that the radiocarbon date of 2670+/-60bp for 0.7-0.8 metres on the S3 core cannot be taken at face value. There are occasional records for large Poaceae grains, which could be from cultivated cereals.

CORRELATION OF THE POLLEN DIAGRAMS

Further evidence for correlation of the four cores comes from the pollen diagrams (Figs 4 to 7). If the interpretation of the stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates described above is correct, there should be no equivalent zone to the lower pollen-rich zone on DS I or to the lower zone of S1. The upper zone on S1 should show features in common with the lower zone on S7. The top zone on

The upper zone on S1 records considerably more AP than the lower one, especially Pinus (Pine) and Quercus 36

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diagrams provide evidence to supplement the stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating and enable a clearer correlation of the four cores from the delta.

pubescens-type (deciduous Oak), and small but frequent amounts of Ericaceae pollen. This may be interpreted as a regeneration of local woodland and scrub/maquis following the abandonment of Eion at the start of this zone, in late Classical times. Records for Olea are lower than in the previous zone and decrease towards the top of the diagram. Records for large Poaceae grains also decrease after the beginning of the zone, suggesting a decrease in arable cultivation in the vicinity of the site after the occupation phase at Eion. Values for Poaceae and other NAP types remain fairly low.

THE STRYMON DELTA IN MEDIEVAL AND POSTMEDIEVAL TIMES

It has been established above that the Medieval and PostMedieval periods are represented on the pollen diagrams by the upper zones on S7 and DS I and the two pollenrich zones on S3. The pollen diagrams may now be used to reconstruct the landscape of the delta during these periods and to throw light on the reasons for abandonment of Amphipolis in Early-to-Middle Byzantine times and the establishment and later abandonment of Khrysopoulis.

This zone may be compared with the lower zone on the S7 diagram, which is believed to overlap with it chronologically. The two zones compare well, showing similar values for Pinus and Quercus pollen types, low values for Poaceae and other NAP taxa and decreasing values for Olea. This suggests that a late HellenisticRoman date for this zone on S7 is feasible. However, the correlation with the top zone on DS I is less convincing. On the DS I diagram, values for Quercus are considerably lower than in the upper zone on S1. Values for Poaceae are higher (20% at 1.2 - 1.3 metres). A peak in Alnus was also recorded by Turner and Greig (1975) on the pollen diagram from Gravouna in a Late to PostByzantine context. There are also small but significant records for pollen of maquis plants, such as Phillyrea (Mock privet), Pistacia (Mastic tree) and Ericaceae (Heather family). This suggests that the top part of the S3 diagram is the most recent of the zones represented on these four pollen diagrams. Therefore, the pollen 37

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sediments could account for the unacceptable radiocarbon dates in the upper part of the core. Overall the diagrams from S7 and S3 suggest that by Ottoman times the central lagoon was beginning to infill and, if the lagoon was the main harbour, this would have made it difficult for Khrysoupolis to function as a port.

(Van der Hammen et al. 1965; Wijmstra 1969; Turner and Greig 1975). One of the cores studied by Turner and Greig at Gravouna does appear to cover the period from Middle Byzantine times onwards but there is no radiocarbon dating to date the several phases of increased agricultural activity shown (1975).

THE STRYMON DELTA IN ITS REGIONAL CONTEXT

Dunn (1992) has assembled documentary evidence to illustrate a considerable exploitation and trade in timber and wood products in Byzantine times. Imperial control extended to the management of woodlands for timber and for pasture/pannage, and taxes and rents were often paid in timber or wood products. This could account for decreases seen in the AP curves on many of the pollen diagrams in Mid-Late Byzantine times. A gradual lessening of imperial control during the Late Byzantine period could have been one factor in the regeneration of trees to overtake exploitation by the end of the Byzantine period, resulting in the increases in AP seen on the diagrams. During the Ottoman period there is documentary evidence for considerable impact on woodland resources, as confirmed by the renewed decrease in AP seen on those pollen diagrams which cover the period, eg. Lailias, where clearance precedes a date of 250 +/-80 BP (AD 1530-1950), and Pieria, where the second of three major clearances is dated to 520 +/-80 BP (AD 1330-1445) (Gerasimidis and Athanasiadis, 1995). The exception to this picture of woodland decline in Ottoman times is Pinus halepensis (Aleppo Pine), which was expanding in coastal areas at this time. This is well illustrated on several pollen diagrams, including those from the Strymon Delta. Several diagrams show modern increases in other AP taxa, e.g. the diagram from Rhodopes (Gerasimidis and Athanasiadis 1995), and this is in line with evidence from other parts of Greece (see Dunn 2006, Vol. 2, 50-100; Hall and Atherden this volume).

The Strymon Delta cores may have recorded a local picture, as shown, for example, by the very high Olea values in the lower zone on S1 and the high Chenopodiaceae values in all cores at the transition to saltmarsh conditions. It is important, therefore, to set them in their broader regional context by comparison with other published diagrams from Northern Greece. Evidence for the character of the regional vegetation in the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods is limited by the small number of pollen diagrams with firm dating for these periods. The nearest published diagram is that from Lake Volvi (Bottema 1982), where a tephra layer at 550 cm has been identified with the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, and records for Zea (Maize) pollen above 120 cm fix the date of the top of the diagram to the last few centuries. The landscape revealed at the base of this diagram is one of mixed woodland, maquis, steppe and agricultural land. The diagram appears to have recorded a fairly regional picture, including records of species such as Fagus (Beech), Abies and Picea (Spruce), which would have been growing in the mountains to the North. A zone of intensive agricultural impact is seen in the late Classical-Roman period, followed by a regeneration of woodland and a decrease in anthropogenic indicators. From 350 to 250 cm AP decreases again and agricultural indicators increase in a second major clearance phase. Bottema suggests an Early Ottoman date for this clearance but the age-depth curve from the geomagnetic survey puts the beginning of the clearance at c. AD 1000, i.e. Middle Byzantine. The clearance phase at Volvi is followed by another regeneration of AP and a third rather gradual clearance culminating just after the Zea pollen records near the top.

CONCLUSION

The four cores studied from the Strymon Delta have allowed further details to be discerned of the development of the delta and river system in Medieval and Post-Medieval times. They confirm the development of saltmarsh conditions in the northern part of the delta by the time Amphipolis was abandoned as a port, and they show the infilling of the central lagoon during later Byzantine times, gradually reducing the viability of Khrysoupolis as a port. By comparison with other pollen diagrams from the region, they provide a local record of vegetation change but one which fits in well with the emerging picture of increased agricultural activity and woodland exploitation in Middle Byzantine times, followed by decreased activity in Late Byzantine-Early Ottoman times and renewed activity later in the Ottoman period. The value of a multi-disciplinary approach to elucidating archaeological problems is well illustrated by the Strymon Delta Project.

Two pollen diagrams have been published from high altitude sites north of the Strymon Delta (Gerasimidis and Athanasiadis 1995). The diagram from Lailias records three major clearance zones, the second of which occurs just before 910+/-80 BP (AD 1025-1220). The evidence for human impact is less marked on the diagram from Rhodopes and the clearance there is dated somewhat later, i.e. 525 +/-63 BP (AD 1335-1440). A phase of intensified agricultural activity from c. AD 1000 onwards is also seen on diagrams from further afield, e.g. Trikhonis in Western Greece and Kastoria in Northwestern Greece (Bottema 1982), Litochoro in North-central Greece (Athanasiadis 1988) and less convincingly at Elatia in Northern Greece (Athanasiadis et al. 1991). In all cases the agricultural zone is followed by a regeneration of trees and shrubs, which may correspond to the Late Byzantine or early Ottoman periods. Unfortunately, the pollen diagrams from Tenaghi Philippon do not extend into the Medieval period 38

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Laboratory No.

Sample depth (cm)

C-14 date BP

S1 S1

AA 16465 AA 16464

90-100 200-210

1520+\-50 2265+\-50

Calibrated age range (1-sigma) AD 440-485, 530-600 395-350, 290-210 BC

S1

AA 16463

260-270

2870+\-55

1120-975, 955-940 BC

S1 DS I

AA 16462 AA 16471

300-310 130-132

2830+\-55 1725+\-55

1050-910 BC AD 225-380

DS I

AA 23015

170-180

1015+/-60

AD 905-915, 970-1045, AD 1090-1150

DS I

AA 16470

908-910

7055+\-80

6010-5845 BC

DS I

AA 23016

966-968

6354+\-75

5465-5225 BC

DS I

AA 23017

1310-1314

7315+\-75

6235-6075 BC

DS I

AA 16469

1354-1356

7700+\-70

6590-6475 BC

DS I S3

AA 15798 AA 16464

2088-2090 70-80

9695+\-90 2670+\-60*

9275-9120, 9000-8875 BC 895-800 BC

S3 S3

AA 16467 AA 16466

160-170 200-210

1300+\-70* 560+\-60

AD 655-775 AD 1310-1360, 1385-1420

S3 S7

AA 15799 A- 9413

260-270 123-133

754+\-50 390+\-45

AD 1225-1280 AD 1445-1515, 1595-1620

S7

AA 23020

288-290

1925+\-45

AD 25-125

S7

A-9414

395-400

2050+\-65

165 BC- AD 15

Table 1 - Radiocarbon dates determined by the AMS Facility at the Univ. of Arizona (AA) and the Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry, Univ. of Arizona (A); (* = unreliable dates). The carbon dates are reported as conventional dates in BP (Mook and van der Plicht 1999). The 14C dates are calibrated into calendar ages using the calibration curve INTCAL04 (Reimer et al. 2004). The errors are all 1-sigma, rounded to the nearest 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY

prehistoric occupation phases in pollen diagrams from the Near East’, in S. Bottema, G. Entjes-Nieborg and W. van Zeist (eds), Man’s Role in the Shaping of the Eastern Mediterranean Landscape, Rotterdam: Balkema, 219-230. Bottema, S., 1982, ‘Palynological investigations in Greece with special reference to pollen as an indicator of human activity’, Palaeohistoria 24, 257-289. Dunn, A., 1992, ‘The exploitation and control of woodland and scrubland in the Byzantine world’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 16, 235-298. Dunn, A., 2006, The Interaction of Secular Public Institutions and Provincial Communities in the Political and Economic Spheres in Late Antique Aegean Macedonia, Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham. Faegri, K., Kaland, P.E. and Krzywinski, K., 1989 (4th edition), Textbook of Pollen Analysis, London: John Wiley and Sons. Gerasimidis, A. and Athanasiadis, N., 1995, ‘Woodland history of northern Greece from the mid Holocene to recent time based on evidence from peat pollen profiles’,

Athanasiadis, N., 1988, ‘Pollen analysis and its importance from the historic-archaeologic point of view based on the data of a diagram from Varico-Litochoro’, Scientific Annals of the Dept. of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Vol. 31, 145-152. Athanasiadis, N., Gerasimidis, A., Eleftheriadou, E. and Theodoropoulos, K., 1993, ‘Zur postglazialen Vegetationsentwicklung des Rhodopi-Gebirges (Elatia Dramas – Griechenland)’, Dissertationes Botanicae 196, 427-437. Atherden, M.A. and Hall, J.A., 1993, ‘Holocene pollen diagrams from Greece’, Historical Biology 9, 117-130. Atherden, M.A., Hall, J.A. and Dunn, A., 2000, ‘Palynological evidence from the Strymon Delta, Macedonia, Greece’, in R.A. Nicholson and T.P. O'Connor (eds), People as an Agent of Environmental Change, Symposia of the Association for Environmental Archaeology, No. 16, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 6-18. Behre, K.-E., 1990, ‘Some reflections on anthropogenic indicators and the record of 39

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1. Landscape Studies

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 4, 109-116. Greig, J.R.A. and Turner, J., 1974, ‘Some pollen diagrams from Greece and their archaeological significance’, Journal of Archaeological Science 1, 177-194. Grimm, E, 1991, TILIA and TILIAGRAPH, Springfield: Illinois State Museum. Hammen, T. van der, Wijmstra, T.A. and van der Molen, W.H., 1965, ‘Palynological study of a very thick peat section in Greece and the Würm Glacial vegetation in the Mediterranean region’, Geologie en Mijnbouw 44, 37-39. Mook, W.G. and van der Plicht, J., 1999, ‘Reporting 14C activities and concentrations’, Radiocarbon 41, 227-239. Rapp, G. Jr. and Kraft, K.C., 1994, ‘Holocene coastal change in Greece and Aegean Turkey’, in P.N. Kardulias (ed.), Beyond the Site: Regional Studies in the Aegean Area, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 69-90. Reimer, P.J. et al., 2004, ‘INTCAL04 terrestrial radiocarbon age calibration, 0-26 cal kyr BP’, Radiocarbon 46, 1029-1058.

Syrides, G.E., 1996, ‘Holocene stratigraphy and palaeoenvironments in the area of ancient Avdira (Thrace, Greece)’, Proceedings of the Second Symposium of the Hellenic Archaeometrical Society (26-28 March 1993), Thessaloniki, 357-370. Turner, J. and Greig, J.R.A., 1975, ‘Some Holocene pollen diagrams from Greece’, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 20, 171-204. Wijmstra, T.A., 1969, ‘Palynology of the first 30 metres of a 120 metre section in northern Greece’, Acta Botanica Neerlandica 18, 511527. Willis, K.J. and Bennett, K.D., 1994, ‘The Neolithic transition – fact or fiction? Palaeoecological evidence from the Balkans’, The Holocene 4, 326-330.

____________________________________________

____________________________________________

Margaret A. Atherden Honorary Research Fellow, York St John University [email protected] Jean A. Hall Honorary Research Fellow, York St John University

Fig. 4 - Pollen diagram from core DSI

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Fig. 5 - Pollen diagram form core S1

Fig. 6 - Pollen diagram form core S7

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Fig. 7 - Pollen diagram from core S3

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1.4 Settlement Patterns in Medieval and Post-Medieval Sphakia: Issues from the Archaeological and Historical Evidence Lucia Nixon, Simon Price, Oliver Rackham and Jennifer Moody INTRODUCTION

decorated table-wares and amphorae from Africa and the Eastern Aegean. The Sphakiote ‘gap’ is part of a broader problem of detecting sites of this period: throughout the Central and Eastern Mediterranean, the late eighth and ninth centuries are almost invisible archaeologically.

The Sphakia Survey is an interdisciplinary archaeological field project studying the eparchy of Sphakia (470 km2), which had not previously received systematic investigation. Our objective is to reconstruct the sequence of human interaction with the environment in Southwestern Crete, from the time that people arrived (c. 3000 BC) up to the end of the Turkish period (AD 1900). Sphakia, a rugged and remote area, includes most of the White Mountains, and ten major gorges, notably Samaria. Thanks to a generous permit obtained from the Greek Archaeological Service through the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens, researchers began working in Sphakia in 1987. Fieldwork was conducted in 1987-90, 1992; final site revisiting 1996; study seasons 1992-95, 1997-991 (Map 1).

Settlement sites of the Middle Byzantine period (AD 961 - 1204) seem to mark a new beginning. The three attested sites run on from Middle Byzantine into Venetian and beyond (Samaria, 1.22; Ano Periana, 3.02; Biri Avlochi, 7.09). The strongest sign of change in this period is the building of new churches (to which we will return below). But in Sphakia there is no sign of imported Middle Byzantine decorated wares. Though the Middle Byzantine imported amphorae are a sign that the region was becoming connected again with the outside world, the growth in population and development of new settlements did not advance far in the Middle Byzantine period. The formation of a new settlement pattern, which lasted through the rest of the epoch, begins to take shape in the Early Venetian period (AD 1204 - 1500). In this period we find major sites developing in all parts of Sphakia. Following a period of growth in the Early Venetian period, the settlement pattern that endured into the 20th century was established. Late Venetian writers between the 1570s and the 1640s list all the major settlements from Trypiti and Samaria in the West to Argoule in the East. In this paper we will discuss three issues arising from the material.

Our survey has a serious general commitment to the synthesis of all available evidence, environmental, archaeological, and documentary, for all three major epochs of the survey: Prehistoric (PH), Graeco-Roman (GR), and Byzantine-Venetian-Turkish (BVT). We have located some 324 sites, of which 204 (63%) have a BVT phase. More information, including pictures, on all the sites may be found via the site number (in the format 1.29 or 8.24) at: http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk. Full details will also be available in the Survey’s final print publication, from Oxford University Press (Vol. 1 will consist of analyses and history; Vol. 2, Site and Finds catalogue). For the purposes of this paper, Byzantine refers to the period of AD 650 - 1204; Venetian to 1204 1645; and Turkish to 1645 - 1900. We are most grateful to the specialists who have helped us with this material: for pottery Margrete Hahn (Odense) and Pamela Armstrong (Oxford); for Medieval Greek Rosemary Bancroft-Marcus (Oxford) and Georgios Deligiannakis (Oxford); for Ottoman documents Machiel Kiel (now Istanbul), who found and translated the Tahrir Defter 820, ‘Defter-i Hanya’, and other documents of particular importance to the Survey (cf. Price et al. 2008). We would like to emphasize how much the synthetic work of this (and other) survey projects depends on the expertise of many different specialists, and we thank all of them.

DATING SIMPLE CHURCHES AND VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE

Until recently, dating simple churches and vernacular buildings had not been a high priority. Thus many of the churches in Sphakia, which, as elsewhere, are architecturally simple, are currently undated by experts in the period unless they have datable frescoes; BVT houses too are difficult to date. Diachronic survey projects like the Sphakia Survey have begun to ask questions about landscape use, which could be answered if dates were available for these structures. In Sphakia, the tiny church of Agios Pavlos (3.01), on the coastal route between Agia Roumeli and Loutro, is a good example of how a date can help with the interpretation of a local landscape. Agios Pavlos is an isolated church (exokklisi) said to have been built by Saint John Xenos (d. 1027), as part of his evangelisation

The transition from the Late Roman settlement pattern to that known in the Venetian period is difficult to trace in detail. We almost lose sight of Sphakia by the mid seventh century AD, after the ending of imported

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Map 1 - The area of the Sphakia Survey: Map of principal settlements in Sphakia in the Ottoman period. The names in brackets are not separate villages (kariye) in the Ottoman censuses: Askyphou is linked with Vouvas; Imbros, Asphendou and Kallikrati are summer settlements only; Nomikiana, if it existed in the 17th century, must have been counted with Vouvas. The boundary indicates the likely extent of the territory of the 11 villages of the vakıf; the three eastern villages, Kapsodhasos, Skaloti and Argoule, did not form part of the vakıf, but were included in the province (eparchy) of Sphakia only in the mid 19th century. The contours are at every 400 m, with an extra contour at 200 m. Inset: Crete with location of Sphakia

A date for Agios Ioannis might clarify the specific function of both churches within the local landscape, and the stages of BVT use of the plain; and these are only two of the exokklisia in this area.

of West Crete (Tomadhakis 1983-84, 7; Gallas, Wessel, and Borboudhakis 1983, 256-257; Bissinger 1995, 84). Its position is significant: it shows the location of a great spring of fresh water, and the spot was at least later taken to be where St Paul was said to have baptized the first Christians on Crete. The choice of site for this church may be connected with the growth of this legend. As elsewhere in Sphakia, exokklisia like this usually mark significant features of the landscape including resource packages (Nixon 2006).

The nondescript architecture of most of the churches does not permit us to distinguish between Venetian and Turkish dates for construction, but the practice of embedding fine-ware bacini in façades at the time of construction, which is an innovation of the Venetian period, is found in 20 churches in Sphakia, including Ag. Ioannis sto Lakko (Fig. 2). As the bacini are secular bowls, which are unlikely to have been stored as heirlooms, they were probably built into the churches soon after production (cf. Berti and Tongiorgi 1981; Gelichi, Berti and Nepoti 1996). Most of the bacini have dropped out, or been covered over, but four of these churches are datable by bacini to the 13th – 14th centuries, and many of the bacini holes are found in association with other evidence (constructional features, paintings or documents) that prove a Venetian date. The range of bacini used to decorate the churches is very similar to that used in churches in Italy itself. But not all bacini are Venetian: two buildings or major additions are datable by bacini to the Turkish period.

A second example will confirm the importance of dates for exokklisia. The simple rectangular church of Agios Nikitas (8.50) lies near the fort at Frangokastello, on the coast of the Frangokastello Plain (Gerola 1961, 49, no. 227; Andrianakis 1998, 20). Built over an earlier, larger 6th century AD basilica with a mosaic, it was constructed before 1340, when the Venetians refer to the area as ‘Santo Nicheta’, and there is also a graffito of 1371. The architectural features could not be so precisely dated. Nearby to the North in the Frangokastello Plain, in the locality called Lakkos is another simple Medieval church, Agios Ioannis (8.55; Nixon 2006, 45, 46, 71, 126, 154155) (Fig. 1). Early Christian marble spolia are built into it, but these do not give us a construction date.

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268). In Venice it would unhesitatingly be ascribed to the period 1470-1500 (e.g. Scuola Grande di S. Marco). Allowing for the time-lag of provincialism, we would agree with Gerola in dating the Sphakiote structure to the beginning of the 16th century. Another important category of vernacular architecture in Sphakia comprises the shepherds’ huts (mitata) in the summer pastures of the White Mountains. Here, the mitata are characterised by circular corbel vaults (cf. Dheligiannakis 2003). Construction is almost entirely rough dry-stone (Fig. 3): a thick circular wall with a corbel-vault, successive horizontal courses of stone projecting inward more and more until the remaining gap (if not left open as a smoke-hole) is bridged by a single big boulder. Often further circles are added, communicating through mortared rough-stone arches. These structures, though obviously BVT in date, cannot be given a precise date without excavation, and the same applies to the mitata elsewhere in Crete such as Mt Dikte in Lasithi, and Psiloreiti/Mount Ida (cf. Syrmakezi 1988, who focusses on the technique of corbelling). The pottery associated with the Sphakiote mitata does give us some idea of when, and how, these structures and the areas around them were used. In the central Madhares, according to the evidence of pottery, one mitato has a Byzantine phase, five a Venetian phase and 14 a Turkish phase (Fig. 4). To the pottery, we can add documentary evidence for cheese production and distribution. Cretan cheese generally is well known in the V period as a major export (Jacoby 1999), and some of this may well be from the White Mountains. But the first explicit testimony is from the very early T period (Randolph 1687, 85; cf. Triandaphyllidhou-Baladié 1988, 202-203). Thus the pottery and the available texts mentioning the White Mountains ‘agree’ on usage in the V and T periods.

Fig. 1 - Ag. Ioannis sto Lakko, Frangokastello Plain (8.55): SW corner of church with Late Roman spolia

The problem of dating occurs also with vernacular architecture. The villages of Kolokasia (8.26), Patsianos (8.42) and Kapsodhasos (8.51) at the northern end of the Frangokastello Plain definitely belong to the (B) VT period. The houses within the villages date from the 15th century onwards, but exact dates often cannot be assigned. Possible dating indications include: styles of house in sites with a documented date of desertion; instances where a building of one style has been added on to an earlier one of another style, or where one style has been adapted into a later style; datable architectural details; indications in pictures or documents; introduction of new materials such as cement and imported tiles; and (rarely) inscribed date-stones. For example, at Kolokasia there are 26 clusters of houses, six being single buildings, the others each of up to eight structures assembled in an ascertainable order. In most cases the oldest standing part of a cluster is a kamara-house built round a great arch. In each cluster, one of these groups of forty is the oldest. The origin of these clusters must go back into the Venetian period The few surviving houses with architectural pretensions can be dated stylistically. The V house in the Anopoli hamlet of Gyro (4.12) includes a big upstairs mullioned window with two lights (bifora), with two round arches on a central column (Gerola 1905-32, iii, 266, figs. 166,

Fig. 2 - Ag. Paraskevi, above old Ag. Roumeli (1.20): six Venetian ‘bacini’ (one missing) above apse (photo Aug. 1995)

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Fig. 3 - Pyrgos 3 ‘mitato’ (2.26), corbelled stone roof clearly visible (photo July 1989)

almost until the end of the second millennium AD. All VT settlements (as opposed to other, smaller loci of human activity marked only by pottery, as in other epochs), if not actual houses, have structural remains that can be recorded and mapped. They cannot be dated precisely, as we have seen, but they definitely belong to this long period. The presence or absence of VT pottery is thus less relevant in terms of estimating site size (though of course it might, like good architectural dates, make finer chronological phasing possible). On the basis of the house remains, we can therefore produce figures for settlement sizes in a consistent way for all VT settlements in this period, and then establish whether they vary in any significant way.

COMPARABILITY OF MAJOR EPOCHS

It is difficult to compare major epochs in our Survey, a problem which applies to most other survey projects as well; luckily, the problems of comparison in themselves are informative. One of our goals is to assess, accurately, the size, function, and phases of settlements dating to the Prehistoric, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine-Venetian-Turkish periods. How is it possible to make a meaningful comparison between a Late Prehistoric site known mainly from sherd scatters, an Iron Age site with pottery and possibly structural remains, and a BVT site with buildings that are currently occupied, where earlier sherds are still ‘locked in’, only to be released some 50 years after the settlement is deserted? To give specific examples, consider the summer settlement of Asphendou (8.15) (with its houses, of which two-thirds were of the kamara-style, the same proportion as at Kolokasia); Loutro (5.11) in the Late Roman period, with standing remains of houses, basilicas, tombs, and other structures; and a Minoan site in the Frangokastello Plain, marked only by lines of walling, stone piles and sherds (Thermokipi, 8.53).

The question of settlement size in the VT period raises a number of complications and problems of definition. Most people in Sphakia have second and third homes, occupied at different seasons; each community has its summer- and winter-settlements and often a third locality of mitata high in the summer pastures. The common unit of settlement is the hamlet, a cluster usually of twenty or fewer houses; thus the parish of Anopoli contains eight widely-spaced hamlets at the summer level, one (Livaniana) somewhat lower, the harbour village of Loutro on the coast, and some thirty scattered mitata. Isolated farms are unusual. So are big villages, which are the normal form of settlement almost everywhere in mainland Greece. In Sphakia some apparent villages turn out to be aggregations of closely-set but separate hamlets. Khora Sphakion (6.12) is the nearest that Sphakia has to a

One way of doing this is to construct settlement hierarchies for each epoch (and for the periods within them where possible). The B period is still problematic for various reasons, but our knowledge of the VT period is more secure. There are not many VT settlements that were deserted before the 20th century; once the traditional modern settlement pattern was fully established, it lasted 46

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In the end, it may be more significant to note that while (B)VT settlements tend to be rather similar in size, and therefore lack any real hierarchy, in contrast to the other two epochs of the Sphakia Survey, PH and GR most certainly do have significant differences in size, and therefore in settlement hierarchy. What has emerged from the discussion above is a useful question: what proportion of the overall settlement hierarchy for Crete (and possibly beyond) might Sphakia have, for each of the three major epochs, and the periods within them? It is important to have a sense of what the answer to this question might be, because it helps us to see what is actually available for comparison in each epoch.

town, but this too consists of four named hamlets with a multitude of family chapels (100, as claimed by the Epic of Dhaskalogianni c.1770; 29 identified by the Survey, of which at least 18 are V; cf. Khaireti 1968); the number of chapels here is greater than for any other settlement in Sphakia. Having given a very brief summary of B and VT settlement hierarchies, we turn now to the two earlier epochs. In the earliest period for which we have evidence (Final Neolithic/Early Minoan I, 3000-2800 BC), settlements in Sphakia are not sharply differentiated. In the Palatial periods (Middle Minoan IB – Late Minoan IIIB, 1900-1200 BC), Sphakia has neither palaces nor ‘villas’, but it does have at least one large settlement, which could come next in a generalized Minoan hierarchy. During the Iron Age, Sphakia does have a sharply differentiated settlement hierarchy, with larger sites (some of which were known as poleis, at least in the Hellenistic period; see Moody et al. 1998), though they were among the smallest poleis on Crete. Phoinix in the Late Roman period was clearly a substantial site, with no fewer than five basilicas, though again smaller than the major sites on Crete. In the VT period also, it is clear that we have only the lower end of the settlement hierarchy: Sphakiote villages cannot compare with the major towns on the island: there was no city in Sphakia, and Khora Sphakion (though travellers such as Spratt in 1852-1853 had no hesitation in calling it a town) was distinctly less populous than the other castellate towns such as Kissamos and Pedhiadha. On the whole, the upper levels of the settlement hierarchy known elsewhere on Crete are not found in Sphakia.

USING ARCHAEOLOGY AND TEXTS

Here we look at the question of how to make best use of archaeology and texts in an area like Sphakia, which has two kinds of written evidence: particular documents that illuminate general issues (e.g. a pasturage treaty of 1435), and systematic documents for specific times and places in Sphakia (e.g. Ottoman records for taxation of Sphakia). The question of using historical plans and pictures of Sphakia is also discussed. These issues apply to other diachronic survey projects as well. Let us begin with an example of the complementary relationship between texts and archaeology. A document of 1435 gives the treaty between two families of Khora Sphakion, the Skordylidhes (based at Lakkoi, 6.26) and the Valerianoi (based at Kaloi Lakkoi, 6.10), who had been feuding over pasturage rights (Vourdhoubakis 1939) (Map 2).

Fig. 4 - Kolokythas 1 ‘mitato’ (2.16) Turkish-period sherd assemblage

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mandra (animal enclosure) and a bee enclosure, presumably the one mentioned in the document (Fig. 5); on bee-keeping, see Survey Publications (Nixon 2000). To the North, in the Sphakiano Gorge, lies another church, Agios Pavlos (6.23) (Fig. 6). It could scarcely be more architecturally simple, consisting of one blocky rectangular room; the document establishes that there was a church here in 1435, and this structure may well be it. Without the document we would have had no idea of the age of any church in this location. Near the church the Valerianoi family owned three houses (6.09), and three more up at Kaloi Lakkoi (6.10).

Fig. 5 - Ergastiria (6.25): looking S through door into VT bee enclosure (photo Sept. 2000)

Map 2 - Sphakiano Gorge, marking the route of the pasturage boundary, from Tholos (6.19), and Ag. Apostoloi (6.18), to Ergasteria (6.25), and then up the Sphakiano Gorge to Ag. Pavlos (6.23), and beyond

It gives the disputed boundary between their two territories, which was to be resolved by a marriage. The boundary starts from Khora Sphakion and goes more or less north up the Sphakiano Gorge, naming reference points and toponyms on the way. Many of these can be identified today, such as the church of Agioi Apostoloi (6.18); its present complex triconch plan shows that the church was probably rebuilt in the 16th century (Gerola 1905-32:, ii., 245-246; Lassithiotakis 1961-62, 191-192). Another is Ergasteria (6.25); the name for the locality survives, though its date would be hard otherwise to establish as there are no structures here apart from a cave

Fig. 6 - Ag. Pavlos, Sphakiano Gorge (6.23), looking SE (photo June 1992)

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Fig. 7 - Khora Sphakion (6.12); View down from church of Profitis Ilias; Venetian-Turkish fort on mound in centre, looking SW (photo June 1992)

buildings served as living quarters for the local ‘Provveditore’ (Governor), and were fortified by the end of the century (Fig. 7).

Archaeological and ethnographic work throughout the eparchy has shown that the landscape of Sphakia is used not in discrete environmental units, but in broad northsouth slices. Within each slice three altitudes can usually be distinguished: down, always on the coast; middle; and up. These different altitudes are exploited in different ways in different periods. In this area, Khora Sphakion and Ergastiria are down (0-300 m above sea level; Agios Pavlos (790 m) and the summer village of Kaloi Lakkoi, 6.10 (1140 m) are both part of the middle altitude; and up is the level of the mitata in the summer pastures above it (1500 m). During most of the VT period all three altitudes in this area were used, in order to maximise the benefits of transhumant pastoralism specialised in cheese production; we cannot be certain about the Byzantine period.

The fort was expanded by the Turks, but was ‘destroyed’ after the 1770 revolt of Dhaskalogianni and, according to some passing French spies, was in ruins by 1783 (Bonneval and Dumas 1783, 119, 298). The location of the (enlarged) Venetian fort is clear in all three pictures, and so is the placement of the houses. Most of them are not on the coast, but concentrated mainly in one area above it, which Boschini labels ‘Mesocorio’, the present hamlet of Mesokhori. There is an architecturally complex church at the extreme eastern edge of this area visible in all three pictures, almost certainly Agioi Apostoloi. The much smaller groups of buildings on the shore and to the East and West are not named.

Thus the document shows the precise relationship between some of the particular settlements in this area. In other words, we had worked out the overall pattern archaeologically, and the document helped us with details which we would not otherwise have been able to obtain. Further fieldwork was crucial in enabling us to confirm whether individual buildings and toponyms were still in use, and whether they were located where the document said they were.

Field visits have added crucial information to our own picture of the development of Khora Sphakion over the last three centuries. The fort, studied also by Gerola (1905-32, i., 256-260), is indeed ruined, today overgrown by exotic pines, and – disconcertingly – more or less invisible. The town has four separate hamlets: Mesokhori (6.18), Tholos (to the East, 6.19), Georgitsi (to the West, 6.17), and Bros Gialos on the shore (6.07).

Another example reinforces the need for reconnaissance. We have three 17th century pictures of Khora Sphakion: Basilicata 1630; Monanni 1631; and Boschini 1645. We know that the Venetians built a watchtower at Khora, though its date and constructional details are difficult to determine (6.07); in the later 16th century, its associated

It is easy to see why people originally preferred to live well above the hot and humid coast, because at a slightly higher altitude, summer breezes make the heat more bearable. Yet the land is not too exposed in winter. Georgitsi (Fig. 8), now completely deserted, was much larger than the small group of houses shown in the 17th 49

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century pictures. Are they accurate enough for us to say that this settlement grew after the mid 17th century? The houses and churches here are, as usual, undated. It is not difficult to explain why people left Georgitsi in the later 20th century. The abandonment of Mouri (6.02) after World War II (Georgitisi was on the main mule track leading north to this village); the construction of the modern car road to Anopoli well below it, along the coast, in the 1960s; touristic preferences for sea and sand since the 1970s; all three have contributed to the desertion of Georgitsi and the enlargement of the coastal settlement. Tholos and Mesokhori have fared somewhat better, but there too, many houses are no longer occupied. Most buildings still in use in Khora are near the sea, in Bros Gialos.

Detailed Venetian records were not compiled for all of Sphakia, but there are important Ottoman records. Records of poll-tax (haraç) payers in 1659 for the Rethymnon region include two villages that were then in the adjacent eparchy of Ag. Vasilios, but now fall within Sphakia: Skaloti (8.70) and Argoule (8.77) (Stavrinidhis 1970). In addition there are the systematic Ottoman records for what was then Sphakia. Because Sphakia was assigned to the vakıf (religious endowment) of Mecca and Medina, it used to be thought that there were no census records, but they do survive in Istanbul and Ankara, some along with those for the rest of the island, and some with the records of the administration of vakıfs. For example, we have very detailed information for the village of Agia Roumeli (1.29) for one year in the middle of the 17th century, just five years after the Ottoman conquest of West Crete (Tahrir Defter 1650, 98; located and translated for the Sphakia Survey by Machiel Kiel; cf. Price et al. 2008). We have names of the adult males, the number of households, and the amount of taxes and tithes paid for various commodities (wheat, barley, oats, lentils, cotton, grape must, ‘unlawful innovations’ i.e. pigs); land-use (grazing, beehives, gardens); and processing equipment (e.g. watermills, which could be used for grinding grain or sawing timber); and we can compare these figures with those for other villages. Thus on the basis of the Ottoman records for 1650 we can suggest that people in Agia Roumeli produced less olive oil, and paid more tax on beehives, than other places recorded that year in Sphakia.

The three 17th century pictures give us information about Khora Sphakion towards the end of the Venetian period, which can be compared with later accounts like Gerola’s in the early 20th century, and must be checked against the actual town as it has survived into the 20th century. Khora Sphakion is one of several places in Sphakia where the official village name has continued the old usage, ‘Nefs Isfakia’ attested in Ottoman documents (e.g. Stavrinidhis 1975-1985, number 630, AD 1672), but the patterns of occupation within the village have changed. We shall see another example below in the case of Agia Roumeli.

Fig. 8 - Khora Sphakion: Georgitsi (6.17). View of hamlet in trees. Looking NW. Below is the built mule track (kaldirimi) leading up to a hamlet. Church at lower left, and another at lower right (photo June 1990)

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Fig. 9 - Old village of Agia Roumeli (1.29). View from East Koule, Ag. Roumeli (1.30). Looking W (photo Oct. 1998)

But information from documents always needs to be checked on the ground. In this case, an important factor in understanding and using the information in the Ottoman records is knowing the location of the village. ‘Agia Roumeli’ is the name applied today to the modern touristic village on the coast, with its hotels and restaurants serving people who hike the Samaria Gorge. Before we had access to these written records, our field visits had already shown that the only candidate for a village of the Ottoman and earlier periods is the mostly deserted old settlement which lies inland, and is invisible from the sea (Fig. 9). Here, then, was the place to look for some of the material evidence so carefully tabulated in the document.

nearest the coast was for grain, and the others were all for timber (Fig. 11). Similarly, the area around the old village is extremely arid, therefore good for thyme and bees. Of course, people in the Ottoman period made use of the coast; but they did not actually live in a village there, as our reconnaissance has shown definitively

The houses in the old village are ‘old’, that is, they cannot be dated precisely, but their construction is of stone rather than cement, and, like those of Samaria (1.22), in the heart of the Samaria Gorge, their form is traditional: twostorey houses, many with forebuildings and exokamares (entrance arches). In number they correspond more or less to the number of households listed in the text. Almost no structures on the coast are older than the 20th century; indeed most of them are hotels and rent rooms, built in or after the 1970s, apart from the Venetian church of the Panagia (Gerola 1905-32, ii. 181-182 and figs 118119) (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10 - New village of Ag. Roumeli (1.28). View of W side of river, from Angelokambos: Lower Turkish fort (1.31). Church of Panagia is first building on approach to new village. Looking SW (photo Oct. 1998)

Near the old village there are indeed several watermills (1.34); according to oral testimony (Evangelio Kalogeraki, 1927-2006; interviewed 2003), only the one 51

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In Khora Sphakion we saw that the village had remained in more or less the same location, but that the pattern of use had changed. In the case of Agia Roumeli, the name has migrated from the older village to the coastal site. Again, we know from our archaeological work throughout the eparchy of Sphakia that people often alternated between a tendency to live inland and upland, and a tendency to live on the coast. It is therefore crucial to be sure that we know precisely where settlements were

located, and when they were occupied. Documents alone do not always give us this information. Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece used to be studied principally by art historians interested in icons and frescoes, and by historians using only texts. We hope to have shown how archaeological survey, combining diachronic questions and synthesising both material and documentary evidence, can contribute to future work in this area.

Fig. 11 - Sawmill leat and mill, Samaria Gorge (1.34); Oliver Rackham scale (photo July 1987)

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1

Sphakia Survey Publications: Francis, J., Price, S., Moody, J. and Nixon, L., 2000, ‘Agiasmatsi: A Greek Cave Sanctuary in Sphakia, SW Crete’, Annual of the British School at Athens 95, 427-471. Francis, J., 2006, ‘Beehives and Beekeeping in GraecoRoman Sphakia’, in Pepragmena Theta Dhiethnous Kritologikou Synedriou, Elounda, 1-6 October 2001, Herakleion: Etairia Kritikon Istorikon Spoudhon, A5, 379-390. Lewis Robinson, H., 2006, ‘Potters’ Use of Natural Resources for Tripod Cooking Pottery: Examples from the Sphakia Survey’, in Pepragmena Theta Dhiethnous Kritologikou Synedriou, Elounda, 1.-6. October 2001, Herakleion: Etairia Kritikon Istorikon Spoudhon, A1, 47-62.

The Sphakia Survey is directed by Lucia Nixon (formerly University of New Brunswick at Saint John, now Oxford) and Jennifer Moody (formerly Baylor University, now University of Texas at Austin), with additional senior participation of Simon Price, project historian (Oxford), and Oliver Rackham (Cambridge). We are most grateful to the people of Sphakia; to Maria Andreadaki-Vlazaki, Vanna NiniouKindeli, and Stavroula Markoulaki of the KE’ Ephoreia in Khania for facilitating the project at every stage; to Caroline Williams, Jacques Perreault, Susan Young, Nigel Kennell, Stefanie Kennell, David Jordan, and David Rupp, successive directors of the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens (now the Canadian Institute in Greece); and to those who have funded the work: from Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario; the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Institute for Aegean Prehistory; the Arts and Humanities Research Board; the British Academy; the University of New Brunswick at Saint John; in Oxford, Lady Margaret Hall, the Faculty of Literae Humaniores (now Faculty of Classics), the Research and Equipment Committee, and the Craven Committee; and Baylor University.

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Nixon, L., 2001, ‘Seeing Voices and Changing Relationships: Film, Archaeological Reporting and the Landscape of People in Sphakia’, American Journal of Archaeology 105, 77-97; reprinted with addendum in A. Stroulia and S. Buck Sutton (eds), Archaeology in Situ, London: Routledge. Nixon, L. and Price, S., 2001, ‘The Diachronic Analysis of Pastoralism through Comparative Variables’, Annual of the British School at Athens, 96, 395-424. Nixon, L., and Price S., 2004, ‘Paper, Video, Internet: New technologies for Research and Teaching in Archaeology: The Sphakia Survey’, in Lee, S. (ed.), Designing and Developing for the Disciplines (Special Issue), Journal of Interactive Media in Education 2004 (11), ISSN: 1365-893X; http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/ 2004/17/nixon-2004-17-t.html Nixon, L., 2005, ‘Paper, Video, Website: New Technologies and The Sphakia Survey’, in N. M. Kennell and J. E. Tomlinson (eds), Ancient Greece at the Turn of the Millennium: Recent Work and Future Perspectives, Athens: Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens, 81-95. Nixon, L., 2006, Making a Landscape Sacred: Outlying Churches and Icon Stands in Sphakia, Crete, A.D. 1000-2000, Oxford: Oxbow. Nixon, L., 2007, ‘Colour and Brilliance: Obsidian, Chert, and Quartz in Sphakia, Crete’, in P.P. Betancourt, M.C. Nelson, and E.H. Williams (eds), Krinoi kai Limenes: Studies in Honor of Joseph and Maria Shaw, Philadelphia: Institute for Aegean Prehistory Academic Press, 257-261. Nixon, L., 2009, ‘Investigating Minoan Sacred Landscapes’, in A.L. D’Agata and A. van de Moortel (eds), Archaeologies of Cult: Essays on Ritual and Cult in Crete, Hesperia Supplement 42, Princeton NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Price, S. and Nixon, L., 2001, ‘The Sphakia Survey Website: Research, Teaching and the Wider Public’, Archaeological Computing Newsletter 57, 11-17. Price, S., Higham, T., Nixon, L. and Moody, J., 2002, ‘Relative Sea-level Changes in Crete: Reassessment of Radiocarbon Dates from Sphakia and West Crete’, Annual of the British School at Athens, 97, 171-200. Price, S. and Nixon, L., 2005, ‘Ancient Greek Agricultural Terraces: Evidence from Texts and Archaeological Survey’, American Journal of Archaeology 109, 665-694. Price, S., Rackham, O., Kiel, M. and Nixon, L., 2008, ‘Sphakia in Ottoman Census Records: A Vakıf and its Agricultural Production’, in A. Anastasopoulos (ed.), The Eastern Mediterranean under Ottoman Rule: Crete, 1645-1840. Halcyon Days in Crete VI, (Symposium at Rethymnon, 13-15 Jan. 2006), Rethymnon: Crete University Press, 69-99.

Moody, J., Nixon, L., Price, S. and Rackham, O., 1998, ‘Surveying Poleis and Larger Sites in Sphakia’, in W.G. Cavanagh, M. Curtis et al. (eds), PostMinoan Crete (BSA Studies 2), London: British School at Athens, 87-95. Moody, J. and Lewis Robinson, H., 2000, ‘The Fabrics of Life in Sphakia’, in Pepragmena tou H’ Diethnous Kritologikou Synedriou, Vol. A2, 349-357. Moody, J., Lewis Robinson, H., Francis, J., and Nixon, L., 2003, [2004] ‘Ceramic Fabric Analysis and Survey Archaeology: the Sphakia Survey’, Annual of the British School at Athens 98, 37-105. Moody, J., 2004, ‘Western Crete in the Bronze Age. A Survey of the Evidence’, in L. P. Day, M. S. Mook and J. D. Muhly (eds), Crete Beyond the Palaces: Proceedings of the Crete 2000 Conference, Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press, 247-264. Nixon, L., Moody, J. and Rackham, O., 1988, ‘Archaeological Survey in Sphakia, Crete’, Echos du monde classique/Classical Views (EMC/CV) 32, 7, 157-173. [republished on website: http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk/ emccv1988.html] Nixon, L., Moody, J., Price, S., and Rackham, O., 1989, ‘Archaeological Survey in Sphakia, Crete’, EMC/CV 33, 8, 201-215. [republished on website: http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk/ emccv1989.html] Nixon, L., Moody, J., Price, S., Rackham, O., and Niniou-Kinderli, V., 1990, ‘Archaeological Survey in Sphakia, Crete’, EMC/CV 34, 9, 213220. [republished on website: http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk/ emccv1990.html] Nixon, L., Moody, J., Price, S., and Rackham, O., 1994, ‘Rural Settlement in Sphakia, Crete’, in P. Doukellis and L. Mendoni (eds), Structures rurales et sociétés antiques, Actes du colloque de Corfou 14-16 mai 1992, Annales littéraires de l’Université de Besançon, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 255-264. Nixon, L., Price, S., Morris, W., and Moody, J., 1995a, ‘Computers and Mapmaking’, Archeologia e Calcolatori 6, 159-172. Nixon, L. and Price, S., 1995b, The Sphakia Survey (Greece): Methods and Results, [educational videotape broadcasted on Greek national television in 1996; available as DVD and podcast: http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk/ video.html] Nixon, L., 2000, ‘Traditional Bee-keeping in Sphakia, SW Crete’, delivered at ‘Bee-keeping in the Graeco-Roman World’ (conference at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 7 November 2000), http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk/beeconf/ nixon.html

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General Bibliography: Andrianakis, M.G., 1998, The Frangokastello at Sfakia, Athens: Ministry of Culture, Archaeological Receipts Fund. Basilicata, F., [1630] 1969, ‘Relatione di tutto il Regno di Candia 1630’, in S.G. Spanakis (1969), Μνημεία της Κρητικής ιστορίας, 5 Vols, Herakleion: Sphakianos. [from Biblioteca Marciana di Venezia: MS Ital. 1683 (8976), but not including the map of 1629]. Berti, G. and Tongiorgi, C., 1981, I bacini ceramici medievali delle chiese di Pisa, Rome: ‘L’Erma’ di Bretschneider. Bissinger, M., 1995, Kreta: Byzantinische Wandmalerei, Munich: Editio Maris. de Bonneval, P. and Dumas, M., [1783], 2000, Αναγνώριση της νήσου Κρήτης. Μια ανέκδοτη μυστική έκθεση του 1783, G.V. Nikolaou and M.G. Peponakis (eds and transl.), (2000), Rethymnon: Mitos. Boschini, M., 1645, Il regno tutto di Candia delineato a parte, e intagliato, Venice. Dheligiannakis, M., 2003, Το ‘θολιαστό’ μητάτο στην Κρήτη· ανώνυμη αρχιτεκτονική και μνημείο, Rethymno: Tekhniko Epimelitirio Elladas. Gallas, K., Wessel, K. and Borboudakis M., 1983, Byzantinisches Kreta, Munich: Hirmer. Gelichi, S., Berti, G. and Nepoti, S., 1996, ‘Relazione introduttive sui "bacini"’, in I bacini murati medievali. Problemi e stato della ricerca. Atti XXVI Convegno internazionale della Ceramica, (Albisola 28-30 May 1993), 7-30. Gerola, G., 1905-32, Monumenti veneti nell’ isola di Creta, Vol. I-IV, Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti. Gerola, G. [1908] 1993, Vol. II Le Chiese, translated as Βενετικά Μνημεία της Κρήτης (Εκκλησίες), S. G. Spanakis (transl.) (1993), Herakleion: Vikelaia Dhimotiki Vivliothiki. Gerola, G., 1961, Τοπογραφικός κατάλογος των τοιχογραφημένων εκκλησιών της Κρήτης. Μετάφραση, πρόλογος, σημειώσεις Κ. Ε. Λασσιθιωτάκη, Herakleion. Jacoby, D., 1999, ‘Cretan Cheese: A Neglected Aspect of Venetian Medieval Trade’, in E.E. Kittell and T.F. Madden (eds), Medieval and Renaissance Venice, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 49-68. Khaireti, M.K., 1968, ‘Η απογραφή των ναών και των μονών της περιοχής Χανίων του έτους 1637’, Epetiris tis Etaireias Vyzantinon Spoudon 36, 335-388. Lassithiotakis, K., 1961-62, ‘Κυριαρχούντες τόποι χριστιανικών ναών απο τον 12 αιώνα και εντεύθεν στην Δυτικήν Κρήτην’, Kretika

Khronika 15-16 (Pepragmena tou 1. Diethnous Kritologikou Synedriou), ii, 175-201. Monanni, R., 1631, Relazione topografica del Regno di Candia, Biblioteca Marciana di Venezia: MS Ital. VII. 889 (7798). Olivier, G.A., 1801, Travels in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt and Persia, 2 Vols, London: Longman. Randolph, B., 1687, The Present State of the Islands in the Archipelago (or Arches), Oxford: Randolph. Raulin, V., 1869, Description physique de l’île de Crète, 2 Vols. plus Atlas volume, Paris: Bertrand. Sanders, I., 1982, Roman Crete to the Arab Period, Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Spanakis, S.G., no date, Κρήτη, 2 Vols, Herakleion: Sphakianakis. Stavrinidhis, N.S., 1970, ‘Απογραφικοί πίνακες της Κρήτης’, Kritika Khronika, new series 2, 119-132. Stavrinidhis, N.S., 1975-1985, Μεταφράσεις τουρκικών ιστορικών εγγράφων αφορούντων εις την ιστορίαν της Κρήτης, 5 Vols, Herakleion: Vikelaia Dhimotiki Vivliothiki. Syrmakezi, K., 1988, ‘Τα μητάτα της Κρήτης’, Mouseio Kritikis Ethnologias 13, Vori: Mouseio Kritikis Ethnologias. Tahrir Defter, 1650, Tahrir Defter 820 ‘Defter-i Hanya’, Istanbul: Başbakanlık (now Osmanlı) Arşivi. Tomadhakis, N.V., 1983-84, ‘Ο Άγιος Ιωάννης ο ξένος και ερημίτης εν Κρήτη, 10ος – 11ος αιών’, Epetiris Etaireias Vyzantinon Spoudhon 46, 1-117. Triandaphyllidhou-Baladié, G., 1988, Το εμπόριο και η οικονομία της Κρήτης (1669-1795), Herakleion: Vikelaia Vivliothiki. Vourdhoubakis A.P., 1939, ‘Δύο ανέκδοτα έγγραφα εκ Σφακίων’, Epetiris Etaireias Kritikon Spoudhon 2, 256-262. Lucia Nixon St Hilda’s College, Oxford [email protected] Simon Price Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford [email protected] Oliver Rackham Corpus Christi College, Cambridge [email protected] Jennifer Moody University of Texas at Austin [email protected]

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1.5 The Contribution of Pollen Analysis to the Study of Medieval Crete Jean A. Hall and Margaret A. Atherden grasses. Some ferns (e.g. bracken, Pteridium aquilinum) also produce large quantities of spores which are easily dispersed by the wind. Insect-pollination is used by many plants, especially those with showy or fragrant flowers. As a much safer method of pollen dispersal, it requires smaller quantities of pollen. Other animals are specialised pollinators in some environments but they are unimportant in Greece, except as accidental transporters of pollen or spores. A few plants, such as Sphagnum (Bog Mosses), use water to disperse their pollen or spores. The varying quantities of pollen produced and different methods of pollen dispersal result in a biased sample of pollen reaching any site. The sub-fossil assemblage is likely to be dominated by wind-pollinated species, with a smaller component from insect-pollinated plants and a very small contribution from self-pollinating plants, e.g. cereals. Water-dispersed pollen or spores are likely to be from plants local to the site.

INTRODUCTION

Pollen analysis is the study of the microscopic sub-fossil pollen grains of flowering plants and the spores of ferns and mosses. The technique has been widely used by botanists and geographers over the past few decades to study the vegetation history of Greece. It can also be used to reconstruct the environmental context of archaeological and historical sites and to elucidate the anthropogenic impacts of different cultures. However, as pollen analysis is a specialist scientific discipline, archaeologists and historians rarely undertake the work themselves, so it is important for them to understand the basic nature of the technique and, especially, its limitations. This paper will summarise the technique of pollen analysis and discuss its potential and limitations as a tool for environmental reconstruction. The use of the technique will be illustrated from two published pollen diagrams from a site in Western-central Crete, near Asi Gonia (Atherden and Hall 1999). Radiocarbon dating suggests that peat began to form at this site in the fifth or sixth century AD. Therefore, the pollen assemblage reflects changes in the last 1500 years, which includes the Cretan Medieval and Post-Medieval periods.

Deposition and preservation: Once released into the air, pollen grains and spores travel more or less horizontally but most encounter an obstacle or fall to the ground within 100 metres. Most travel as single grains or spores but sometimes clumps of pollen are dislodged together. Being heavier, these travel shorter distances, so clumps of pollen grains encountered during pollen analysis are likely to be derived from plants growing on or very close to the site. In general, the greater the height above ground at which pollen or spores are released, the better their chances of travelling further. For this reason, tree pollen tends to be derived from a wider catchment area than pollen or spores of plants growing nearer the ground. However, some pollen grains are swept up into higher, faster-moving air-streams and may travel much further: distances of hundreds of kilometres have been recorded. Pollen and spores are frequently washed out of the atmosphere by rainfall, so the meteorological conditions at the time of their release are important in determining how far they travel. Therefore, despite various attempts to model the movement and deposition of pollen and spores, the exact catchment area of a particular site is unlikely to be known.

THE TECHNIQUE OF POLLEN ANALYSIS

Pollen grains and spores are microscopic in size, usually less than 100 microns in diameter, and are well preserved in many types of environment by possessing an outer coating that is silica-based and resistant to decay, especially in anaerobic conditions. Typical preservation environments include peat bogs, lake sediments, acid soils and marine sediments, as well as sealed layers on some archaeological sites. In order to be able to interpret the pollen assemblage recorded at a site, it is necessary to understand how pollen grains and spores are dispersed, deposited, preserved and identified. Studies of the dispersal mechanisms and deposition factors have been made by Tauber (1965, 1967), Prentice (1985) and colleagues. These are reviewed by Faegri, Kaland and Krzywinski (1989) and Moore, Webb and Collinson (1991).

The topography and characteristics of the site itself also play a part in determining the micro-fossil assemblage recorded. A site in an open situation on a plateau top will receive a larger proportion of regional pollen than a small, enclosed basin. A small site surrounded by forest will probably be dominated by local pollen types, whereas a larger site may receive greater proportions of extra-local and regional pollen. A fringing vegetation of dense scrub, sedges or reeds may filter out some pollen

Dispersal: Most pollen grains and spores are dispersed by methods such as wind or insects but a few species are selfpollinating and rarely release their pollen outside the flower. Wind-pollination involves the greatest risk as a strategy for pollination, so vast quantities of pollen are produced by wind-pollinated plants, such as trees and 55

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from the surrounding area. Thus, study of the topographical setting of the site and analysis of macrofossils in the sediment may help with interpretation of the pollen diagram.

DATA ANALYSIS AND CONSTRUCTION OF POLLEN DIAGRAMS

Pollen diagrams are constructed on the basis of small samples taken from varying depths in the sediment or peat core. These samples represent a very small proportion of the total number of pollen and spores that were originally released by the vegetation growing in the catchment area of the site, so the figures plotted on the diagrams give only a partial picture of the past environment. In particular, the absence of a specific pollen type from the diagram can never be taken as definite evidence that the plant was not present.

Preservation and identification: Pollen grains and spores differ in their susceptibility to preservation. Whilst most are readily preserved, a few are rarely encountered in a sub-fossil state; for instance, pollen grains of rushes (Juncus spp) are never recorded on pollen diagrams, despite an abundance of seeds at some sites. If the environment becomes aerobic for a significant period of time, many pollen grains begin to corrode, whereas fern and moss spores tend to be more resistant to decay. Therefore, a sub-fossil assemblage that includes unusually high proportions of fern spores may indicate differential preservation and give a misleading impression of the past vegetation.

There are two main types of pollen diagram: ‘percentage’ and ‘absolute’ (or ‘pollen influx diagrams’). The majority of published pollen diagrams are percentage diagrams, where the relative proportions rather than absolute numbers of each taxon are plotted. The percentages are calculated on the basis of a ‘pollen sum’, e.g. ‘total dryland pollen’. Conventionally, spores are not included in the pollen sum but are plotted as percentages of it (sometimes, therefore, reaching figures of more than 100%). Pollen types considered to be local, e.g. aquatics in the case of lake sediments, are also often excluded from the pollen sum. In most situations, changes in the relative proportions of the pollen taxa give a good idea of the changing nature of the local or regional vegetation. However, it should be remembered that a change in the percentage of any one taxon within the pollen sum will always lead to a relative change in the percentage of other taxa at that level. For example, a sudden influx of pollen from one species will result in decreases for the other taxa on the diagram, even if their actual abundance in the field did not change.

The identification of pollen grains and spores is based on size, shape, number and type of apertures (pores and furrows in the outer coating) and patterning of the surface. Pollen grains of coniferous trees usually have air sacs, which give them greater buoyancy and aid in their dispersal. Some pollen grains are attached in groups, e.g. heathers (Ericaceae) are usually found as ‘tetrads’ with four parts. As a general principle, pollen grains from wind-pollinated plants have smooth surfaces with few apertures, rendering them more aerodynamic. Grains from insect-pollinated plants, on the other hand, often have numerous surface apertures and complex patterns, which help to attach them to their insect vectors. Spores often have delicate outer layers that are lost in the preservation process, leaving the sub-fossils with simpler structures, often with a single Y-shaped (‘trilete’) aperture.

In the case of ‘absolute’ pollen diagrams, the numbers of grains or spores at each level are plotted rather than their relative proportions. This is normally achieved by adding an exotic marker type (e.g. Lycopodium spores or Eucalyptus pollen grains) to each sample during the laboratory preparation stage, and then counting the number of each taxon encountered in relation to a particular number of the exotics. By using a known volume of sediment or peat and a known quantity of the exotic marker, it is possible to calculate the total number of each taxon (or ‘pollen influx’) in the original sample. This type of pollen diagram is useful for determining changes in the total quantity of pollen received at a site; for instance, there may be an increase in total pollen influx following forest clearance, when pollen and spores from a wider area are able to reach the site without being intercepted by the trees.

The degree to which these morphological variations allow the identification of pollen grains and spores varies. In some cases, the exact species can be identified, e.g. individual species of Plantago (Plantain) can often be distinguished from one another, but in other cases identification is to groups of species rather than individuals (e.g. the Lactuceae group (Lettuce) within the Asteraceae (Aster family). In the case of most trees and shrubs, identification is to genus level, e.g. Quercus (Oak), but deciduous oaks (e.g. Q. pubescens, can usually be distinguished from evergreen types (e.g. Q. coccifera, Kermes Oak). In some families, even individual genera cannot be distinguished, so pollen diagrams refer only to ‘Rubiaceae’ or ‘Chenopodiaceae’ (Madder or Goosefoot). Whilst some ferns can be identified to genus or species level (e.g. Osmunda regalis, Royal Fern), others are lumped together as ‘Pteropsida trilete’ or ‘Pteropsida monolete’. As some of these groups or families contain species with widely varying ecological tolerances, the lack of precise identification of the species concerned is an obstacle to detailed interpretation of the pollen diagrams. As the level of identification varies, the pollen types plotted on pollen diagrams are referred to as ‘taxa’.

POLLEN ANALYSIS OF CORES FROM ASI GONIA

The issues outlined above will now be discussed with reference to the analysis of two cores taken from a peat bog near Asi Gonia in the White Mountains of Crete (Fig. 1). A full description of this work is published in The Holocene (Atherden and Hall 1999). The site is a small spring-fed peat bog occupying a ledge at 780 metres 56

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hole. A core of peat 4.5 m long was retrieved. The Hiller borer requires manual pressure to push the half-metre long chamber vertically into the deposit. After insertion, the borer is turned to encase a 0.5 m core of peat. This is pulled up manually and the chamber opened to expose the surface of the peat core. To reduce contamination and disturbance of the deposit, the subsequent peat core is taken at a small horizontal distance to one side. Successive 0.5 m cores are taken, alternating the access bore-holes to the required depth or, as at Asi Gonia, until bedrock was reached at 4.59 m. The smaller diameter of peat core makes the Hiller borer less convenient and the risk of contamination is greater but, in this case, it enabled a longer core to be collected from the site.

altitude, overlooking the River Koularas. Formation of this peat bog is believed to have begun around 1510 ± 100 BP (AD 440- 620), probably as a consequence of a change in the drainage pattern at the site associated with the tectonic uplift of Western Crete dated 1550 BP (Thommercet et al. 1980). Two peat cores were collected from the Asi Gonia bog: one using a vibro-corer and one using a Hiller borer. The vibro-corer consists of an aluminium tube, 6 m long and 15 cm in diameter, which is supported by an iron tripod and driven vertically into the sediment by vibrations from an out-board motor. When the required depth has been reached, the section of the tube remaining above ground is filled with water and capped. The core is raised by suction as the aluminium tube is winched upwards by ropes attached to the tripod. The advantages of the vibrocorer are that a complete core can normally be obtained and contamination from surrounding pollen-bearing peat and water is limited. Also, the wide core provides ample material for study, especially for radiocarbon dating purposes. However, in this case, although the tube was inserted to a depth of more than 4 m, only 2 m length of peat core was retrieved. At the time it was assumed that the peat, which was very wet at some levels, had been compressed during collection. The metal tube was bisected vertically to give two semi-cylindrical cores which allowed inspection of the stratigraphy of the deposit. Sub-samples of peat were taken at selected intervals along the core for analysis in the laboratory.

The peat samples were prepared in the laboratory in York and the pollen content identified and counted by two independent operators. The data were processed using the Tilia and Tilia-graph computer packages (Grimm 1991). Microscopic charcoal fragments exceeding 10 microns in diameter were counted in the samples from the longer (Hiller) core (AG-A) and expressed as a percentage frequency of the pollen sum. Samples from four levels of peat taken with the vibro-corer (AG-B) were set aside for radiocarbon dating and two samples from the base of the core obtained with the Hiller corer. The samples were sent to the Godwin Laboratory in Cambridge, England, for analysis (Table 1). Subsequently, another radiocarbon date for the 305 cm level of the AG-A core was obtained from the AMS Facility at the University of Arizona.

The second core from the site was obtained using a Hiller borer, approximately 30 cm away from the vibro-corer

Fig. 1 - Western Crete: the location of the Asi Gonia site

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SAMPLE DEPTH AND

C-14 AGE (BP)

CALIBRATED AGE RANGE

LAB. REF.

85+/-50 320+/-60 700+/-70 1220+/-75 1010+/-70 1430+/-75 1510+/-100

(1-SIGMA) AD 1690-1730, 1810-1925 AD 1490-1635 AD 1225-1315, 1355-1390 AD 695-885 AD 900-915, 970-1150 AD 555-660 AD 435-615

Q-2707 Q-2706 Q-2705 Q-2704 AA-16472 Q-2709 Q-2708

CORE

13 CM, AG-B 72 CM, AG-B 127 CM, AG-B 191 CM, AG-B 300 CM, AG-A 459 CM, AG-A 469 CM, AG-A

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Table 1 - Radiocarbon dates determined by the Godwin Laboratory, Cambridge (Q) and the AMS Facility at the University of Arizona (AA). The 14C dates are reported as conventional dates in BP (Mook and van der Plicht 1999). The 14C dates are calibrated into calendar ages using the calibration curve INTCAL04 (Reimer et al. 2004). The errors are all 1-sigma, rounded to the nearest 5.

CORRELATION OF THE TWO CORES

In order to correlate the two cores, the pollen diagrams and radiocarbon dates were compared. From scrutiny of the two pollen diagrams (Figs 2 and 3), two features were obvious. Firstly, a woodland phase in the lower part of the longer core, AG-A, characterised by high percentages of arboreal pollen types in the lower part of the diagram, was missing from the shorter core, AG-B. Secondly, the pollen curves on the AG-B diagram showed a striking similarity with the pollen curves of the upper part of the AG-A diagram above 200 cm depth. An incremental cluster analysis is incorporated in the Tilia programme and this was used to determine the points of greatest change in the main pollen curves for each core. On the AG-A diagram, the level of 305 cm was of primary significance, corresponding to the change from a wooded phase in the lower part to a less wooded phase above this level. Within the upper part of both cores, significant changes in the pollen curves were shown by this analysis at the 275 cm level and in the range 205-215 cm (Atherden and Hall 1999). This close correspondence led to the conclusion that the lower part of the peat core taken with the vibro-corer had not been retrieved, and that the earlier assumption of compression of the material retrieved was not correct.

Woodland:

The radiocarbon dates obtained for the two cores are shown on Table 1. Correlation of the pollen diagrams, as outlined above, suggested that the base of the AG-B core was considerably younger than the major decrease in woodland seen on the AG-A pollen diagram. However, the date for the 191 cm level on the AG-B core (1220 ± 75 BP) was older than the date of 1010 ± 70 BP for the woodland decline on the AG-A diagram. To try to resolve this problem, an estimated age-depth curve was calculated for the AG-A core, using the Tiliagraph programme. This gave an estimated date of 1091 BP for level 305 cm on the AG-A core, close to the radiocarbon date of 1010 ± 70 BP. This suggests that the date for the 191 cm level on the AG-B core is probably wrong.

deciduous, dominated by Quercus pubescens accompanied by evergreen and/or sclerophyllous species evergreen, dominated by Quercus ilex and Q. coccifera

Maquis/scrub:

usually dominated by Arbutus unedo (Strawberry Tree) and Erica arborea (Tree Heath) also other species including Phillyrea and Pistacia terebinthus (Terebinth) and P.lentiscus (Mastic Tree)

Phrygana:

composed of spiny, aromatic dwarf shrubs resistant to drought and grazing, includes Sarcopoterium spinosa (Thorny Burnet) plants of the Fabaceae (Legume family), e.g. Calicotome villosa (Spiny Broom) and the Lamiaceae (Mint family), e.g. Phlomis fruticosa (Jerusalem Sage)

Steppe Communities:

composed of grasses (Poaceae), annual plants and herbaceous perennials and geophytes e.g. Asphodelus (Asphodel)

Table 2 - Major semi-natural plant communities

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shrubs. Thus, the presence of woodland cannot be inferred from records of evergreen oaks alone. However, the high values for both deciduous and evergreen Quercus in the older (lower) part of the AG-A pollen diagram (Fig. 2) suggest that the small Asi Gonia basin was situated in a well wooded area. This is also suggested by changes in the percentage totals for the Cyperaceae taxon (Sedge family) (see below). Many of the plants found in maquis and phrygana communities are insect pollinated e.g. Fabaceae (Legume family), and are therefore likely to be under-represented. In addition, some taxa are under-represented due to poor preservation quality of the pollen e.g. Phillyrea, Pistacia. Another problem in attempting to distinguish vegetation communities from the sub-fossil pollen is that plants of the same family may be present in maquis, phrygana or steppe communities. For instance, within the Fabaceae family, Genista acanthocladus (Broom) occurs in maquis, Calicotome villosa (hairy thorny Broom) in phrygana, Vicia and Astragalus (Vetches and Milkvetches) in steppe/grassland communities. A few of these may be recognised at genus level from the pollen structure, e.g. Vicia, but most can be identified only at family level.

ANALYSIS OF THE POLLEN RECORD

The main semi-natural plant communities growing below the tree line in Crete are outlined in Table 2. There is considerable overlap in species content, with gradual transitions between these communities found in the field. The plant communities appear to form a continuum from woodland to steppe depending on ecological factors. Grazing, woodcutting and burning all play their part, interacting with changes in soil type and moisture availability to produce a complex mosaic of vegetation types in the present landscape (Atherden and Hall 1999; Atherden 2000). In interpreting the pollen diagrams, an attempt has been made to assign pollen taxa to groups which indicate a habitat, e.g. woodland, maquis or scrub, and to identify any shift along the vegetation continuum. This is then related to environmental factors and anthropogenic factors, and to known historical information. In order to aid interpretation of the pollen diagrams, pollen traps were set in the surrounding area, to sample the modern air-borne pollen and relate it to the pollen represented in the topmost levels of the cores or moss polsters on the surface of the site. At the time of sampling, the Asi Gonia peat bog was a small open site with a few stands of Quercus ilex (Holly Oak), 300 m to the west of the site. A few stands of woodland and scrub in the further distance were dominated by Quercus pubescens and Q.coccifera (Downy and Kermes Oak) amongst tall Arbutus-Erica maquis. A mosaic of phrygana (garrigue) and steppe communities was close to the site with groups of Platanus orientalis (Plane Tree) at the north and south sides. Pollen identified in the pollen traps at the site represented these communities and included Olea (Olive). It is likely that the pollen is from the wild olive trees scattered in the hills or has been blown from cultivated olive groves in the valley below. The pollen of Pinus (Pine) was also identified in the pollen traps. It probably travelled some distance in the upper air because no trees of Pinus were observed near the site.

The scarce representation of the pollen of Cupressus and Castanea (Cypress and Sweet Chestnut) in the pollen diagrams is worthy of comment. Cupressus produces abundant pollen and trees have been growing in the White Mountains during the time span of the accumulation of the sediment. The age of many trees of Cupressus has been calculated by Rackham using dendrochronology (Rackham and Moody 1996). It is possible that the lightweight pollen was filtered by the tree canopy and not deposited on the bog surface. However, the pollen grains of Cupressus do not preserve well and there is no significant increase in the representation of this taxon in the upper sediment levels of the core. It was expected that Castanea, the sweet chestnut, would be a component of the pollen assemblage as extensive orchards of this species have been cultivated in western Crete. Solitary fossil grains were identified in the analysis, presumably having been carried over the mountain ridges on air currents. The disappearance of a dense tree canopy around the site would have allowed an increase in the deposition of regional pollen taxa in the upper levels of the sediment core.

The pollen assemblages identified are representative of plant groups and communities which can be seen in the natural and semi-natural vegetation today with a few exceptions. The small representation of Abies (Fir) and the single grain of Fagus (Beech) on the pollen diagram may be due to long-distance travel by these grains. Although Alnus (Alder) has not been found growing in Crete at present, it is possible that it has survived in some secluded place, especially as Alnus pollen was found in modern pollen traps placed near the site.

The vegetation of the bog surface producing the local pollen component included mosses and the Cyperaceae family, with Pteridium aquilinum (Bracken) on the drier areas of the peat. The local pollen taxa, e.g. Cyperaceae and aquatics, were not included in the total pollen sum, although their curves, calculated as a percentage of the total pollen sum, were plotted on the pollen diagrams. This is of interest in relation to the possible historical appearance of the site. The high value for the Quercus taxa alongside low values for the Cyperaceae and for maquis/scrub taxa suggest that the local area was well wooded until around 1010+/-70 BP, the time of the AG1AG2 boundary on the AG-A pollen diagram (Fig. 2). However, the high proportion of Cyperaceae pollen

The dominant pollen taxa on the diagrams, Quercus, Poaceae (Grasses) and Ericaceae (Heath family), are all abundant pollen producers and mainly wind-pollinated, so they may be over-represented. Evergreen oaks, in particular, also present challenges for interpretation, as the commonest species, Quercus coccifera, exists in many different forms, from mature trees to low-growing 59

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It is interesting to note that spores of the bog moss, Sphagnum, essentially localised to the bog surface, are more consistently represented in the pollen diagrams from zone AG4 upwards, i.e. from Venetian times onwards. This period includes the ‘Little Ice Age’, when documentary records show more extreme weather conditions (Grove 1990). Sphagnum plants were not recorded as present on the bog surface when the sediment cores were taken, but were found near the bog a few years later (Turland and Wilson 1995).

above this boundary suggests that previously the local vegetation was shaded out by the tree canopy close to the bog surface. Although the ferns, represented by Pteridium, Osmunda (Bracken, Royal Fern) and Pteropsida-type spores, were not included in the total pollen sum, their frequency increases above this boundary on the AG-A pollen diagram. This reflects increased light availability and may also suggest increased water content in the bog as peat accumulated and drainage was impeded. The decrease in the tree and shrub canopy may also have affected the surface wetness of the bog.

Cultural period

Main feature on the pollen diagramm

Pollen zone

Increase in tree taxa, particularly Quercus and Olea and some increase in Platanus. Some decline in Ericaceae, but other maquis taxa (Arbutus) and phrygana taxa (Sarcopoterium) increase

AG 8

Present to Late Ottoman

Late Ottoman

Fluctuations in the curve for Ericaceae associated with increase in Quercus and Olea. A decrease in Poaceae and Cyperaceae

AG 7

Ericaceae dominant with slight increase in tree taxa (Quercus, Olea). Although less than 1%, there is a more consistent presence of Cupressaceae

AG 6

Further increase in Ericaceae and other taxa of maquis and phrygana but some decline in Poaceae and Early Ottoman Cyperaceae. Increase in charcoal continues from AG 4

AG 5

Ottoman

Early Ottoman to Late Venetian

Early Venetian

Late to Middle Byzantine

Middle Byzantine

Saracen and Early Byzantine

Decrease in tree taxa but marked increase in Ericaceae. Some increase of Arbutus and taxa of phrygana (Cistaceae, Sarcopoterium). Poaceae and Cyperaceae increase and weed taxa, Brassicaceae, (Cabbage family), Apiaceae, Plantaginaceae (Plantain family) and Asteraceae are more frequent Further recovery of tree and shrub taxa, including Olea and maquis taxa (Pistacia, Arbutus). Increase in phrygana taxa (Fabaceae, Cistaceae, Asteraceae) Major decrease of woodland taxa and increase of Byzantine shrubs (Ericaceae) and taxa of open communities (Poaceae, Cyperaceae). First cereal record and Platanus increases. Some recovery of trees and shrubs later in the zone Woodland taxa predominant, especially Quercus coccifera-type, associated with a wide range of other tree taxa. Low values for non-arboreal pollen. Peat accumulation begins during sixth century AD

AG 4

AG 3

AG 2

AG 1

Table 3 - Cultural periods and changes in pollen zone assemblages

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Documentary records of land usage and husbandry are scarce for this period, but it seems to have been a time of agricultural expansion and new settlements in Crete with the influx of immigrants from Constantinople. The precise cause of the decrease in woodland around Asi Gonia remains elusive, but a population increase would intensify the need for more pasture and for agricultural land, which would lead to woodland clearance. Timber requirements for construction, building wagons and farm implements and domestic purposes would increase the pressure on woodland resources. As these were used up from the lower altitude landscapes, the mountain woodlands may have been used. The marked decline in both types of Quercus i.e. deciduous and evergreen, suggests felling and clearance. The charcoal curve shows no marked change, and burning does not appear to have been much used for clearance.

THE POLLEN DIAGRAMS

To facilitate description and interpretation, zones have been delineated on the pollen diagrams to indicate major changes in the vegetation. A zone boundary may be sharp where a significant change is indicated by the incremental cluster analysis. There are some sharp transition boundaries on the two diagrams from Asi Gonia (Figs 2 and 3) but also some gradual transitions from one assemblage zone to the next. The gradual transitions may be related, for interpretation purposes, to the gradual shift along the vegetation continuum between woodland (arboreal) plant communities and more open steppe plant communities mentioned previously. These may reflect periods of increased human pressure on the land, or a recovery of shrub and tree communities as the pressure is reduced. Climatic change could also be a factor; for instance, during the Little Ice Age (approx. AD 1550-1850) in Crete (Grove 1990). The direct impact of small climate changes is not easily distinguished from the effect of human activity, as they may be closely linked through changes in land-use. For example, an increase in tree pollen may be the result of a wetter climate or a decrease in grazing pressure or both.

There is evidence for the exploitation of woodland and the extension of agriculture and herding activities from various sites scattered widely through the Mediterranean lands at about this time e.g. West Macedonia, dated AD 850 and AD 1000, and South Anatolia dated AD 1000 (Dunn 1992). The relationship of these changes in land use and socio-economic practices to those in Crete might repay further study.

A brief description of the zones of the main pollen assemblages is set out, with dates and the synchronous historical periods in Table 3. Pollen diagrams provide evidence for changes in the composition of the vegetation communities through time, but the causes of these changes must be sought from information provided by other disciplines and other palynological investigations. In the relatively short time frame spanned by the Asi Gonia cores, it is reasonable to suppose that the anthropogenic factor has been most influential (Atherden and Hall 1999).

There is some increase in the Platanus curve during Zone AG 2. This tree establishes itself easily on recently cleared land but is frequently planted around human settlements. There is evidence for settlements at middle and high altitudes in the White Mountains around AD 1000, when the temporary summer settlements for shepherds were probably established (Nixon et al. 1989). Kallikratis is a summer settlement existing today 2 km away from the Asi Gonia site. The evidence from the pollen diagrams through Zones 3 and 4 is of fluctuations in the proportions of arboreal and shrub pollen to nonarboreal pollen. There is some recovery of arboreal and shrub pollen taxa, possibly related to the regeneration of trees from stumps and pollards, at times when the shrubs were not subjected to intense grazing or browsing or cutting for forage. In the Late Second Byzantine Period (c. 12th century), there seems to have been less pressure on the resources of the woodland.

At present no other pollen diagrams are available from Crete for the period AD 600-1990 for comparison. The pollen diagram from work at Aghia Galini produced by Bottema (1980) spans the early and middle Holocene period and indicates a mixed deciduous woodland cover in Crete during the middle Holocene, c. 7300-4650 BP, the forest being dominated by deciduous oak trees (Quercus pubescens-type). The woodland cover suggested by the pollen assemblage in Zone 1, AG-A, is dominated by evergreen oak (Quercus coccifera-type) with some deciduous trees and is probably secondary woodland at the Asi Gonia site when the peat began to accumulate in the 6th century AD. Thus, during the Late Roman/Early Byzantine Period, this area was well wooded and continued thus through the Saracen Period until the Middle Byzantine Period began in AD 961.

The gradual transition of pollen assemblages on the diagrams from Zone 3 to 4 corresponds with the end of the second Byzantine Period and the purchase of Crete by the Venetians in AD 1204. The Venetian Period is regarded as one of prosperity. Historical records, e.g. census lists, show a rise in the population and many new villages, despite the death toll in the outbreaks of plague in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Asi Gonia and Myriokephala villages, both near the bog site, were established in the mid sixteenth century (Rackham and Moody 1996).

The arboreal pollen taxa in diagram AG-A show a major decline at level 305 cm, dated to approximately the beginning of the Second Byzantine Period. At this level, the pollen taxa of maquis plants such as the Ericaeae increase, as do the taxa indicating phrygana communities such as the Fabaceae and Cistaceae (Rock Rose family). An increase in Poaceae and Cyperaceae is indicative of a more open landscape.

The Early Venetian Period corresponds to Zone 4, with a continued decrease in arboreal and shrub pollen and an increase in maquis shrubs, especially the Ericaceae. The Poaceae and Cyperaceae are predominant with other taxa 61

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of steppe communities and ‘weeds of agriculture’ such as the Asteraceae, Boraginaceae and Apiaceae (Aster, Borage and Parsley families). The sharp transition to Zone 5, in the mid-Venetian Period, leads to an increase of maquis taxa, e.g. Arbutus (Strawberry Tree) and especially the Ericaceae. This vigorous growth of maquis would occur after the continued reduction of tree cover. Crete served as a strategic base for the fleet, for ship repairs and provided victuals such as hides, oil, cereals and wine. The demand for timber itself and buoyant agricultural and pastoral farming would have put pressure on woodland resources and clearance activities. Increased grazing pressure in montane areas would have prevented regrowth of tree scrub to woodland. In the Late Venetian Period, Zone 5, the curve for charcoal is high; whether this is due to scrub burning or to increased charcoal burning by local settlements is not known.

statistical analysis. A major constraint is always the imprecise boundaries of the pollen catchment of sites. The interpretation of pollen diagrams relies on an understanding of these limitations, as well as on knowledge of the present-day ecology and distribution of vegetation communities. Thus, pollen analysis is arguably as much an art as a science.

The gradual transition between Zones 5 and 6 corresponds to the political change to the Ottoman Period. Although the Ericaceae-dominated maquis is still evident in the pollen assemblage there is some recovery of Quercus which continues into Zone 7, the Late Ottoman Period. The plague-decimated human population and unsettled political and social conditions may have relaxed the exploitation pressure on the land, especially in the hills, with some discernible changes in the vegetation communities. In Zone 8, the Modern Period, the main change noted on the pollen diagrams is the increase in the arboreal pollen curves, especially Quercus spp. There is supporting documentary evidence for a spread of woodland during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as in many other parts of Greece (Rackham and Moody, 1996).

Atherden, M.A. and Hall, J.A., 1999, Human impact on vegetation in the White Mountains of Crete since AD 500, The Holocene, vol. 9, No. 2, 183-193. Bottema, S., 1980, ‘Palynological investigations on Crete’, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 31, 193-217. Dunn, A., 1992, ‘The exploitation and control of woodland and scrubland in the Byzantine world’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 16, 235-298. Faegri, K., Kaland, P.E. and Krzywinski, K., 1989 (4th edition), Textbook of Pollen Analysis, London: John Wiley and Sons. Grimm, E C., 1991, TILLIA and TILIA-GRAPH, Springfield: Illinois State Museum. Grove, J.M., 1990, ‘Climatic reconstruction in the eastern Mediterranean with particular reference to Crete’, in A.T. Grove, J. Moody and O. Rackham (eds), Stability and Change in the Cretan Landscape. Petromarula 1, Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 16-20. Mook, W.G. and van der Plicht, J., 1999, ‘Reporting 14C activities and concentrations’, Radiocarbon 41, 227-239. Moore, P.D., Webb, J.A. and Collinson, M.E., 1991, Pollen Analysis, Oxford: Blackwell. Nixon, L., Moody, J., Price, S. and Rackham, O., 1989, ‘Archaeological survey in Sphakia, Crete’, Echos du Monde Classique / Classical Views 33, 201-215. Prentice, I.C., 1985, ‘Pollen representation, source area and basin size’, Quaternary Research 23, 76-86. Rackham, O. and Moody, J., 1996, The Making of the Cretan Landscape, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Reimer, P.J. et al. 2004, ‘INTCAL04 terrestrial radiocarbon age calibration, 0-26 cal kyr BP’, Radiocarbon 46, 3, 1029-1058. Tauber, H., 1965, ‘Investigation of the mode of pollen transfer in forested areas’, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 3, 277-286.

Nevertheless, used in combination with other lines of enquiry, pollen analysis has much to offer in the study of past environments and human communities. Its increasing use alongside other techniques in multidisciplinary research projects (e.g. the Strymon Delta Project – see Atherden, Hall and Dunn, this volume) is greatly to be welcomed. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thus the changes along the continuum of the natural and semi-natural vegetation complex of Crete during the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods, as indicated by the palynological evidence, would appear to be linked with changes in the demography, socio-economic affairs and land usage in the historical record. CONCLUSION

This brief summary reveals that pollen analysis is a potentially useful tool for the archaeologist and historian. The advantages of the technique lie in its wide applicability and the abundance of pollen and spores preserved in peat bogs, lake sediments and other environments. In Crete, its application has been limited to date, partly owing to the relative scarcity of suitable sites for analysis, but in other parts of Greece there are now sufficient published pollen diagrams for the vegetation history of most areas to be firmly established. In comparison to most types of historical and archaeological data, a further advantage of pollen analysis is the consistency of the evidence, which allows direct comparisons between different cultural periods. However, the technique is not without its limitations, which, as outlined above, include differential production, dispersal, preservation and deposition of pollen grains and spores, together with limitations of sampling and 62

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Tauber, H., 1967, ‘Differential pollen dispersion and the interpretation of pollen diagrams’, Danmarks Geologiske Undersøgelse 2e Raekke, 89, 1-69. Thommeret, Y., Thommeret, J., Laborel, J., Montaggioni, L.F. and Pirazzoli, P.A., 1981, ‘Late Holocene shoreline changes and seismo-tectonic displacements in western Crete (Greece)’, Z. Geomorph. NF suppl. 40, 127-149. Turland, N.J. and Wilson, C.C., 1995, ‘Sphagnum auriculatum Schimp.: a genus new to the bryophyte flora of Crete’, Journal of Bryology 8, 27-28.

Jean A. Hall Honorary Research Fellow, York, St. John University Margaret A. Atherden Honorary Research Fellow, York, St John University Email: [email protected]

Fig. 2.1 - Pollen diagram from core AG-A (1st part)

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Fig. 2.2 - Pollen diagram form core AG-A (2nd part)

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Fig. 3.1 - Pollen diagram from core AG-B (1st part)

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Fig. 3.2 - Pollen diagram from core AG-B (2nd part)

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1.6 The Archaeologist and the Historian: Methodological Problems Faced by Historians Participating in Archaeological Surveys Dimitris Tsougarakis and Helen Angelomatis - Tsougarakis Many of the numerous surveys of the 1980s and 1990s, at least those with the most ambitious aims, show a new systemization of their research: the territory of the target field-work became clearly demarcated, labour-intensive pedestrian survey by teams, along with procedures for standardizing the collection and recording of data, and they became interested in recording the full range of archaeological phenomena together with studies of erosion, soil formation, vegetation history etc.1 However, though they showed an interest in historical periods which had been previously neglected (e.g. the Byzantine, the Frankish, the Venetian or the Ottoman periods), few went as far as to involve trained historians of these periods to perform detailed historical research concerning the wider region of the survey, despite the fact that relevant historical data, published or unpublished, were available. In most cases, a general overview of these periods is presented, often without direct relevance to the area under study, and specifically aimed at helping archaeologists determine the nature of a ‘habitation site’ or single building.2

evidence. This is the historical evidence to be researched and evaluated. However, there are several surveys, which have, directly or indirectly, also aimed to secure a better and more general understanding, not only of the demarcated region of the survey, but also that of the settlements themselves. This more ambitious approach can hardly be reached without the use of documentary and other textual sources when we start looking for evidence particularly in the Medieval and Modern Periods. Obviously, if the planning of the project is interested in these perspectives, then the role of historians in the team acquires a different importance.

This approach clearly exemplifies the usual attitude surveys showed towards more recent history. Historians, when involved in one of the surveys or regional studies, tread more or less on new ground, which is quite foreign to what they are used to in their own discipline. For the historians, surface surveys present an uncommon encounter in their usually lonely research of written historical sources: they have to co-operate with scholars of other fields, whose methodology and work, as well as their viewpoints, knowledge and understanding of history, may be considerably different from their own. This is the first challenge they have to face. Their cooperation can usually be, of course, very instructive for everyone involved, and may also prove very helpful in their work, but often it presents additional problems, which beg for solutions.

Aside from this basic consideration, the role of historians in a surface survey is not at all well defined. Quite often there is no Medieval or Modern historian involved in the survey at all. Occasionally, a historian of ancient history might cover as best as he/she can these long, and, in every respect, so very different periods.3 Historians with skills in linguistics, epigraphy or palaeography only rarely participate in archaeological teams.4 It is also taken for granted that a historian can cover many different fields and be at the same time a historical demographer, historical geographer, and a historian of Medieval and/or Modern Greece, for both the periods of Venetian and Ottoman occupation, as well as for the Modern Greek state. In some other cases, the role of the historian is in fact non existent and the archaeologists themselves deal with whatever aspects of regional history they consider appropriate, or relevant to their own research, even for much later periods, although in most cases they are little qualified for this task. The realization, however, that the role of the Medieval and Modern historian should be different is being gradually not only recognized, but also clearly stated, as well as being splendidly exemplified in more recent works.5

The presence and contribution of historians to such projects in Greece, either published in a preliminary report, or in their final version, is noticeably variable. Their methods and approaches towards the historical data also vary considerably. However, in all these cases, there remains as a common factor, as a key element, the development and history of the settlements, since this is the usual aim of the project.

The participation of a historian in a surface survey planned by archaeologists and geared to the demands of their own discipline and desiderata raises a crucial question: What exactly is the aim of the project as far as the historians are concerned, particularly for those studying the Medieval and Early Modern era? It is this aim that will determine the role, if any, of the historians in such a research project. In most archaeological or landscape surveys the main focus remains the settlements, their numbers and the fluctuation of their population, or the correlation between the numbers of settlements in any given period with the demographical

Surface surveys mostly study a small, demarcated area for an extended period of time. This, necessary as it might be for archaeological research, immediately presents practical and methodological problems for the historian who might be called to participate in such a 67

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the settlements themselves. Documentary and other textual sources are absolutely essential requirements for the study of land ownership and land use patterns, agriculture, trade, local administrative and ecclesiastical history of a region. The consequences of historical events, either of local or more general importance, which might have affected the area, cannot be disregarded either. Otherwise, one can hardly reach any understanding at least of the expansion or desertion of settlements and the fluctuation of their population. Thus, more recently, ‘Archaeologists have been compelled to place great emphasis on written texts in attempting to reconstruct settlements’.8

project. The first problem is obvious: the selection of any particular area of a survey was made with archaeological rather than historical criteria in mind. Very occasionally, this might not be a handicap. But in most cases it proves to be one, since the archaeologists do not take into consideration the availability or not of any kind of textual sources when selecting the region. The study of the history of a small area in which there are often few settlements, and only rarely any of considerable size and/or importance leaves a very limited scope for the historian. Taking this into account, it becomes evident that the historians have to incorporate into a historical context and interpret finds and conclusions of other disciplines, as, quite often, surface surveys are interdisciplinary studies. These find, however, are frequently imprecise, fragmented, certainly variable and hardly ever corroborated by documentary evidence. Under these circumstances, dealing with the history of a very small area included in a surface survey is very different to writing a regional history. This is, perhaps, the reason why the participation of qualified historians in the team of a survey does not seem absolutely necessary to many archaeologists as their absence in many cases indicates.6

The historians, therefore, engaged in such a task will have to study written sources, completely independent of the surface survey finds. Once embarked on such a research, historians are often faced either with the scarcity of available documentary and textual sources, particularly for the Medieval and some times even for the Early Modern periods, or overwhelmingly extensive archival material published and unpublished. The demarcated small areas which are studied in the surveys, obviously accentuate the problems, although, occasionally, lack of textual sources is encountered not only for small areas, but sometimes for whole regions as well. This is also a common problem in most European countries, despite the fact that they have very extensive and much better preserved archival material than Greece. The case of Tuscany offers a good example of the gradual increase of the volume of documentary sources that help establishing the history of the settlements there.9

If the aim of the project is just a superficial examination of the development and history of the settlements in connection with their demographic trends over the centuries, then the role of the historian is restricted to assisting the archaeologist in mapping, in a more or less general way, settlement patterns in an area, in connection with the pottery finds of the survey; in such a case his/her participation is of limited importance. Moreover, in some cases, the presence of an historical geographer or historical demographer in the research team might prove a better option for the survey. But even then, such a historian’s input will only prove truly constructive if he/she is an expert in the history of the region and well acquainted with the richness and the complexity of the documentary sources,7 something to which we shall refer in detail below.

To an historian it is self-evident that it is impossible to restrict the historical research to within the boundaries of the particular region where the actual archaeological research is being carried out. Such an approach would make it all but impossible to achieve any in-depth understanding of the history of the demarcated area and to reach any serious historical appraisal, or, at least, to promote the historical knowledge and the understanding of more complex issues in a broader chronological perspective.

On the other hand, if the aim of the project is broader, i.e. an overall historical and interdisciplinary study of an area, in which historical data of every period are examined in order to form as clear a picture as possible, then historians should have a different scope in their research. However, this is not what we actually encounter in the final results of many surveys, despite the fact that sometimes such claims have been made, at least initially.

All the above considerations may, perhaps, explain why there are so relatively few contributions by historians in surface surveys, at least as far as Greece is concerned. Moreover, they offer us a clue as to the reasons behind the considerable variations in the historical approach and discussions to be found in these surveys. The most common approach, as suggested above, is to present a general historical background based on published sources, with minimal, if any, new historical research regarding either the territory of the survey, or its wider area. In some cases, whatever historical background is presented has not even been written by a historian, but it is the work of the participating archaeologists.

Therefore, the brief, general historical context often included in many surveys is inadequate, because it fails to offer any new perspective or understanding of the history of any given area. The historical perspective, if any, should not be restricted to the very specific issues as regards the settlements, their population and its fluctuation, or the correlation between the numbers of settlements in any given period with the demographic evidence. Several other important factors immediately connected with the above should also be taken into account, even if we wish to restrict our research only to

These problems of dealing with historical research in the context of a surface survey, we ourselves solved by expanding our research to cover a much wider area than the one in which the intense surface survey was 68

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Europe, which became much more abundant after the 13th century. The rich archives of Venice and other Italian cities provide material mainly, but not exclusively, for the regions that were under their rule. Moreover, local archives were gradually created in the conquered areas, with still more documents often with great local importance. Archival sources become more numerous as we progressively reach the Early Modern Period.

conducted. The surface survey covered a small part of the province of Pyrgiotissa in Southern Crete, but we extended our historical research to include the whole provinces of Pyrgiotissa and the neighbouring province of Kainourgio, which shared many common trends in their history, although they also present several differences,10 a labour which took several years. Since a historian’s main tools are the written sources, it would be useful to select and examine some of these in relation to the specific methodological problems they present, when used for the goals of a surface survey, focussing on the Medieval and Modern Periods, since archaeologists are far more familiar with Antiquity and its historical sources, be they direct or indirect.

After the Ottoman conquest, starting with the 15th century, Ottoman archives become available, the wealth of which is invaluable. However, only a very small amount of the published material so far concerns the Greek lands. During the same period we also have a remarkable increase of ecclesiastical and monastic archives in Greece.

Textual sources vary considerably in kind and extent or volume, depending on the period and the region under study. Archival material usually presents us with the most important documentary sources: land, fiscal, judicial or other registers, censuses, notarial protocols, official or private correspondence, etc. However, such documents are sometimes either completely lacking for certain periods and regions, or they are only partially preserved. In other instances their sheer unpublished bulk is overwhelming. In all three cases, however, just a single historian, amongst a team of archaeologists, trying to master the problems that arise is inevitably faced with serious difficulties.

The continuous expansion of international trade in the Mediterranean, particularly from the 16th century onwards, the capitulations of the Ottoman Empire and the increasing economic infiltration of the Western European countries (France, England, Holland), as well as other countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Austria and Russia), not to mention the frequent wars, created an extensive network of political, diplomatic, economic, cultural and other relations. These were recorded in innumerable documents deposited in the archives of all these and several other countries, the Republic of Venice included, the presence of which was still considerable, if steadily declining in the region. Amongst this vast wealth of documentary sources many relate to the local history of various regions directly or indirectly. Unfortunately, once again, the relevant sources still remain mostly unpublished.

For the Byzantine period, documentary sources are scarce, not to say non-existent, with the exception of a few monastic archives like the ones in Mt Athos and in the island of Patmos, which provide rich evidence for the Late Byzantine and Post Byzantine periods of these areas and the areas where their possessions lay. But this kind of documentation for the better part of Greece, in the First and Middle Byzantine Periods, is almost entirely lacking. Furthermore, other types of indirect sources, such as historiography and chronography, usually offer little information of the kind we are interested in for the lands in present-day Greece. Unfortunately, the few surviving fragments of Byzantine land registers concern only some well-defined small areas, for which of course, they are invaluable. Historians, therefore, are forced to study a huge bibliography in order to extract limited information; they also have to take into account whatever other evidence is provided by other disciplines, namely of linguistics, literature, history of art, or by certain sciences, such us archaeometry, geology, and botany. Despite the long and labourious research, the final result may be poor, when dealing with a very small area. Then, it should be incorporated in a plausible manner into the history of the wider region, along with an interpretation of the archaeological evidence, whether it be monuments, coins, seals, or pottery.

Finally, there has been a remarkable increase of documents in the Greek Archives since the War of Greek Independence and the foundation of the Modern Greek State in 1830. The subsequent gradual process of incorporating the formerly occupied lands into it, a process which lasted well into the mid-20th century, further contributed to the expansion of public and private archives, which, besides modern documents, often contain much older ones. It must also be noted, however, that for the older periods it is only in a few cases that we have continuous series of data, such as population numbers, tax revenues, production, exports etc., which would permit their quantitative processing over a longer period of time. Often we do not have reliable quantitative data at all. It is also not uncommon for historians to have difficulty in gaining access to monastic or ecclesiastical documents of local interest. Thus, valuable information concerning their possessions, especially their lands, becomes nearly impossible to obtain, even if this is simply to verify older published data. As a result, for the Modern Period, i.e. the 15th century onwards, we have vast and diverse archival material at our disposal. If we consider the fact that only a tiny part is published, while often the documents themselves are not even catalogued in detail, or indexed in a systematic way, it is evident that historians are presented with

The expansion of Western trade and influence, and, finally, the Latin conquests in the Greek East resulted in the gradual increase of valuable documentary sources for the present Greek lands and the wider area of the SouthEastern Mediterranean, in the archives of Western 69

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be corroborated by other contemporary sources.14 In cases where, for whatever reason, our only source for the population of a region are the travellers’ accounts, their numerical data must be treated with even greater caution and should be considered to be only indicative, because the reliability of the travellers’ sources or the personal estimates of the authors can seldom be verified.15 Generally, however, texts written by persons who were on a specific mission, military, political or commercial, present special interest and are often more reliable, since their authors had taken care to include concrete and verified data as best as they could.

further difficulties, since it is practically impossible to sift through immense numbers of documents of long historical periods in order to gather information about the small area of the surface survey. Thus, there are two options available concerning the use of the archival sources, options which, however, are not mutually exclusive. The first option is the one usually preferred in the surveys and regional studies. This consists of studying only the published sources. This has been done with various degrees of diligence and final success, because these sources often provide limited and patchy information for the area. It is also evident that quite often secondary rather than primary bibliography is used. Therefore, even well-researched studies of this category seldom include primary published Greek or other sources, which even when available to the authors require quite a different in-depth understanding and processing in order to be profitably exploited. A case in point would be the well researched, as regards published bibliography, contribution to the history of Medieval and Modern Southern Argolid. In this book, it proved difficult to master and include the abundant historical material for Modern times. Even an exhaustive use of the copy of the Venetian Catastico Particolare of the Argos area, which was made available for study by Peter Topping, produced preliminary remarks.11

The terms used to define settlements and sites in the sources, since they vary considerably, not only over the centuries but also locally and linguistically, pose further questions. Thus, linguistic and toponymic research becomes quite often necessary because of the very requirements of a surface survey. The identification of the present day toponyms with those under which many settlements appear in various periods, frequently languages other than Greek and usually greatly distorted, is also one of the common difficult tasks historians encounter, along with the need to identify uncertain archaeological finds with those settlements of which nothing but their names have survived, with hardly a clue as to their location. The difficulties become even greater when the data of the archaeological research do not agree with the information provided by the written sources. The ‘dramatic mismatch between archaeological and archival information, even in periods for which documentary evidence is plentiful’16 requires further research, but also a profound knowledge of the history of the region for the period under examination, if the historian is to offer any serious explanation of the phenomenon. An instructive example here is provided by the Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: the survey area produced almost no Byzantine pottery at all between the middle of the 7th and the 13th centuries, a gap of no less than 600 years, while the historical sources, on the contrary, provide ample information about the fortunes of Cyprus during this period.17

The other option is to make, at least partial or selective, use of some of the most promising unpublished sources, with all the advantages but also dangers involved in reaching any conclusions of a more general nature. The combined evidence of published and unpublished sources is obviously a much safer approach to the problem, but it requires time and a more extensive team of specialist historians in various fields, than those usually participating in surveys. Such efforts often have as a result important changes in previously existing views or, occasionally, preconceived ideas, which might have been widespread.12 Each one of the various types of textual sources presents different problems that normally would require a particular expertise. The interpretation of diverse data ideally would require such a wide knowledge and training that they cannot be easily found in just one person. For example, even distinguished historians feel obliged to point out that, since they are not trained in historical demography or historical geography, their interpretation ‘might be opened to discussion’.13

Other types of sources useful for a historian taking part in a surface survey are geographical works, isolaria, maps and portolans; legal texts, military reports and publications of army headquarters, not to mention philological, ethnological and linguistic sources, memoirs etc. Finally, particularly useful may prove surviving inscriptions and graffiti on the monuments of the area under study.

An even more tentative approach is absolutely necessary when the absence of official documentary evidence necessarily leads historians to the use of indirect evidence, such as, e.g. the travellers’ accounts, when used for information on population numbers. The value and reliability of travel texts varies considerably depending on the bias, preconceived ideas, personality, ability, interests, and the aim of each traveller in writing their texts, not to mention the reliability, or not, of their own sources of information. Thus, travel literature can be useful but must be treated with great caution and needs to

To sum up, for the Early Byzantine period documentary sources are practically non-existent, and the historian more often than not has to rely on other types of sources. For the Middle and Late Byzantine periods these are still scarce and concern specific areas, so they can be used profitably only if the study concerns these particular regions. Finally, for the Modern era, the wealth and diversity of the unpublished material mean that the historians will conduct their research with difficulty and 70

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quite possibly selectively. It is very promising that the Modern period, for which there is so much and so rich and diverse historical information, has become the object of separate studies, as we have seen in the case of Southern Argolid and Southwestern Morea as a result of the surveys conducted there. Thus the remark: ‘Neglect of critical archival sources for the study of Post-Byzantine Greece reflects in part a general apathy among the archaeologists concerning research and instruction in the recent history of Greece, a tendency particularly acute outside Greece itself’,18 is hopefully an indication that this tendency is in the process of changing.

‘has employed the techniques of archaeological surface survey, along with natural environment investigations’ with no apparent historical research as such. c) Davis, J.L. and Korkuti, M.M., The Mallakastra Regional Archaeological Project Internet Edition: [http://river.blg.uc.edu/mrap/MRAP_en.html]. This is an ‘archaeological expedition formally organized in 1996 to investigate the history of Prehistoric and Historic settlement and land use in central Albania’ but as far as one can see there are no plans for any systematic historical research. 7 Renfrew and Wagstaff 1982; Bennet, Davis and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 343-380; see also Zarinebaf, Bennet and Davis 2005. 8 Bennet, Davis and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 343; see also Davis and Davis 2007, 6ff, for a discussion on the necessary co-operation between archaeologists and historians, which is still lacking. 9 Ginatempo and Giorgi 1999, 173-193. 10 Tsougarakis and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis 2004, 359-439, 551-593. 11 Jameson, Runnels and Van Andel, 1994, 112-139. ‘The society and the economy of the Southern Argolid of today and of the recent past are only briefly sketched’ in the book, as they were studied in a separate volume; see Buck Sutton 2000. 12 See for example Kiel 1999, 196. 13 Kiel 1999, 197; Bennet, Davis and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 343-380. 14 Angelomatis-Tsougarakis 1990, 13-24, 210-211; Renfrew and Wagstaff 1982, 146-149; for an excellent treatment of the problems presented even by a traveller who is considered as reliable as far as geographical and topographical evidence are concerned, see Bennet, Davis and Sarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 343-380. 15 See Cherry, Davis, and Mantzourani 1991, 365-385; see chapter 19: ‘A Synopsis and Analysis of Travelers’ Accounts of Keos (to 1821)’. 16 Bennet, Davis and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 345-346. 17 Gregory 2003, 283-284. 18 Bennet, Davis, and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 345.

CONCLUSION

Archaeological surveys which aim at a ‘total’ investigation of an area extending into the Medieval, Early Modern and Modern periods, should include historical research of equally detailed and exhaustive proportions to that undertaken for archaeological finds. Published and unpublished documentary sources should be taken into account and researched by trained historians of those periods. If historical documents and archival material are available, it is inconceivable that they should be disregarded and that attempts would be made to draw historical conclusions with the help of mainly pottery finds and some general, background historical information. Also, existing unpublished historical documents should be researched, at least partially. This is not to discount the great usefulness of input of other sciences, such as geology, ethnoarchaeology, geography, botany etc, but for the more recent historical periods the results of the survey projects will inevitably be incomplete without the information provided by detailed historical research. Finally, it seems self-evident that the participation of more historians, of different skills and fields, would greatly help towards a more accomplished ‘total’ regional survey.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, H., 1990, The Eve of the Greek Revival. British Travellers’ Perceptions of Early Nineteenth Century Greece, London and New York: Routledge. Alcock, S.E. and Cherry, J.F. (eds), 2004, Side-by-Side Survey: Comparative Regional Studies in the Mediterranean World, Oxford: Oxbow Books. Bennet, J., Davis, J. L., Zarinebaf-Shahr, F., 2000, ‘The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, Part III: Sir William Gell’s Itinerary in the Pylia and Regional Landscapes in the Morea in the Second Ottoman Period’, Hesperia 69:3, 343-380. Buck Sutton, S., 2000, Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy, and Land Use in the Southern Argolid since 1700, Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press. Cavanagh, W., Mee, Ch., and James, P. (eds), 2005, The Laconia Rural Sites Project, BSA Suppl. 36, London: The British School at Athens. Cherry, J.F., Davis, J. L. and Mantzourani, E., 1991, Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands from Earliest Settlement until Modern Times, Los Angeles (CA): University of California Institute of Archaeology. Cherry, J.F., Davis, J.L. and Mantzourani, E., The Nemea Valley Archaeological Project - Archaeological Survey. Internet Edition [http://river.blg.uc.edu/nvap/] Davis, J.L., Alcock, S.E., Bennet, J. et al., The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project. Internet Edition [http://river.blg.uc.edu/prap/]

NOTES 1

Alcock and Cherry 2004, 3. See Cavanagh, Mee and James 2005, 10-14. 3 See, for example, Lucia Nixon and Jennifer Moody, The Sphakia Survey: Internet Edition [http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk]. The survey has made limited use of historical material and almost no use of archival sources for the Early Modern/Modern periods. Among the ‘principal investigators’ was one ancient historian, who was involved, in the ‘analysis of ancient and modern historical sources’, alongside his other duties. The Documentary Research Methods include ‘Byzantine MSS, Venetian reports (relazioni), drawings, and maps, Turkish tax records, 18th century land sale documents, ecclesiastical records’. Also it is stated that ‘we are combining archaeological and environmental data with the historical sources, which results in a more balanced general picture’. However, it is not clear from the reports whether more than one single unpublished document has been used. 4 Cf. Bennet, Davis and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 345. 5 Bennet, Davis and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000, 343, 345-346. 6 Cf. a) Cherry, J.F., Davis, J.L. and Mantzourani, E., The Nemea Valley Archaeological Project. Archeaological Survey. Internet Edition [http://river.blg.uc.edu/nvap/]. This is a mainly archaeological survey with no obvious historical research. No historian seems to participate. b) Davis, J.L, Alcock, S.E. and Bennet, J. et al., The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project. Internet Edition [http://river.blg.uc.edu/prap/]. The co-director for Historical Studies here is a classicist/archaeologist. Although the aim of the project is stated as being ‘to investigate the history of prehistoric and historic settlement and land use’, the project 2

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Davis, S. and Davis, J.L., 2007, Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Davis, J.L and Korkuti, M.M., The Mallakastra Regional Archaeological Project. Internet Edition [http://river.lg.uc.edu/mrap/MRAP_en.html] Ginatempo, M. and Giorgi, A., 1999, ‘Documentary Sources for the History of Medieval Settlements in Tuscany’, in J. Bintliff and K. Sbonias (eds), Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe (3000 BC to AD 1800), Oxford: Oxbow books, 173-193. Gregory, T. E., 2003, ‘The Byzantine Problem’, in M. Given and A.B. Knapp (eds), The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Archaeological Survey, Monumeta Archaeologica 21, Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 283-284. Jameson, M.H., Runnels, C.N. and Van Andel, T.H., 1994, A Greek Countryside: the Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, with a Register of Sites by Curtis N. Runnels and Mark H. Munn, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kiel, M., 1999, ‘The Ottoman Imperial Registers: Central Greece and Northern Bulgaria in the 15th-19th century; the Demographic Development of two

Areas Compared’, in J. Bintliff and K. Sbonias (eds), Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe, The Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes 1, Oxford, 195-218. Nixon, L., and Moody, J., The Sphakia Survey: Internet Edition [http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk]. Renfrew, C. and Wagstaff, M. (eds), 1982, An Island Polity: The archaeology of exploitation in Melos, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tsougarakis, D. and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, E., 2004, ‘A Province under Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman Rule, AD 400-1898’, in L.V. Watrous, H. Blitzer and D. Hatzi-Vallianou (eds), The Plain of Phaistos. Cycles of Social Complexity in the Mesara Region of Crete, Monumenta Archaeologica 23, Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 359-439, 551-593. Zarinbaf, F., Bennet, J. and Davis J.L., 2005, A Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece: The Southwestern Morea in the 18th Century, Hesperia Supplement 34, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Dimitris Tsougarakis and Helen Angelomatis-Tsougarakis Ionian University, Corfu Email: [email protected]

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1.7 Villages désertés à Chypre (fin XIIe- fin XIXe siècle) : bilan et questions Gilles Grivaud début du XIIIe siècle et la seconde moitié du XIVe, notamment en ce qui concerne la région de Limassol. Cependant, le déséquilibre du volume documentaire ne saurait être masqué, tant pour éclairer certaines phases chronologiques que pour suivre l’état du peuplement de régions reculées (Tilliria, vallées méridionales du Troodos), même en tenant compte de données complémentaires ; on peut en effet glaner des informations en dépouillant les chartes des Lusignan, les chroniques médiévales, les registres des notaires italiens, les dépêches des officiers vénitiens, les documents ottomans utilisés dans de récentes publications, les correspondances consulaires, voire les récits de voyages.

Le point de vue développé dans cette contribution appartient à un historien qui ne dispose pas de résultats archéologiques d’ampleur suffisante pour reconstituer l’évolution du peuplement chypriote sur la longue durée, entre la fin du XIIe siècle et la fin du XIXe. Or la dépendance aux sources écrites montre qu’à Chypre, comme ailleurs en Orient byzantin ou en Grèce franque et ottomane, les séries documentaires s’avèrent lacunaires, fragmentaires ; elles ne permettent pas de suivre les phases de développement et de rétraction de l’habitat rural avec la précision souhaitée. Sans entrer dans le détail des sources consultées, on peut souligner l’hétérogénéité des textes utilisés. Pour la fin du XIIe siècle et le début du XIIIe, les indices appartiennent principalement à trois documents : •

• •

Les traditions populaires et les études de toponymie locale fournissent naturellement leur lot d’informations utiles, bien que ces dernières entrent parfois en contradiction avec les sources historiques (Grivaud 1998, 61-145). En revanche, les données tirées du corpus cartographique ont été écartées, étant le plus souvent élaborées dans un contexte étranger, à savoir des ateliers italiens ou hollandais ignorant la toponymie locale (Stylianou and Stylianou 1980) ; seule la carte dressée à Chypre en 1542 par Leonida Attar retient l’attention : son étude montre cependant qu’elle fut élaborée en milieu administratif, à partir des listes de villages et des dénombrements réalisés par les officiers vénitiens et chypriotes ; en conséquence, par sa dépendance aux documents fiscaux, cette carte apporte peu d’informations nouvelles, confirmant pour l’essentiel les acquis obtenus du dépouillement des sources écrites (Cavazzana Romanelli et Grivaud 2006).

un relevé des biens fonciers du petit monastère de la Théotokos de Krinia, dans le Pentadaktylos (Darrouzès 1959, 47-49 ; Constantinides et Browning 1993, 58-59) ; le privilège qui reconduit l’abbaye Saint-Théodose de Palestine dans ses propriétés de la région du Khapotami, en 1216 (Richard 1986) ; la liste que le baile vénitien Marsilio Zorzi dresse, vers 1243, pour réclamer les propriétés confisquées aux Vénitiens par les Lusignan, en 1191-1192, dans la région de Limassol (Berggötz 1991, 184-191).

Le XIVe siècle est pour sa part éclairé par le relevé des dîmes ecclésiastiques du diocèse de Limassol, établi en 1367 (Richard 1962, 60-110). Ensuite, la documentation s’étoffe au XVIe siècle, grâce aux officiers vénitiens envoyés à Chypre qui ont laissé un abondant matériel à caractère administratif et fiscal, dans lequel se distinguent des listes de villages, composées dans les années 1520 et 1550, et un pratico de la population parèque masculine insulaire, daté de 1565 (Grivaud 1998, 70-80).

De même, les résultats avancés par les archéologues posent nombre de problèmes méthodologiques ; Chypre fait l’objet d’une intense investigation depuis plus d’un siècle ; cela dit, les archéologues, préoccupés de préhistoire ou d’antiquité classique, examinent rarement les couches supérieures des chantiers, si bien que peu d’attention a été réservée aux mobiliers médiévaux et modernes des sites fouillés. Fort heureusement, l’archéologie médiévale se développe depuis le début des années 1980 en milieu rural, s’intéressant de manière plus spécifique aux ensembles monumentaux, religieux ou industriels ; une excellente illustration en est fournie par les fouilles des raffineries sucrières de Kouklia, Episkopi et Kolossi (Wartburg 1983, 298-314 ; Maier et Wartburg 1985, 163-170 ; Solomidou-Ieronymidou 2001). Parallèlement, toujours dans les années 1980, ont été engagées des prospections appliquées à des territoires assez étendus, dans la région de Kouklia et dans le bassin de la Chrysochou, délivrant des résultats peu utilisables par manque de critères de datation cohérents et uniformes (Rupp 1982, 1984, 1987 ; Adovasio et al. 1974-1975 ;

L’époque ottomane s’ouvre sur la réalisation d’un tahrir (recensement) accompli en 1572, dont le texte complet n’a pas été publié, et dont différents résultats ont été livrés (Sahillioğlu 1967, 28 ; Inalcik, 1973 ; Jennings 1986). En l’état actuel de la documentation, les premiers relevés détaillés des versements du harac et de l’öşür restent tardifs, datés des années 1820-1830 (Papadopoullos 1965, 113-212) ; cette enquête s’achève sur le premier recensement contemporain de l’île, orchestré par les Britanniques en 1881 (Barry 18841885). Tel est le corps principal des sources permettant de reconstruire l’état du peuplement chypriote ; ainsi en obtient-on une image détaillée pour les XVIe et XIXe siècles, mais seulement des éléments de réflexion pour le 73

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en l’espace de trois siècles, Chypre perd près de 300 habitats. La réalité se révèle évidemment plus complexe, car si on tient compte des villages créés durant la domination ottomane, à savoir une centaine, le nombre de désertions atteint le chiffre de 400 unités. En réalité, sur la période étudiée, de la fin du XIIe à 1881, 589 toponymes d’habitats disparus ont pu être collectés, habitats qui, à un moment ou à un autre, disparaissent de la documentation ultérieure (Grivaud 1998, 145-428). Naturellement, ces chiffres demeurent sujets à caution (Arbel 2000), mais ils tracent les grandes tendances des phases de rétraction de l’habitat chypriote à l’époque moderne.

Given 2000, 210-211). Plus récemment, les ambitieux programmes de prospection entrepris dans les zones septentrionales du Troodos (SCSP, TAESP) ont mis en lumière les différentes phases de peuplement et d’exploitation des ressources minérales et agricoles sur la très longue durée, insistant plus spécialement sur la période transitoire de l’Antiquité tardive (Given et al. 2002, Given et Knapp 2003) ; ouvrant de belles perspectives sur le Moyen Âge et l’époque moderne, les informations recueillies demeurent encore difficiles à détacher de leur contexte local, tant les lectures proposées achoppent elles aussi sur les critères de définition et de datation des différentes formes d’habitat rencontrées (Given 2000). Plus convaincants, les prospections et sondages menés entre Potamia et Agios Sozomenos révèlent les transformations d’une région partagée entre agriculture de subsistance et agriculture spéculative (Lécuyer et al. 2001, 2002, 2003). Néanmoins, si les résultats de toutes ces prospections fournissent une riche matière à réflexion, au stade actuel de la recherche, l’appréhension du phénomène des Wüstungen chypriotes repose principalement sur l’utilisation de sources écrites.

L’examen du phénomène des désertions chypriotes mène à un bilan qui peut être présenté de manière chronologique, géographique et thématique (Grivaud 1998, 151-264). Si l’on considère d’abord la distribution chronologique des désertions, les habitats connus à la fin de l’époque byzantine perdurent dans leur grande majorité (deux tiers des cas). Quelques abandons peuvent être notés ; Néophyte-le-Reclus les attribue à l’épidémie de 1174-1175 et aux conditions politiques agitées des années 1180-1200 (Grivaud 1998, 329-337). On peut également les associer à un déplacement de populations vers des zones littorales en cours d’aménagement. Par la suite, au XIIIe siècle, on repère huit créations d’habitats, qui semblent résulter d’une mise en valeur de terres viticoles ; c’est une période d’essor démographique et économique, qui se prolonge jusqu’au milieu du XIVe siècle (Fig. 1).

Leur dépouillement permet d’établir à quelque 1060 le nombre d’habitats existant dans l’île au milieu du XVIe siècle (Grivaud 1996). Pour les époques antérieures, il est imprudent d’avancer un chiffre. En revanche, le recensement de 1881 assure que l’île ne compte plus que 780 villages. Une première estimation se dessine donc :

Fig. 1 - Villages désertés à Chypre (fin XIIe – fin XIXe siècle) – Le cadre géomorphologique

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L’autre grand mouvement qui se dégage sur les sept siècles montre un déplacement régulier des populations montagnardes vers les plaines littorales et la Messarée. Si les désertions de la fin du XIIe-début XIIIe ne peuvent être localisées, les habitats qui naissent à cette époque sont tous situés dans les plaines et les collines littorales : ils restituent l’attraction des zones ouvertes aux échanges, comme en témoigne l’aménagement hydraulique du territoire de Potamia aux XIVe-XVe siècles (Lécuyer et al. 2001 ; Lécuyer 2004, 2006). Cette dynamique des terres basses caractérise aussi les mouvements de population au cours des XVIe-XIXe siècles. Les reliefs perdent leurs habitats, alors que, dans les plaines, on assiste à un regroupement des implantations ; en Messarée, se dessine un mouvement identique de descente des populations des versants de la chaîne Kyrénienne vers des terroirs moins escarpés, mieux drainés et plus propices à une augmentation des rendements (Grivaud 1998, 425-426).

L’irruption de la peste noire, en 1347, provoque une rupture de peuplement qui s’amplifie pendant un siècle, puisqu’on dénombre huit épidémies entre 1361 et 1471, faisant de la maladie un fléau récurrent de l’histoire du peuplement insulaire au Moyen Âge tardif. À ces ravages, s’ajoutent une série d’années sèches, l’apparition des nuées de sauterelles dans les terroirs abandonnés et deux guerres perdues contre Gênes (1374) et l’Égypte mamelouke (1426) qui déséquilibrent les finances du royaume et accentuent la pression fiscale sur la paysannerie. La conjonction de ces facteurs plonge les campagnes dans une crise révélée par 12 désertions enregistrées dans la région de Limassol, entre 1375 et 1460 ; cette région perd environ 15 % de ses habitats. La seconde moitié du XVe siècle montre néanmoins des entreprises de reconquête des terroirs, sans qu’il soit possible d’en mesurer l’extension (Grivaud 1998, 337367). Le XVIe siècle vénitien rétablit les conditions propices à la récupération des effectifs humains perdus depuis 1347. Le volume de la population double entre 1490 et 1570, mais cet essor ne se traduit pas par des défrichements ou par la création de nouveaux habitats. Au contraire, la récurrence des nuées de sauterelles suggère une rétraction des surfaces cultivées ; par ailleurs, la répétition des crises frumentaires pousse la paysannerie à abandonner ses villages, sans doute pour gagner les villes et les plantations de coton, pourvoyeuses de salaires. Pour la période 1460-1572, près d’un habitat sur cinq disparaîtrait ; le plus souvent, il s’agit de hameaux de quelques familles (Grivaud 1998, 368-382).Durant la période ottomane, on assiste à un profond reclassement du peuplement rural, aboutissant à la disparition d’environ 40 % des villages connus en 1570. Le retour de la peste, entre 1571 et 1761, explique en partie l’effondrement démographique mais, plus encore, la pression fiscale qui pousse les paysans à chercher crédit auprès des maisons de commerce européennes. La réorganisation de l’espace rural montre que les populations vivant en altitude descendent en masse vers les plaines, où s’installent de nouveaux villages. En l’espace de deux siècles, le Troodos perd environ 130 habitats ; cette évolution s’achève à la fin du XVIIIe siècle dans les montagnes, se poursuivant, à un rythme plus lent dans les plaines, en liaison avec le développement d’une économie de petits çiftliks (domaines fonciers) dans les zones littorales. Néanmoins, après 1800, les créations d’habitats (50) l’emportent sur les abandons (29) (Grivaud 1998, 416-421).

Quant aux phénomènes qui provoquent les Wüstungen, ils sont, à Chypre comme ailleurs, répartis en deux catégories : les facteurs catastrophiques et les facteurs conjoncturels. La trilogie catastrophique est bien connue : épidémies, guerres, sécheresses ; dans le cas chypriote, cette trilogie explique les désertions de la seconde moitié du XIVe siècle et du XVe, ainsi que celles des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Grivaud 1998, 293-328). En revanche, elle ne permet pas de comprendre les abandons du XVIe siècle qui interviennent au moment où le volume de la population double. Dans ce cas-là, les facteurs conjoncturels se superposent aux facteurs catastrophiques. Dans leur ensemble, les désertions chypriotes illustrent le basculement d’une économie montagnarde, à tendance autarcique, vers une économie dominée par des cultures spéculatives dont l’essor se trouvait aiguisé par la demande occidentale. Ce type d’économie ne pouvait se développer sur les territoires exigus et difficiles à cultiver des zones montagneuses ; il se développe dans les zones littorales et en Messarée, c’est-à-dire là où les terres peuvent recevoir des aménagements hydrauliques à grande échelle, là où les orientations culturales peuvent répondre aux besoins des marchés italiens. Au XIIIe siècle s’engage l’âge d’or de la canne à sucre, auquel succèdent celui du coton, à partir du XVe siècle, et celui de la soie, à partir du XVIIe. Sans cette attraction commerciale, les investissements n’auraient pu transformer les zones de plaine et y attirer la maind’œuvre nécessaire à leur mise en valeur. Ce mouvement s’opère du XIIIe siècle au XIXe, à des rythmes qui restent cependant à reconnaître et à affiner selon les régions, car les sols et le relief n’ont pas permis les mêmes bonifications.

La distribution géographique des désertions révèle que toutes les régions ne réagissent pas au phénomène de manière similaire. Ainsi, le bassin de la Chrysochou perd seulement un habitat sur quatre, ce qui peut s’expliquer par l’enclavement d’une région tournée vers une polyculture de subsistance ; à l’écart des centres politiques et commerciaux, le bassin résiste mieux aux épidémies, aux conflits armés et à la pression exercée par les marchands-banquiers occidentaux stationnés à Larnaca à l’époque moderne (Grivaud 1998, 260-264).

L’enquête sur les villages désertés de Chypre à partir des sources écrites soulève, en outre, une série de problèmes qui n’ont pu être résolus. Quatre interrogations principales peuvent être formulées, les deux premières insistant sur les aspects méthodologiques. 75

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(1474), de celles des Vénitiens à celles des Ottomans (1570), enfin de celles des Ottomans à celles des Britanniques (1878). Le passage d’un système institutionnel à l’autre ne modifie pas la structure du peuplement rural, d’autant qu’une partie des élites insulaires semble toujours assister les nouveaux maîtres de l’île pour transmettre les techniques administratives (Richard 1993 ; Grivaud 1990, 1992 ; Beihammer 2006 ; Arbel et Veinstein 1986). On peut donc assurer la permanence des structures rurales pour toute la période concernée.

La première question concerne la définition du village dans les sources écrites. En Occident, le village correspond à une agglomération formée de plusieurs maisons encellulées autour de bâtiments à diverses fonctions, qu’elles soient religieuses, funéraires, défensives ou administratives (Fossier 1992, 207-214 ; Zadora-Rio 1995, 145-153). En Orient byzantin, la définition est davantage marquée par son aspect fiscal, puisque le chôrion est une unité de peuplement qui exploite un terroir, et remet des impôts proportionnels à sa richesse ; à l’intérieur de la circonscription du chôrion, peuvent se rencontrer diverses formes d’habitat dispersé (proasteion, agridion, ktèsis) que les sources chypriotes ne distinguent presque jamais (Lemerle 1979, 73-85, 193199, 201-248 ; Kaplan 1992, 95-134 ; Lefort 2002, 275281). Pourtant, dans les documents fiscaux des XIVe et XVe siècles, les enregistrements montrent que les revenus d’un casal sont fractionnés ; cette division peut correspondre à un partage des recettes entre plusieurs seigneurs, comme à une division territoriale des villages en paroisses ou en quartiers (Richard 1962, 85, 88-90). De fait, comme les critères d’enregistrement des habitats ne sont jamais précisés dans les sources, se pose la question de saisir la réaction des officiers francs, vénitiens ou ottomans face aux phénomènes de fractionnement ou de synécisme de l’habitat rural, assez fréquents sur l’île, notamment dans le Carpasse ou le Troodos (Aurenche et al. 1993, 207-213).

En revanche, on s’interroge sur les mesures prises par les différents régimes pour résoudre le problème du souspeuplement des campagnes, dans la mesure où la densité maximale tourne autour de 20 hbts/km2, tant en 1570 qu’en 1881. Les Francs ont su attirer les réfugiés de l’Orient latin, mais ceux-ci ont préféré s’installer en priorité dans les villes (Richard 1979) ; néanmoins, l’étude de la toponymie laisse penser que les Francs, les Hospitaliers en premier lieu, ont suscité la création de huit habitats dans les zones proches du littoral. Venise tente elle aussi, mais en vain, de repeupler certaines régions, comme le Carpasse (Arbel 1984, 186-188 ; Grivaud 1998, 280). Quant aux Ottomans, ils prévoient plusieurs déportations de populations micrasiatiques ou juives de Syrie, pour densifier l’habitat rural, notamment après la violente peste de 1571-1573 (Papadopoullos 1965, 19-28 ; Jennings 1993, 212-239). Eux aussi semblent échouer, mais, dans les documents cités par Jennings, une quarantaine d’habitats apparaît et disparaît au cours du XVIIe siècle (Grivaud 1998, 290) ; ces données suggèrent que plusieurs tentatives de colonisation ont été menées, même si elles n’ont finalement pas abouti. En fin de compte, peut-on assurer que la volonté politique des différents maîtres de l’île a influencé de manière durable la distribution du peuplement rural, et qu’elle a stimulé de manière plus déterminante la mobilité des paysans que l’offre économique des marchands occidentaux ?

La deuxième question touche à la mobilité de la population paysanne. Si le parèque est normalement attaché à sa terre, le régime seigneurial franc autorise maints aménagements. Un paysan peut être enregistré dans un casal, mais aussi travailler un autre domaine, selon les besoins du seigneur dont il dépend. Par ailleurs, lors des crises politiques et des épidémies, le contrôle administratif sur la paysannerie se relâche, facilitant ainsi la fuite des individus (Richard 1983, 188). Dès lors, le problème consiste à déterminer les critères sur lesquels les diverses administrations s’appuient pour considérer définitif l’abandon d’un village. Lorsque les bâtiments d’habitation ne sont plus occupés ? On sait pourtant qu’ils peuvent être transformés en habitat saisonnier ou en bergerie (Given 2000, 221-225). Lorsque les églises sont abandonnées ? Ce cas intervient rarement, car les bâtiments religieux sont entretenus et fréquentés longtemps après la disparition de l’habitat, ne serait-ce que pour célébrer la fête du saint titulaire de l’église. Lorsque le terroir est laissé inculte ? Sans doute, mais avant ce stade ultime, il faut envisager une succession d’étapes intermédiaires, car les paysans maintiennent en culture leurs anciennes terres, même si elles sont éloignées de leur nouveau lieu de résidence. Ainsi constate-t-on qu’à l’absence de critères de définition du village, répond une absence de critères satisfaisants pour apprécier l’état de désertion de l’habitat.

La quatrième et dernière question concerne la perception des abandons d’habitat dans la mémoire collective. Lorsque les traditions populaires évoquent les causes des désertions, elles mentionnent parfois les épidémies, plus souvent les ravages des troupes turques ou la vengeance d’un agha jaloux de la richesse des villages (Grivaud 1998, 216-217). Jamais ne sont évoqués les facteurs économiques, et l’abandon d’un village demeure plus volontiers interprété comme le résultat d’une lutte féroce entre chrétiens et musulmans ; ainsi, les raisons objectives disparaissent sous le poids d’une lecture religieuse du phénomène. Il convient alors de rappeler que, dans l’imaginaire des insulaires, l’intégration de Chypre au monde byzantin reste consécutif à une désertion complète des campagnes, après 18 ou 36 années de sécheresses consécutives sous le règne de Constantin. Plusieurs textes hagiographiques, repris par la chronique de Machairas, attribuent aux miracles de sainte Hélène le repeuplement des campagnes (Machairas, 3-8 ; AmadiStambaldi, I, 78, II, 1-3 ; Bustron, 45 ; Lusignan 66v67r ; Jauna 1747, I, 51-52 ; Kyprianos 1788, 31, 141-

La troisième question se réfère aux effets des transformations politiques ; entre la fin du XIIe siècle et la fin du XIXe, Chypre change quatre fois de maître, passant des mains des Byzantins à celles des Lusignan (11911192), puis de celles des Lusignan à celles des Vénitiens 76

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Cavazzana Romanelli, F. et Grivaud, G., 2006, Cyprus 1542. The Great Map of the Island by Leonida Attar, Nicosie : The Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation. Constantinides, C.N. et Browning, R., 1993, Dated Greek Manuscripts from Cyprus to the Year 1570, Washington et Nicosie : Dumbarton Oaks/Cyprus Research Centre. Darrouzès, J., 1959, ‘Notes pour servir à l’histoire de Chypre. IV’, Κυπριακαί Σπουδαί, 23, 47-49 [réimpression dans Darrouzès, J., Littérature et histoire des textes byzantins, Londres, 1972, étude n° XVII]. Englezakis, B., 1995, Studies on the History of the Church of Cyprus 4th-20th Centuries, Londres : Variorum. Fossier, R., 1992, ‘Villages et villageois’, in Villages et villageois au Moyen Âge (21e Congrès de la Société des Historiens Médiévistes, Caen 1990), Paris : Publications de la Sorbonne, 207-214. Given, M., 2000, ‘Agriculture, Settlement and Landscape in Ottoman Cyprus’, Levant, 32, 209-230. Given, M. et al., 2002, ‘Archaeological and Environmental Survey Projects, Cyprus: Report on the 2001 Season’, Levant 34, 25-38. Given, M. and Knapp, A.B., 2003, The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Survey, Monumenta Archaeologica 21, Los Angeles : University of California at Los Angeles, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. [http://www.scsp.arts.gla.ac.uk] Grivaud, G., 1990, ‘Formes byzantines de la fiscalité foncière chypriote à l’époque latine’, Επετηρίς του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερευνών 18, 117-127. Grivaud, G., 1992, ‘Ordine della Secreta di Cipro: Florio Bustron et les institutions franco-byzantines afférentes au régime agraire de Chypre à l’époque vénitienne’, Μελέται και Υπομνήματα, 2, 531-592. Grivaud, G., 1996, ‘Population et peuplement rural à Chypre (fin XIIe siècle-milieu du XVIe)’, in J. Fridrich et al. (éds), Ruralia I (Conference Ruralia I - Prague 8th-14th September 1995, Prague, 217-226. Grivaud, G., 1998, ‘Villages désertés à Chypre (fin XIIefin XIXe siècle)’, Μελέται και Yπομνήματα 3, Nicosie. Inalcik, H., 1973, ‘Ottoman policy and administration in Cyprus after the conquest’, in Πρακτικά του Πρώτου Διεθνούς Κυπριολογικού Συνεδρίου, Nicosie, vol. III/A, 119-136. [réimpression dans Inalcik, H., 1978, The Ottoman Empire: conquest, organization and economy, étude n° VIII, Londres : Variorum Reprints.] Jauna, D., 1747, Histoire générale des roïaumes de Chypre, de Jérusalem, d’Arménie et d’Égypte, 2 vols, Leyde : Jean Luzac. Jennings, R.C., 1986, ‘The population, taxation and wealth in the cities and villages of Cyprus, according to the detailed population survey

142). Par la suite, à l’époque des guerres arabobyzantines (VIIe-Xe siècles), d’autres déportations massives des Chypriotes se réalisent, tant vers Cyzique que vers la Syrie, sans qu’il soit possible d’en mesurer l’ampleur (Englezakis 1995, 63-82). Par ces traditions remontant aux premiers siècles de l’établissement de la foi chrétienne dans l’île, la mémoire collective entretenait le souvenir de larges mouvements d’abandon et de recolonisation des campagnes, en des circonstances particulières, toujours liées au succès du christianisme contre ses éternels ennemis, le paganisme puis l’islam. On peut donc se demander si cet héritage culturel n’a pas conditionné les désertions des époques ultérieures. En d’autres termes, sur une île riche de terres, mais sous-peuplée, le déplacement des habitats ne devenait-il pas une pratique d’autant plus naturelle et fréquente, que les esprits étaient préparés à accomplir des migrations à plus ou moins courte échelle, mouvements que les sources officielles restituaient avec difficulté ? BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Amadi et Strambaldi 1891-1893, Chroniques d’Amadi et Strambaldi, in R. de Mas-Latrie (éd.), Paris, 2 vols [réimpression du vol. 1 : Nicosie, 1999]. Arbel, B., 1984, ‘Cypriot Population under Venetian Rule’, Μελέται και Υπομνήματα, 1, 181-215. [réimpression dans Arbel B., 1999, Cyprus, the Franks and Venice, 13th-16th Centuries, étude n° V, Aldershot : Ashgate.] Arbel, B. et Veinstein, G., 1986, ‘La fiscalité vénétochypriote au miroir de la législation ottomane : le qanunname de 1572’, Turcica 18, 7-51. Arbel, B., 2000, ‘Cypriot Villages from the Byzantine to the British Period: Observations on a Recent Book’, ΄Επετηρίς του Κέντρου΄Επιστημονικών Ερευνών, XXVI, 439-456. Aurenche, O. et al., 1993, ‘Un village et son terroir : Episkopi (Paphos)’, in M. Yon (éd.), Kinyras. L’archéologie française à Chypre, Lyon, 207-213. Avodasio, J.M., Fry, G.F., Gunn, J.D. and Maslowski, R.F., 1974-1975, ‘Prehistoric and historic settlement patterns in western Cyprus’, World Archaeology 6, 339-364. Barry, F.W., 1884-1885, ‘Report on the Census of 1881’, Accounts and Papers 53, 1-57. Beihammer, A., 2006, ‘Byzantine Chancery Traditions in Frankish Cyprus: The Case of the Vatican MS Palatinus Graecus 367’, in S. Fourrier et G. Grivaud (éds), Identités croisées en un milieu méditerranéen : le cas de Chypre (AntiquitéMoyen Âge), Mont Saint-Aignan : Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 301-316. Berggötz, O., 1991, Der Bericht des Marsilio Zorzi: Codex Querini-Stampalia IV 3 (1064), Francfort/Main : Peter Lang. Bustron, F., 1886, Chronique de l’île de Chypre, in R. de Mas-Latrie (éd.), Paris [réimpression, Nicosie, 1998].

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(defter-i mufassal) of 1572’, Journal of Turkish Studies 10, 175-189. Jennings, R.C., 1993, Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Cyprus and the Mediterranean World, 15711640, New York et Londres : New York University Press. Kaplan, M., 1992, Les hommes et la terre à Byzance, du VIe au XIe siècle : propriété et exploitation du sol, Byzantina Sorbonensia 10, Paris. Kyprianos, Archimandrite, 1788, Ίστορία χρονολογκή της νήσου Κύπρου,Venise [éd. consultée : Nicosie 19743]. Lécuyer, N. et al. 2001, ‘Potamia-Agios Sozomenos (Chypre) : La constitution des paysages dans l’Orient médiéval’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 125/2, 655-678. Lécuyer, N. et al. 2002, ‘Potamia-Agios Sozomenos (Chypre). La constitution des paysages dans l’Orient médiéval’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 126/2, 598-614. Lécuyer, N. et al. 2003, ‘Potamia-Agios Sozomenos (Chypre)’, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 127/2, 574-577. Lécuyer, N., 2004, ‘Le territoire de Potamia aux époques médiévale et moderne : acquis récents’, Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 34, 11-30. Lécuyer, N., 2006, ‘Marqueurs identitaires médiévaux et modernes sur le territoire de Potamia-Agios Sozomenos’, in S. Fourrier et G. Grivaud (éds), Identités croisées en un milieu méditerranéen : le cas de Chypre (Antiquité-Moyen Âge), Mont Saint-Aignan : Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 241-256. Lefort, J., 2002, ‘The Rural Economy, Seventh-Twelfth Centuries’, in A.E. Laiou (éd.), The Economic History of Byzantium. From the Seventh through the Fifteeenth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 39, Vol. I, Washington, DC, 231-310. Lemerle, P., 1979, The Agrarian History of Byzantium from the Origins to the Twelfth Century, Galway : Galway University Press. Lusignan, É. de, 1580. Description de toute l’isle de Chypre, Paris [réimpression, Nicosie, 2004]. Machairas, L., 2003, ‘Χρονικό της Κύπρου. Παράλληλη διπλωματική έκδοση των χειρογράφων’, M. Pieris et A. Nikolaou-Konnari (éds), Nicosie. Maier, F.G., et Wartburg, M.-L. von., 1985, ‘Reconstructing history from the earth, c. 2800 B.C.-1600 A.D. Excavating at Paleapaphos, 1966-84’, in V. Karageorghis (éd.), Archaeology in Cyprus, 1960-1985, Nicosie : A.G. Leventis Foundation, 142-172. Papadopoullos, Th., 1965, Social and Historical Data on Population (1570-1881), Nicosie.

Richard, J., 1962, Documents chypriotes des archives du Vatican (XIVe et XVe siècles), Paris. Richard, J., 1979, ‘Le peuplement latin et syrien en Chypre au XIIIe siècle’, Byzantinische Forschungen 7, 157-173. [réimpression dans Richard, J., 1983, Croisés, missionnaires et voyageurs, étude n° VII, Londres : Variorum Reprints]. Richard, J., 1983, Le Livre des Remembrances de la Secrète du royaume des Lusignan (1468-1469), Nicosie. Richard, J., 1986, ‘Un monastère grec de Palestine et son domaine chypriote : le monachisme orthodoxe et l’établissement de la domination franque’, Πρακτικά του Δευτέρου Διεθνούς Κυπριολογικού Συνεδρίου, vol. II, Nicosie, 61-75. [réimpression dans Richard J., 1992, Croisades et États latins d’Orient, étude n° XIV Londres : Variorum Reprints]. Richard, J., 1993, ‘La seigneurie franque en Syrie et à Chypre : modèle oriental ou modèle occidental?’, Actes du 117e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes, Paris, 155-166. Rupp, D.W., 1982, The Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project. Échos du monde classique/Classical Views 26, 179-185. Rupp, D.W., 1984, ‘The Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project’, Échos du monde classique/Classical Views, 28, 147-156. Rupp, D.W., 1987, ‘The Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project’, Échos du monde classique/Classical Views, 31, 217-224. Sahillioğlu, H., 1967 ‘Osmanlı idaresinde Kıbrıs’ın ilk yılı bütçesi’, Belgeler 4/7-8, 1-33. Solomidou-Ieronymidou, M., 2001, Approches archéologiques des établissements templiers et hospitaliers de Chypre, Mémoire de thèse présenté à l’Université Paris I, 7 vols. Stylianou A. et Stylianou J.A., 1980, The History of the Cartography of Cyprus, Nicosie : Cyprus Research Centre. Wartburg, M.-L. von, 1983, ‘The Medieval Cane Sugar Industry in Cyprus: Results of Recent Excavations’, Archaeological Journal, 63, 298-314. Zadora-Rio, É., 1995, ‘Le village des historiens et le village des archéologues’, in E. Mornet (éd.), Campagnes médiévales : l’homme et son espace. Études offertes à Robert Fossier, Paris : Publications de la Sorbonne, 145-153. Gilles Grivaud Université de Rouen [email protected]

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1.8 Ceramics, Metadata, and Expectations: The Problems of Synthetic Interpretation of Survey Data for Medieval Greece Timothy E. Gregory this is almost certainly the disparity between what the archaeological publications provide and what the historians have traditionally taken as their subject. For reasons that lie beyond the scope of this paper, most historians dealing with the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods in the Eastern Mediterranean have rarely been concerned with the kind of long-term social and economic questions that survey archaeology can presumably help to answer. Naturally, Braudel (1972) and Horden and Purcell (2000) are significant exceptions to this observation. Rather, they continue to focus primarily on politics and warfare, religion, culture in general or, when they look at social or economic considerations, the macrostructures, institutions, and phenomena that are not normally revealed in the detailed information that archaeological survey may be expected to provide. An example of an attempt to make historical use of archaeological evidence for the Post-Classical world can be seen in the work of Averil Cameron (1993, 152-157). There the author points to the potential for survey evidence to put some flesh on the bare bones of the historical account, but she concludes that the survey evidence is still inconclusive and that the promise provided by survey has yet to be realized: ‘… survey work can yield misleading results, for a variety of reasons, which include ... the actual difficulty of identification of some kinds of sherds and the possible intervention of pure chance in accounting for certain “assemblages”. . .’ (154). She also points to the problem of keeping abreast of results from survey archaeology and the difficulty of access to survey data published in scattered and often obscure journals. Yet, she ends on an optimistic tone, suggesting that as a result of survey work ‘a history of the later Roman empire in the old style is simply inadequate for today.’

In a publication such as this it is hardly necessary to point out that survey archaeology in Greece has, until recently, paid little attention to the Medieval and later periods. Yet, at the same time, it is also clear that in recent years the Medieval period has been attracting increasing attention in the execution and publication, if not in the design, of archaeological surveys in a Greek context. The Minnesota Messenia Expedition (McDonald and Rapp 1972), carried out largely in the 1960’s was in many ways a pioneer undertaking, in its attention to Medieval material as well as in many others, since it featured prominently Peter Topping’s important studies on the Venetian documents relating to economy and settlement in the Southwestern Peloponnesos in Early Modern times. Nonetheless, the MME did little with the archaeological information from the Medieval period, and in the gazetteer of sites in the final publication all Byzantine and Medieval material was lumped into a single category, and nothing was done with the archaeology of these later periods. In the words of the editors of the final volume, ‘The [Medieval] designation is particularly vague, since it covers at least a millennium, and we lack the background to more closely identify the pottery with any assurance’ (126). Indeed, it is clear that a concern for Prehistory has, until quite recent times, dominated archaeological survey in the Greek region and that Medievalists have all too rarely become involved in the sometimes nasty work of carrying out archaeological survey and interpreting its results (Gregory 1986, 1996). This generalization, of course, has begun to change, and it is refreshing to see – not only the significant number of survey projects represented in this volume – but that many achaeological surveys now include a significant focus on the Medieval period. One thinks of the Boeotia Project (Bintliff and Snodgrass 1985, Bintliff 2000), the Nemea Survey (Wright et al. 1990; Athanassopoulos 1993, 1997, in press), the Lakonia Survey (Cavanagh et al. 1996, 2002), and the Morea project, the latter devoted primarily to the Medieval and Early Modern architecture of the region (Cooper 2002). It is no longer a rarity to see Medieval pottery included in the publication of survey material, and the analysis of Medieval settlement systems normally now finds a significant place in the final publication of survey projects (Vroom 1997, 1998a, 1998b; Given and Knapp 2003).

In fact, if one looks at the results provided by the publication of the survey projects themselves, it is easy to see why the historian might well be disappointed by the results. A Greek Countryside (Jameson et al. 1994), for example, is the substantial general publication of the Argolid Exploration Project. As such it contains lengthy sections on the Medieval and Early Modern periods of Greece, and the sheer bulk of the relative historical documentation is testimony both to the energy of the authors and their determination to treat the Post-Classical era with the seriousness it deserves. Nonetheless, the results from this effort are somewhat disappointing. Thus, in this publication the analysis of the later period is, in the end, largely anecdotal and directed toward the presentation of data rather than a more substantial understanding.

What is probably just as important is that Medieval historians (as opposed to archaeologists) are now beginning to make use of survey data in more general analyses of the period. This is unfortunately not something that has become general, and the reason for

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The recently published results of the survey carried out by Watrous and colleagues in the Mesara Region of Crete provides interesting information and presents significant methodological questions for dealing with the postancient periods (Watrous, Hadzi-Vallianou, and Blitzer 2004). The actual archaeological survey was carried out between 1984 and 1987 and the intensive part of the project was limited to an area of 22 km2 centred on the ancient site of Phaistos (Watrous et al. 2004, 12-17). The main goal of the survey was clearly the discovery and collection of information about ‘sites,’ but so-called ‘offsite data’ were also preserved for the 653 units (or ‘fields’) that were systematically investigated. The analysis of the post-ancient periods was entrusted to Demetri Tsougarakis and Helen AngelomatisTsougarakis, both of whom have enormous experience in the Byzantine and later history of Crete and several other parts of Greece. In the published volume their work consists of two separate parts. The first of these is an essentially historical account of the study area, from Late Roman through Ottoman times, with a consideration of ‘settlement, population, and land use,’ based partly on written sources, but with a significant discussion of the survey evidence (Tsougarakis and AngelomatisTsougarakis 2004a). That evidence, however, is remarkably sparse, amounting in most cases to the number of inhabited sites that could be documented for each sub-period, with a consideration of whether there was continuity from one period to the other. The second contribution is a catalogue of sites of the Byzantine through Ottoman periods, on the basis of the written sources (Tsougarakis and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis 2004b). Both of these sections of the work (including a tabular presentation of the chronologies of the sites) are important summaries of enormous quantities of information that will be invaluable to anyone working in later periods in the Mesara region. It is significant that this material makes up about 22% of the whole of the final publication!

from written sources were also attested in the archaeological record. Of all these Byzantine sites, they note that 2 provide evidence of habitation up to modern times and two others through the Ottoman period (Tsougarakis and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis 2004a, 37375). Overall, this is a pretty meagre harvest from three years of fieldwork and more of analysis, and it is especially disappointing that more could not have been said about the size of the settlements in the Medieval periods and the distribution of artifacts within them, since it is clear that such information was collected. Unfortunately, the reasons for this are quite apparent in the published report: the project team was apparently not given adequate time to go back over their information and to provide a better record that would allow a reader to question the conclusions presented or to come up with independent analyses. Examination of the very few pictures of post-ancient objects that are published, in fact, does not inspire great confidence in the accuracy of the dates provided (plates E20, E23, E24, none of which apparently include Byzantine pieces); in fact, there is no proper pottery catalogue whatsoever. Appendix D does present a register of the 113 sites that the survey produced, of which some 20 apparently had an indication of activity at one time or another in the period from Late Antiquity through the Venetian era. Similar interest in the Medieval and later material can be seen in the Methana Survey (Mee and Forbes 1997). There Th. Koukoulis attempted to integrate the Medieval period into the broader goals of the survey project, including a largely narrative account (Koukoulis 1997a) and a thorough and very useful catalogue of the churches in the Methana peninsula (Koukoulis 1997b). Nonetheless, Koukoulis, too found himself hindered by the relatively small quantities of Medieval pottery and our poor knowledge of much of the material. Thus, the differences between the section of the Methana volume on the Late Roman and the Medieval periods are striking. The former (Bowden and Gill 1997) is able to rely mainly on the survey evidence and to draw significant broad conclusions about settlement and trade in Late Antiquity, using primarily the ceramic evidence. The latter, on the other hand, had to focus essentially on the written and the (quite substantial) architectural material. Especially telling is Koukoulis’ interesting discussion of the Byzantine site of Profitis Ilias, at the highest point of the peninsula, which he wishes to assign to the 8th or 9th century, but has to be content to say that the ‘archaeological evidence for this proposed date is absent, apart from a single pottery sherd … which may belong to the 8th century’ (Koukoulis 1997a, 93-94). Otherwise, his reference to the evidence from the actual survey is limited and his language verges on the negative: for example, ‘the other sites with a significant number of Medieval artifacts seem to have been of minor importance in settlement terms’ (Koukoulis 1997a, 97). The overall conclusion he draws is, therefore, not surprising: ‘In general, the picture which emerges from Methana for the Byzantine period is similar to that prevailing in other Greek areas’ (Koukoulis 1997a, 98).

On the other hand, it seems that this useful and highquality research has a relatively weak connection with the archaeological survey. Indeed, there are few references to the archaeological information, and little is made of that. In fact, the language used in some of the discussions suggests a lack of ease (or perhaps even confidence) in the archaeological information. Thus, the authors report that the survey discovered 20 Late Roman/EarlyByzantine sites, of which 11 were probably habitations, but there was ‘not enough evidence to draw any conclusions about their size and lifespan’ (Tsougarakis and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis 2004a, 370). They go on: ‘From the pottery finds it is clear that most of these sites, if not all of them, ceased to be used after the seventh century.’ Yet they then suggest that this impression is probably misleading and ‘does not equal the complete abandonment of the Western Mesara.’ They continue into the Middle Byzantine period, pointing out that 24 settlements for the 12th century are known from the written sources, and the survey discovered 7 others (although 10 are shown on the accompanying figure). One wonders, but does not know, if the 24 sites known 80

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One of the real strengths of the publication of the Methana Survey, however, is that the reader can relatively easily check the evidence that was used to draw the broader observations. Thus, there is a very useful catalogue of sites, containing basic information about size, features, and a summary of the artifact information. This includes a selection of drawings, primarily sections of pottery, although few of these are Medieval, and none of them show the designs on Medieval finewares, although this was provided for a significant number of pieces from earlier periods. In addition, there is an abbreviated artifact catalogue, listing all the finds that were ‘registered’ (Mee and Forbes 1997, 282-343). This is, in fact, a very useful feature of the publication, although on many occasions it proves difficult to compare the information from the text of the book with the catalogue (the information for MS 119, for example, seems completely incorrect, while frequently the numbers of different kinds of artifacts in the site catalogue do not correspond with what is in the artifact catalogue). The problems cited for these two surveys are, in fact, characteristic of many, if not most, similar projects and they lead to the difficulties with which we began: lack of facility in comparing results from one survey area to another and a general distrust of survey evidence when used toward an understanding of the history of the PostClassical periods.

Corinth, have significantly refined the chronology for Late Antiquity and Sanders has proposed new dates for many classes of Medieval pottery (Slane and Sanders 2005; Sanders 1987, 2000, 2003); MacKay has done much the same for the Frankish, Ottoman, and Venetian material (1967, 1996, 2003). Vroom realized that survey projects would encounter large percentages of locally manufactured wares that would rarely be found in the publication of major urban centres (Vroom 1996, 1997, 1998a, 1998b, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007). As a result, she used the large data-set of the Boeotia Project, along with Ottoman and other written records, to establish a new classification system, dividing the material into 48 different wares, each of which, she argued, had a distinct chronological component (Vroom 2003, 135; 2005, 138177; 2007). Working parallel to these scholars, and always with considerable help from each of them, the Sydney Cyprus Survey Project and the Eastern Korinthian Archaeological Survey (hereafter EKAS) sought to implement new strategies and new recording systems, especially for survey artifacts (Given and Knapp 2003, 14-16; Gregory 2005; Tartaron et al. 2006, 475481; cf. Frankel 2007). The strategy adopted, identified by the neologism ‘ChronoType’ system, is basically a simplified naming structure in which each category of artifacts is assigned to a specific chronological period. In this respect, the ChronoType system is similar to that devised by Vroom for Boeotia. It is different from it, however, in that many more classes of objects have been defined (well over 1000 as opposed to 48), it is hierarchic in nature, allowing identification with greater or lesser degrees of chronological precision, and it is expected to evolve through time, as new identifications are made and as chronologies change.

Most survey projects provide historical summaries that are remarkably similar: after an efflorescence or even ‘explosion of population’ in Late Antiquity, one speaks of a ‘Dark Age,’ of which little can be said, followed by slow recovery and diversity in the Frankish period, before the beginning of stagnation and decline at the end of the Middle Ages and the emergence of a more panMediterranean economic system in the Ottoman period and beyond. The archaeological data, in fact, contribute very little to this basic analysis, which is clearly derived from the written sources, and one has to wonder to what degree survey archaeology (or archaeology as a whole) has really provided new answers or even new data for the broader historical analysis. Sanders put the point very well: ‘It should be obvious that we have inherited a largely fictitious version of urban archaeology in Greece written under the influence of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall….’ To understand the history of the Early Medieval countryside, he adds ‘is a major task requiring the deconstruction of a century of scholarship, weeding the bad from the good, and rebuilding new hypotheses’ (Sanders 2004, 186). The reasons for the common failure of survey to live up to its promise for the Medieval period include problems inherent in the Medieval data themselves and our lack of a full understanding of them. Perhaps the most serious of these involves the inadequacy of our knowledge of the typologies and chronologies of Medieval artifacts, most notably ceramics, especially for some periods such as the ‘Dark Ages’ of the 7th-9th centuries, and many parts of the 14th-18th centuries. Important progress has been made on this front, especially by Guy Sanders, Kathleen Slane, T.S. MacKay, and Joanita Vroom. Slane and Sanders, basing their work securely on the longstanding excavations at

Most scholars realize, however, that significant problems remain, and these continue to hamper and even possibly seriously distort our understanding of many periods in the post-ancient past. Sanders (2004) has presented the most recent, and also most serious critique: ‘systematic survey and the conclusions drawn from it are hampered for the period of Late Antiquity by several constraints. The bulk of the survey finds are roof tiles and undiagnostic body sherds of household pottery. While some conclusions can be drawn from fabric typologies and site assemblage seriation, the finite chronology of the periods of occupation derives from less common feature sherds, decorated pieces and diagnostic imports; as a result, the accuracy of dating a site’s occupation is limited by factors such as relative wealth, distance from a market and, where they exist, the quality of studies on local pottery typologies’ (Sanders 2004, 163). He goes on to provide good discussion about the effects of the greater visibility of glazed Medieval and Post-Medieval finewares and the need for excavation (e.g. the Pyrgouthi house: Hjohlman et al. 2005) and geophysical prospecting in concert with archaeological survey. Concerning the latter, one should note the successes and failures of both EKAS and the Laconia Rural Sites Project (Tartaron et al. 2006, 461-62; Cavanagh et al. 2005); especially interesting is the summation of the Laconia Project concerning the post-ancient periods: 81

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‘Ironically, the most recent sites have proved the least informative in many respects’ (Cavanagh et al. 2005, 315). Nonetheless, Sanders’ point that the visibility of Medieval and Post-Medieval glazed wares is certainly well taken and this phenomenon has undoubtedly distorted the conclusions reached about the archaeology of these periods. It actually seems to be a parallel to the suggestions made by Bintliff, Howard, and Snodgrass (1999) about the ‘hidden’ landscape of Prehistoric Greece. Thus, to a significant degree we can in fact speak about the hidden landscape of Medieval Greece and one hopes that the same profitable discussion that came from Bintliff, Howard, and Snodgrass’ article may develop in response to Sanders’ observations.

something that is, in part, responsible both for the ‘explosion’ in the Late Roman period and the apparent ‘emptiness’ of the countryside in the ‘Dark Ages.’ In terms of the numismatic evidence one frequently notes, for example, the large number of coins (in excavations, primarily) of Constantius II and Manuel I and the small number of coins from c. AD 670 to 900. At first, scholars were tempted to view these ‘statistics’ as an indication of the economic ‘health’ of the area examined or even the result of barbarian invasions. More recently it has become clear that these phenomena reflect, primarily, the size of the money supply in the periods under consideration (or, more precisely, the size of the issues of copper coinage and the means by which these coins reached the provinces), the tendency for some coins to be used for years, or even centuries, after they were originally struck, and broader economic and administrative reforms carried out by the central government (Hendy 1985, 640-645). In terms of the ceramic information, much recent discussion has focused on the so-called ‘Slavic Ware’ in Greece (best recent general summary in Avramea 1997, 80-86). Most scholars now concur that this quite distinct fabric, which should be relatively easy to identify, can now be dated in Greece no earlier than the second half of the 7th century (Anagnostakis and Poulou-Papademetriou 1997; Poulou-Papademetriou 2001; Vida and Völling 2000). Discussion of this pottery has largely turned on the notorious issue of the Slavic migrations and settlement in Greece, but in fact its wider importance has been largely overlooked. It seems clear to me that this rather crude pottery does not always, nor probably even normally, represent a simple event—Slavic raids or ‘conquests’—but rather that the ware in fact was used over a relatively long period of time in Greece, stretching probably from the 7th to the 10th century and possibly beyond. This is not the place to discuss the thorny issue of the ethnic identity of the makers of this pottery, but rather simply to note that the identification of this ware in survey projects has the potential to begin to place ‘dots on the map’ for the Byzantine Dark Ages, not so much for the Slavs but for the period in question. The same can be said for some of the Roman-style amphorae and cooking pots that continued to be used from the 6th century at least into the 8th. In many cases it is difficult to determine from a single sherd whether an example of one of the typical Late Roman 2 amphorae should be assigned to the 6th or the 8th century, but researchers should at least be aware that this range of dates is often possible for the material in question. The publications by John Hayes, from Constantinople (Hayes 1992) and Cyprus (Hayes 1978), are crucial in this regard, but the wares from excavations in these places may not accurately reflect conditions in Greece. The ongoing research of Sanders at Corinth will certainly provide material of great importance, but again, here will always be severe problems of identification since the pieces of pottery discovered in a survey will not always allow precise dating. One may also mention the problem that many Medieval or Early Modern settlements certainly lie under their modern successors. This poses significant problems for survey projects that seek to document those periods.

Indeed, even at this point, we can note some progress in this direction, much of it, of course, the result of the finer definition of ceramic chronologies mentioned above. In addition, the ChronoType system, as used by EKAS, has the ability to identify ceramic types both by ‘period’ (say, Late Roman) but also by more precise dates, so that, for example, individual Late Roman cooking pots identified in survey can also be assigned to a narrower period, say, between AD 565 and 600. The goal of this is to provide the kind of chronological precision Sanders seeks and also to allow relatively easy changes in interpretive models when changes in ceramic chronologies are made. Indeed, it is easy to provide alternative models based upon different chronological identifications for selected wares. Examples of this kind of analysis can be seen in the preliminary publication of the EKAS field seasons (Tartaron et al. 2006, 481-483, ‘The Case of Late Roman “Explosion”’), and studies by Caraher, Nakassis, and Pettegrew (2006), and Pettegrew (2007). The conclusions presented in these studies are, of course, still preliminary, but their observations will have to be taken into consideration by anyone who wants to use survey data in the interpretation of society and economy in Late Antique Greece and the periods beyond. They also represent, I think, a significant step in the sophisticated use of survey material in a post-classical context and, as such, they begin to meet the desiderata set forth by Sanders and others. Beyond the period of Late Antiquity, significant problems remain in the interpretation of the material of the so-called Dark Ages of the 7th-8th centuries. For example, it is clear that the circulation of coins outside of Constantinople was reduced drastically and ceramic production was characteristically carried out primarily on the local level, resulting in the absence of coins in much of the archaeological record and in slow rates of change and regional variation in ceramic data, both of which are likely to have confused the archaeological record (Rautman 1998; cf. Vroom 2003, 141-142). Thus, many of the amphorae and cooking pots produced in the 7th and 8th centuries are remarkably similar to those from the 6th century, and few excavations have produced both coins and pottery from closely controlled contexts from the later centuries. Generally speaking, archaeologists working with survey material have assigned fragments of these vessels to the earlier of this range of dates, 82

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construction of these chronologies, especially on a regional level. Scholars using the data already available need to devise strategies that allow them to make flexible use of published chronological schemes and to incorporate revised dates for various wares when they are published. This is difficult since survey publications rarely make clear the kinds of pottery on which determination of periods is based. This should become a standard part of the publication of survey results, especially in any electronic format, where it is fairly easy to provide the considerable detail that this would require. A good beginning in this direction may be seen in the Nemea Valley Project, the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, the Sydney Cyprus Survey Project, and the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey. One of the primary goals of these projects is to try to insure that the pottery collected or described is representative of what is on the ground - and to make clear the relationship between these finds and the assignment of dates to survey units. Thus, when new dates are provided for various wares - or new identifications of material are made these can be immediately included in the resulting distribution maps and analyses (Given et al. 1999, 2425).

Thus, procedures need to be developed to investigate the early phases of the settlements. These methods may be based partly on the work that is being done with vernacular architecture (e.g. Cooper 2002), but it should also include either opportunistic or systematic survey within the villages themselves (Stedman 1996). Another problem that should be faced is the essentially non-theoretical basis of so much of the work done on the more recent periods in Greek archaeology — survey as well as other forms of the ‘art.’ The irony is that, while theory has been a driving consideration for the archaeology of nearly every period, for the Middle Ages, in the Eastern Mediterranean at least, there is virtually no theoretical discussion: it is almost as though the archaeological data is left to ‘speak for itself.’ (The work of Bintliff is a significant exception, e.g. 1997b.) Another way of looking at this is the apparent nearassumption that survey results will provide direct information about social and, more especially, economic considerations. Thus, although these ideas would hardly be accepted for other periods, for the Middle Ages there is still a tendency to see a direct connection between the quantity of archaeological data and population size. Further, the basic phenomena of ‘old style’ historical narrative is still seen as the best explanation of the Medieval archaeological data: barbarian invasions leading to displacement and depopulation, fortified nucleated centres formed as reaction to uncertain times, and the gradual emergence of a more dispersed settlement system deriving from the presumed greater ‘security’ of feudalism in the 13th century, followed, in sequence, by a return to more nucleated settlement from the 14th century through the Ottoman period.

One important consideration here is the necessity of considering (and publishing in some form or other) what is known as ‘metadata.’ The issue of metadata is a complex one that cannot be fully explored here, but in this context it is a means by which information about the nature of the data and its relation to other parts of a given information system is provided. A consideration of a metadata scheme is, in fact, a necessary part of any contemporary survey project, both in its conceptual and its realization phases. Examples of this include the necessity of defining the basic variables in the databases that normally lie behind most analyses: precisely what periodization is used, how one defines ‘presence/absence’ of individual chronological components (e.g. what are used as a criteria to assign occupation or use for an individual period), and how collection strategies provide biases for or against various chronological periods or other kinds of observations.

The problems of using published survey information for historical analysis in Greece has been discussed most fully by Susan Alcock in Graecia Capta (1993; see also Alcock 1989). She points out the problems caused by different systems of periodization and the different degrees of survey intensity used by individual projects as the most serious difficulties in this regard (Alcock 1993, 36-37; 49-53; cf. also Hirth 1978 and Ammerman 1985). Nonetheless, she was fairly optimistic in her ability to draw broader, perhaps regional, conclusions and notes that ‘some distinctive general patterns have already begun to emerge’ (37). One further problem she discusses is particularly important for the Medieval period: the issue of ‘ceramic access,’ meaning the volume of ceramics actually circulating in given periods, since this total will naturally have a profound effect on the number of ceramic pieces found in survey (51). The same situation can be seen with pottery, and of course the situation is especially serious for the Middle Ages and beyond, where our knowledge of ceramic chronologies is far less developed than for almost any period (cf. Vroom 1998a).

Another significant area for further research is based on the contrasting results from different survey projects. There is still, so far, a general agreement about the ‘darkness’ of the Dark Ages, but considerable difference of opinion about the nature of the Byzantine efflorescence (9th-12th centuries) and the situation in the period that followed. To start with the later question, the Argolid Exploration Project concluded that they had ‘less archaeological information for the period from AD 1350 to 1800 than for any comparable interval since the Late Bronze Age’ (Van Andel and Runnels 1987, 127). A similar situation is noted on Keos (Cherry, Davis, and Mantzourani 1991, 355): ‘No sherds from the survey can be assigned without question to the Late Byzantine/Venetian-Frankish period (from the later 13th to the mid 16th century),’ and material from the Ottoman period was equally scarce. Survey in Boeotia and Cyprus reverses this interpretation and attests to an apparent

The first consideration for the analysis of Medieval material therefore must be a realization that the ceramic chronologies on which analysis is based may not in fact be as reliable as they are sometimes presented. Considerable energy must therefore be put into the 83

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the nature of archaeological survey and the problems inherent in the use of its data. This phenomenon was almost certainly unavoidable in the development of survey over the past 30 years, but it is time that the difficulties inherent in this dialogue are realized and, hopefully, overcome. A crucial step in this regard, it seems to me, is the development of a more flexible and sophisticated forms of recording (discussed above), in which the procedures used in constructing site distribution maps and chronological conclusions are clearly explained and made modifiable by researchers, perhaps even by those not directly connected with the individual projects. Some aspects of this can be accomplished now, using ideas and technology currently available. Other aspects will need to wait until some of these are developed and adapted further.

continuation of the Medieval ‘boom’, certainly into the 16th century and perhaps later. Surprisingly, survey in the Eastern Corinthia turned up little Medieval or Ottoman material, even though contemporaneous population centres are known from excavation (and written sources) at Corinth and Isthmia (Gregory 2007). These varied results may reflect real regional differences, or alternatively differences in ceramic circulation, or the ability of survey teams to recognize and properly categorize the later and Post-Medieval material. This latter possibility must be borne in mind when considering the explanations that have been given for the nature of the Medieval settlement system. Thus, at one time the appearance of large quantities of archaeological material recovered in survey was taken, simply, to reflect prosperity and/or extensive human populations. This seems to have been the broader understanding of the Argolid Survey, and the two primary conclusions the project drew were that Medieval settlements were located in defensive (usually hidden) locations and that they were on ground that suggests grain production, and thus selfsufficient (as opposed to specialized) agriculture. Effie Athanassopoulos, in her dissertation and subsequent work, has pointed to the difficulty in connecting the archaeological evidence from the local level with what we know about the regional and the macro-regional level (Athanassopoulos 1993; 1997, 90; in press). She argues that the expansion in the 12th-13th centuries was caused by population growth, while the formulation of the ‘traditional’ nucleated pattern of the modern period was a result, not of economic forces, but of political organization, defence and security (1997, 93-97). This places the discussion of survey evidence much more profitably in the main lines of analysis of the history of Medieval Greece. Thus, over the past two decades there has been considerable argument among historians about the nature of the Greek economy, especially in the 12th century (Herrin 1976; Hendy 1985). The older view was that the growing power of the Italian merchants and the local Greek magnates destroyed the Byzantine economy as it weakened the central state. A newer view argues for continued strength - and even expansion - in the 12th century economy. The situation in the 13th century and later is more confused, and naturally connected with Western economic developments and ultimately the rise and dominance of first Venetian, then Ottoman power (see the interesting discussion in Williams 2002).

It is clear that survey data are, generally speaking, far more integrated into broader historical discussion in Western Europe than they are in the Eastern Mediterranean. One only has to look at the articles in Bintliff and Hamerow (1995) to see not only the dominance of the West in the publication, but also their striking theoretical and methodological sophistication when compared, for example, to articles in Lock and Sanders (1996). These latter are good and generally important, but they tend to be particularistic and perhaps even positivist, without much in the way of theoretical underpinning or broader perspective. Byzantine archaeologists would do well, for example, to look closely at articles such as Halsall (1995) in the Bintliff and Hamerow collection; while certainly not sunk in theoretical obfuscation, Halsall provides an important discussion of issues such as ‘state formation’ and the growth of kingship. On the other hand, one may profitably consider the San Vincenzo Project that grew out of the Molise Survey in South-Central Italy and that sought to investigate the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and (consequently) the emergence of Europe (Hodges 1997). The project accomplished much, but it is somewhat disturbing to learn that the survey in the area found virtually nothing from the 4th to the 11th century, so that ‘the field survey was totally unhelpful in shedding light on the central issue of the project: the relationship of San Vincenzo to its village communities’ (Hodges 1997; cf. Gregory 1998, 821). The difficulties in dealing with the Dark Ages are clearly not confined to the Eastern Mediterranean. A good example of how the Medieval material from a survey in the East can be integrated into the broader results of the project can be seen in the Sydney Cyprus Survey Project's discussion of the site at Malounda Panayia Khrysopandanassa (Given et al. 1999, 27-29). A salutary example of broader interpretive ‘revisionist analysis’ is the article by Phoebe Acheson in The Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology (1997). In that work Acheson takes apart the data from the Argolid Survey for the region around Halies in the Late Classical-Early Hellenistic period. She argues then that the ‘economic explanation’ provided by the Argolid Survey for the expansion of sites in this period was caused, in fact, not

Survey evidence has the potential to contribute substantially to this debate, as well as to discussions on all periods after the end of Antiquity (Gregory 1996). But the analysis must be based on solid understanding of the nature of survey evidence as it has been collected and the impossibility of drawing simple conclusions from this material. This requires careful coordination between the goals, procedures, and publication of the survey on the one hand, and the issues and interests of historians on the other. All too often surveys have been conceived and carried out without much consideration of the questions and interests of Medievalists and, at the same time, few historians have been as familiar as one might like with 84

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Environment on the European Fringe, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 79-105. Athanasspoulos, E.F., (in press), Nemea Valley Archaeological Project II: Landscape Archaeology and the Medieval Countryside, Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Avramea, A., 1997, Le Péloponnèse du IVe au VIIIe siècle. Changements et persistances, Byzantina Sorbonensia 15, Paris. Bintliff, J.L., 1995, ‘The two transitions: Current research on the origins of the traditional village in Central Greece’, in J.L. Bintliff and H. Hamerow, Europe between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Recent Archaeological and Historical Research in Western and Southern Europe, BAR International Series 671, Oxford, 111-130. Bintliff, J.L., 1996, ‘The Frankish countryside in central Greece. The evidence from archaeological field survey,’ in G. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 1-18. Bintliff, J.L., 1997a, ‘The archaeological investigation of deserted Medieval and Post-Medieval villages in Greece’, in G. De Boe and F. Verhaeghe (eds), Rural Settlements in Medieval Europe, Papers of ‘The Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference, Vol. 6, Zellik: Archaeological Institute for the Heritage, 21-34. Bintliff, J.L., 1997b, ‘Regional survey, demography, and the rise of complex societies in the ancient Aegean: core-periphery, Neo-Malthusian, and other interpretive models’, Journal of Field Archaeology 24, 1-38. Bintliff, J.L., 2000, ‘Reconstructing the Byzantine countryside: New approaches from landscape archaeology’, in K. Belke et al. (eds), Byzanz als Raum, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 7, Vienna, 37-63. Bintliff, J.L. and Hamerow, H. (eds), 1995, Europe between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Recent Archaeological and Historical Research in Western and Southern Europe, BAR International Series 671, Oxford. Bintliff, J.L. and Snodgrass, A.M., 1985, ‘The Boeotia Survey, a Preliminary Report: The First Four Years,’ Journal of Field Archaeology 12, 123-161. Bintliff, J., Howard, P. and Snodgrass, A., 1999, ‘The hidden landscape of Prehistoric Greece’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 12, 139-168. Bowden, H. and Gill, D., 1997, ‘Late Roman Methana’ in C. Mee and H. Forbes (1997), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 84-91. Braudel, F., 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, translated by S. Reynolds, New York: Harper. Cameron, A., 1993, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, London: Routledge.

by economic growth but rather by population pressures (and consequently indicated not ‘improved’ economic conditions, but perhaps less felicitous ones). We may agree or disagree with Acheson’s conclusions, but we must be aware, first, that the availability of the data from the Argolid Survey made possible this reinterpretation. Second, one may hope for similarly ‘nuanced and detailed understanding’ of situations from the still more modern periods in the history of Greece. As mentioned above, Bintliff (1995, 1996, 1997a, 1997b) has provided admirable syntheses along this line that link survey data, archaeological theory, and the questions of Medieval history. He suggests, for example, that the ancient poliskome survived the ‘First Transition’ into the Middle Ages and he points to the Slavic element in the population as a positive force (1995). Nonetheless, he cites (without reference) outdated scholarship (mainly by Ostrogorsky) on the ‘strong communities of independent villagers’ in this period. Likewise, Peter Lock (1986) suggested an important distinction between central Greece and the Peloponnesos by arguing that the latter had a much more fully ‘layered’ hierarchy, while in central Greece there was no middle-range aristocracy between the Dukes of Athens and the numerous knights who lived and worked directly in contact with the land. One hopes that work such as this will stimulate further interest in survey material on the part of the archaeologist and the historian alike. Only then, when survey archaeology begins to enter the mainstream of debate on Medieval history, will methods and procedures be developed in such a way as to fulfil its potential as an important source of information for the period. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acheson, Ph., 1997, ‘Does the “economic explanation' work? Settlement, agriculture and erosion in the territory of Halieis in the Late Classical-Early Hellenistic period’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 10, 165-90. Alcock, S.E., 1989, ‘Archaeology and imperialism: Roman expansion and the Greek city’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 2, 87-135. Alcock, S.E., 1993, Graecia Capta. The Landscapes of Roman Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ammerman, A. J., 1985, ‘Plow-zone experiments in Calabria, Italy’, Journal of Field Archaeology 12, 33-40. Anagnostakis, I. and Poulou-Papademetriou, N., 1997, ‘Η πρωτοβυζαντινή Μεσσήνη (5ος-7ος αιώνες) και τα προβλήματα της χειροποιητής κεραμεικής στη Πελοπόννησο’, Σύμμεικτα 11, 229-322. Athanasspoulos, E.F., 1993, Intensive Survey and Medieval Rural Settlement: The case of Nemea, PhD-dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Athanasspoulos, E.F., 1997, ‘Landscape archaeology of Medieval and Pre-Modern Greece: The case of Nemea’, in P.N. Kardulias and M.T. Schutz (eds), Aegean Strategies: Studies of Culture and 85

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survey and practical proposals for low-impact survey in a Mediterranean context’, in E. Athanassopoulos and L. Wandsnider (eds), Current Issues in Mediterranean Archaeological Landscapes, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 32-69. Gregory, T.E., 2007, ‘Contrasting impressions of land use in early modern Greece: The Eastern Corinthia and Kythera’, in S. Davies and J.L. Davis (eds), Between Venice and Istanbul. Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton, 173-199. Hayes, J.W., 1978, ‘Problèmes de la céramique des VIIème-IXème siècles à Salamine et à Chypre’, in Salamine de Chypre histoire et archéologie, Colloque Int. du CNRS 578, Paris, 375-380. Hayes, J.W., 1992, Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul, Vol. 2: The Pottery, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Halsall, G., 1995, ‘The Merovingian Period in Northeast Gaul: Transition or Change?’ in J.L. Bintliff and H. Hamerow (eds), Europe between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Recent Archaeological and Historical Research in Western and Southern Europe, BAR International Series 671, Oxford, 38-57. Hendy, M.F., 1985, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 300-1450, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herrin, J., 1976, ‘Realities of Byzantine provincial government: Hellas and Peloponnesos, 11801205’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 29, 253-284. Hirth, K., 1978, ‘Problems in Data Recovery and Measurement in Settlement Archaeology’, Journal of Field Archaeology 5, 125-132. Hodges, R., 1997, Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hjolman, J., Penttinen, A. and Wells, B., 2005, Pyrgouth: a Rural Site in the Berbati Valley from the Early Iron Age to Late Antiquity; excavations by the Swedish Institute at Athens 1995 and 1997, Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae, Sävedalen. Horden, P. and Purcell, N., 2000, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Oxford: Blackwell. Jameson, M.H., Runnels, C.N. and van Andel, T., 1994, A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lock, P., 1986, ‘The Frankish Towers of Central Greece,’ Annual of the British School at Athens 81, 101-123. Lock, P. and Sanders, G.D.R. (eds), 1996, The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford. Koukoulis, Th., 1997a, ‘Medieval Methana’, in C. Mee and H. Forbes (1997), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 92-100.

Caraher, W.R., Nakassis, D. and Pettegrew, D., 2006, ‘Siteless survey and intensive data collection in an artifact-rich environment: Case studies from the Eastern Corinthia, Greece’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 19, 7-43. Cavanagh, W., Crouwel, J., Catling, R.W.V. and Shipley, G. (eds), 1996, Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape: The Laconia Survey, Vol. 2, Annual of the British School at Athens, Supplementary Volume 27, London. Cavanagh, W., Crouwel, J., Catling, R.W.V. and Shipley, G. (eds), 2002, Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape: The Laconia Survey, Vol. 1: Methodology and Interpretation, Annual of the British School at Athens, Supplementary Volume 26, London. Cavanagh, W., Mee, C. and James, P., 2005, The Laconia Rural Sites Project, Annual of the British School at Athens, Supplementary Volume 36, London. Cherry, J.F., Davis, J.L. and Mantzourani, E., 1991, Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Cooper, F. (ed.), 2002, Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwestern Peloponnesos (1205-1955), Athens: Melissa. Davies, S. and Davis, J.L. (eds), 2007, Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Frankel, D., 2007, Review of M.Given and A.B. Knapp (2003), The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Archaeological Survey, Monumenta Archaeologica 21, Los Angeles, American Journal of Archaeology 112, 182-183. Given, M., et al., 1999, ‘The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: An interdisciplinary investigation of long-term change in the north central Troodos, Cyprus,’ Journal of Field Archaeology 26, 19-39. Given, M. and Knapp, A.B, 2003, The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Archaeological Survey, Monumenta Archaeologica 21, Los Angeles. Gregory, T.E., 1986, ‘Intensive archaeological survey and its place in Byzantine studies’, Byzantine Studies 13, 155-175. Gregory, T.E., 1996, ‘Archaeology of the Byzantine Dark Age: Problems and Prospects,’ in I. Sevcenko and G.G. Litavrin (eds), Acts of the XVIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Moscow, Shepherdstown, WV: Byzantine Studies Press, 217-224. Gregory, T.E., 1998, ‘The Early Middle Ages in History and Archaeology’, American Journal of Archaeology 102, 819-822. Gregory, T.E., 2005, ‘Less is better: The quality of ceramic evidence from archaeological

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163-193. Slane, K.W. and Sanders, G.D.R., 2005, ‘Corinth: Late Roman horizons,’ Hesperia 74, 243-297. Stedman, N., 1996, ‘Land use and settlement in PostMedieval Central Greece. An interim Discussion’, in P. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 179-192. Tartaron, T.F. et al., 2006, ‘The Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey: Integrated methods for a dynamic landscape’, Hesperia 75, 453-524. Tsougarakis, D. and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, H., 2004a, ‘A province under Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman rule, AD 400-1898’, in L.V. Watrous, D. Hadzi-Vallianou and H. Blitzer (eds), (2004), The Plain of Phaistos: Cycles of Social Complexity in the Mesara Region of Crete, Monumenta Archaeologica 23, Los Angeles, 359-442. Tsougarakis, D. and Angelomatis-Tsougarakis, H., 2004b, ‘Appendix G: Catalogue of sites of the Byzantine-Ottoman period’, in L.V. Watrous, D. Hadzi-Vallianou and H. Blitzer (eds), (2004), The Plain of Phaistos: Cycles of Social Complexity in the Mesara Region of Crete, Monumenta Archaeologica 23, Los Angeles, 551-586. Van Andel, T.H. and Runnels, C., 1987, Beyond the Acropolis. A Rural Greek Past, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Vida, T. and Völling, T., 2000, Das slawische Brandgräberfeld von Olympia, Rahden: M. Leidorf. Vroom, J.A.C., 1996, ‘Coffee and Archaeology: A note on a Kütahya ware find in Boeotia, Greece’, Pharos, Jounal of the Netherlands Institute in Athens 4, 5-19. Vroom, J.A.C., 1997, ‘Pots and pans: New perspectives on Medieval ceramics in Greece,’ in G. De Boe and F. Verhaeghe (eds), Material Culture in Medieval Europe, Papers of ‘The Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference Vol. 7, Zellik: Archaeological Institute for the Heritage, 203-213. Vroom, J.A.C., 1998a, ‘Early Modern archaeology in Central Greece: Contrast of artefact-rich and sherdless sites’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 11, 131-164. Vroom, J.A.C., 1998b, ‘Medieval and Post-Medieval Pottery from a Site in Boeotia. A case-study example of Post-Classical archaeology in Greece’, Annual of the British School at Athens, 93, 513-546. Vroom, J.A.C., 2000, ‘Piecing together the past. Survey pottery and deserted settlements in Medieval Boeotia (Greece),’ in K. Belke et al. (eds), Byzanz als Raum. Tabula Imperii Byzantini 7, Vienna, 245-259. Vroom, J.A.C., 2003, After Antiquity: Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to the 20th Century A.C., Archaeological Studies 10, Leiden.

Koukoulis, Th., 1997b, ‘Catalogue of Churches,’ in C. Mee and H. Forbes (1997), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 211-256. McDonald, W.A. and Rapp, G.R., (eds), 1972, The Minnesota Messenia Expedition, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. MacKay, T.S., 1967, ‘More Byzantine and Frankish pottery from Corinth’, Hesperia 36, 249-320. MacKay, T.S., 1996, ‘A group of Renaissance pottery from Heraklion, Crete. Notes and questions’, in P. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 127-137. MacKay, T.S., 2003, ‘Pottery of the Frankish period: 13th and 14th centuries’, in C.K. Williams II and N. Bookidis (eds), Corinth. Results of excavations conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol. XX. Corinth, The Centenary 1896-1996, Cambridge, MA: American School of Classical Studies, 423-434. Mee, C. and Forbes, H., 1997, A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Pettegrew, D.K., 2007, ‘The busy countryside of Late Roman Corinth: Interpreting ceramic data produced by regional archaeological surveys’, Hesperia 76, 743-784. Poulou-Papademetriou, N., 2001, ‘Βυζαντινή κεραμική από τον ελληνικό νησιωτικό χώρο και από τη Πελοπόννησο (7ος-9ος αι.). Μια πρώτη προσέγγιση’ in The Dark Centuries of Byzantium (7th-9th c.), National Hellenic Research Foundation, Institute for Byzantine Research, International Symposium 9, Athens, 231-248. Rautman, Marcus 1998, ‘Handmade pottery and social change: The view from Late Roman Cyprus’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 11, 81-104. Sanders, G.D.R., 1987, ‘An assemblage of Frankish pottery at Corinth’, Hesperia 56, 159-192. Sanders, G.D.R., 2000, ‘New relative and absolute chronology for 9th to 13th century glazed ware at Corinth’, in K. Belke et al. (eds), Byzanz als Raum. Tabula Imperii Byzantini 7, Vienna, 153-173. Sanders, G.D.R., 2003, ‘Recent developments in the chronologies of Byzantine Corinth’, in C.K. Williams II and N. Bookidis (eds), Corinth. Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol. XX. Corinth, The Centenary 1896-1996, Cambridge, MA: American School of Classical Studies, 385-400. Sanders, G.D.R., 2004, ‘Problems in interpreting rural and urban settlement in Southern Greece, A.D. 365-700’, in N. Christie (ed.), Landscapes of Change: Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Aldershot: Ashgate, 87

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Vroom, J.A.C., 2005, Byzantine to Modern Pottery in the Aegean 7th to 20th Century, Bijleveld: Parnassus Press. Vroom, J.A.C., 2007, ‘Kütahya between the lines: PostMedieval ceramics as historical information,’ in Davies, S. and J.L Davis (eds), Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton, 71-93. Watrous, L.V., Hadzi-Vallianou, D. and Blitzer H., 2004, The Plain of Phaistos: Cycles of Social Complexity in the Mesara Region of Crete, Monumenta Archaeologica 23, Los Angeles. Williams II, C.K., 2002, ‘Frankish Corinth,’ in C.K. Williams II and N. Bookidis (eds), Corinth. Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol. XX. Corinth, The Centenary 1896-1996, Cambridge MA: American School of Classical Studies, 423-434.

Williams II, C.K., and Bookidis, N. (eds), 2002, Corinth: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol. XX. Corinth, The Centenary 1896-1996, Cambridge MA: American School of Classical Studies. Wright, J.C., Cherry, J.F. and Mantzourani, E., 1990, ‘The Nemea Valley Archaeological Project: A Preliminary Report’, Hesperia 59, 579-659.

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Timothy E. Gregory Ohio State University, Department of History Columbus, Ohio, USA Email: [email protected]

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1.9 The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project: Archaeology, History and Ethnography of the Medieval and Modern Periods Jack L. Davis and John Bennet Skarminga (documented as Escaminges already in the early 13th century) (Fig. 1). Soon after that, members of the project collaborated in the production of Sandy Pylos, a general study of Southwestern Messenia integrating PRAP’s discoveries with available evidence (Davis 1998, 2005, 2008). A series of specialist reports has now appeared in Hesperia.

The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project (PRAP) is a multi-disciplinary, diachronic archaeological expedition formally organized in 1991 to investigate settlement and land use from the Palaeolithic period to the 20th century AD in an area of Western Messenia, Greece, centred on the Bronze Age administrative centre known as the Palace of Nestor. The project has employed the techniques of archaeological surface survey, as well as undertaking natural environmental investigations (geological, geomorphological, geophysical, and paleobotanical) and exploiting documentary and historical sources (Davis et al. 1997, Zangger et al. 1997). In the summers of 1992 to 1995, approximately 40 square kilometers in Western Messenia were surveyed intensively. These included areas to the north, east, south, and west of the modern town of Hora, and the entirety of the Englianos Ridge (Upper and Lower) – the location of the Palace of Nestor.

In the first of these reports we previewed what seemed an innovative approach to the history of the Second Ottoman period (1715-1821). A critical examination of Sir William Gell’s apparently objective and dispassionate description of the area north of the Bay of Navarino in comparison with archaeological finds from our own researches and archival evidence revealed a striking inconsistency in Western European travellers’ narratives of the Pylos area (Bennet, Davis and Zarinebaf-Shahr 2000): viz., Gell described an almost deserted landscape, whereas Ottoman records documented one wellcultivated and peopled. A second report examined the economic development of Western Messenia in the two centuries since Greek independence in 1829, as reflected in changes in the material culture of Maryeli, an upland village located in the northeastern part of PRAP’s study area (Lee 2001).

PRAP’s first synthetic report, published in Hesperia, the journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, contained a general summary of finds from early Christian to Early Modern periods composed by Sharon E. Gerstel (Davis et al. 1997, 474-482), including the results of intensive survey near the church of Ayia Sotira in the Medieval and Early Modern settlement of

Fig. 1 - Modern village of Skarminga (officially now Metamorfosi) with area of Pre-Modern Settlement (After Zarinebaf et al. 2005, 143, fig. 3.24)

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Fig. 2 - Settlements in the administrative district of Navarino with place names as they appear in an Ottoman cadastral survey of 1716. Settlements between the dotted and dashed lines were reassigned to Arkadiye (Arkadia) after 1716. R.J. Robertson (After Zarinebaf et al. 2005, 55, fig. 2.1)

New data from the state archives of Venice have allowed members of the PRAP team to reconstruct patterns of settlement and land use c. AD 1700 in extraordinary detail, even within the orbit of individual villages. In doing so we have drawn on published information for the region, notably the atlas of the French Expédition Scientifique de Morée and the place-name studies of Dimitri Georgacas and William McDonald (Puillon de Boblaye and Virlet 1835, Georgacas and McDonald 1967). In addition, however, the discovery that there exists in Vienna an unpublished group of high-resolution maps drawn by surveyors in the employ of Venice has further assisted us in locating the dozens of now obsolete place names mentioned in Venetian and Ottoman texts (Katsiardi-Hering 1993). The Venetian archival sources confirm a pattern, established by the late 17th century, of Ottoman estates dominating the lowland plain, while the majority of Greeks lived in inland villages. The Venetians encouraged migration to the cities in an attempt to create an urban society that would better support their administration and tax regime. They failed to achieve this aim, and, as a result, the settlement pattern in the

Peloponnese remained remarkably stable throughout the Venetian occupation from 1689 to 1715 (Davies 2004). In addition to the preceding substantial articles, a monograph presents a history of the Pylos area in the 18th and early 19th century, drawing extensively on previously unpublished sources in Istanbul (Zarinebaf, Bennet, and Davis 2005). This book combines the study of unpublished Ottoman documents, other historical sources, travellers’ accounts, the testimony of local informants and the results of archaeological fieldwork. Central to it is a translation of the section of an Ottoman cadastral survey (a mufassal defter) that lists in great detail properties in the district (kaza) of Anavarin / Navarino (Pylos). The Ottoman documents make clear that major alterations in administrative structures occurred between the first and second Ottoman occupations of the Peloponnese: Navarino, which prior to AD 1685 had belonged to Modon, after AD 1715 served as the centre of a district that consisted entirely of çiftliks and the fortress (kale) and suburb (varış) of Niokastro (Anavarin-i cedid in Turkish). Changes in district 90

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Georgacas, D. J. and. McDonald, W. A., 1967, Place Names of Southwest Peloponnesus, Athens: Society for Peloponnesian Studies. Katsiardi-Hering, O., 1993, ‘Venezianische Karten als Grundlage der historischen Geographie des griechischen Siedlungsraumes (Ende 17. und 18. Jh.)’, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 43, 281-316. Lee, W. E., 2001, ‘The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, part IV: change and material culture in a modern Greek village in Messenia’, Hesperia 70, 49-98. Puillon de Boblaye, M. M. and Virlet, T., 1835, Expédition scientifique de Morée: section des sciences physiques 5. Atlas, Paris: F. G. Levrault. Zangger, E., Timpson, M. E., Yazvenko, S.B., Kuhnke, F. and Knauss J., 1997, ‘The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, part II: landscape evolution and site preservation’, Hesperia 66, 549-641. Zarinebaf, F., Bennet, J. and Davis, J.L., 2005, A Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece: The Southwestern Morea in the Early 18th Century, Hesperia Supplement 34, Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

boundaries are reflected in annotations to the Ottoman document (Fig. 2). Members of PRAP continue to engage with the history and archaeology of the region after Antiquity. In preparation are the republication of Middle Byzantine remains excavated by Carl Blegen and Marion Rawson on the Englianos Ridge and their examination in a regional context. In addition, a wealth of information from Ottoman and Venetian sources remains to be synthesized and brought to bear on the material remains of settlement and land use in those parts of PRAP’s study area that lay within the Ottoman district of Arkadiye (Arkadia) and were administered from modern-day Kyparissia – notably the town of Gargaliani and the large villages that coalesced after the formation of the Greek state to create the modern town of Hora. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennet, J., Davis J.L. and Zarinebaf-Shahr, F., 2000, ‘The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, Part III: Sir William Gell's itinerary in the Pylia and regional landscapes in the Morea in the Second Ottoman Period’, Hesperia 69, 343-380. Davies, S., 2004, ‘The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, part VI: administration and settlement in Venetian Navarino’, Hesperia 73, 59-120. Davis, J. L. (ed.), 1998, Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Davis, J. L. (ed.), 2005, Πύλος η aμμουδερή: ιστορικό και αρχαιολογικό ταξίδι από την εποχή του Νέστορα έως τη ναυμαχία του Ναβαρίνου, Athens: Papadimas. Davis, J. L. (ed.), 2008 (2nd edition), Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino, Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Davis, J. L., Alcock, S.E., Bennet, J., Lolos Y. and Shelmerdine, C., 1997, ‘The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, part I: overview and the archaeological survey’, Hesperia 66, 391-494.

Jack L. Davis Department of Classics University of Cincinnati Cincinnati OH 45221-0226 USA [email protected] John Bennet Department of Archaeology University of Sheffield Northgate House West Street Sheffield S1 4ET England [email protected]

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2.1 Christian Archaeology and the Archaeology of Medieval Greece William Bowden been used to investigate them. In rejecting the method and the theoretical framework which have been adopted for investigation of churches, we should not reject churches as a topic for study.

INTRODUCTION

The 1998 conference on Medieval and Post-Medieval archaeology in Greece, held on Corfu, saw a wealth of research relating to Post-Roman Greece presented by the delegates. Although it was clear that Medieval archaeology in the region had advanced enormously, one area of research was notable by its absence, namely Christian archaeology or rather the archaeology of churches. Few present at the conference saw this in negative terms and indeed the absence of church-related papers was remarked upon by one of the delegates as a sign of progress made in the field of Medieval archaeology.

Owing to the length of time that has elapsed between the Corfu conference and this publication, the gestation of this final paper has been complex and it represents both what I was thinking at the time and some ideas that I have developed subsequently. My original papers (both that read at the conference and that which was subsequently submitted for publication) were greatly altered on subsequent outings and gradually split into a number of component parts, some of which were eventually published elsewhere (Bowden 2001; Bowden 2003). I have tried to avoid repetition as far as possible, but I believe that some of these issues are worth revisiting in the context of this volume.

This point of view, in which the move away from the archaeology of churches is seen as a mark of Medieval archaeology’s advance as a discipline, is worth examining for two main reasons. First, it is a sign of the increasingly isolated position of Christian archaeology, which is seemingly in danger of becoming a littleregarded sub-discipline that responds only to its own internal imperatives. Second, it is an indication of how Medieval archaeologists perceive themselves in relation to the other strands of archaeology currently operating within Greece, which are seen as more traditional both in terms of their methodologies and the goals of their research. The intention of this paper is to examine these issues while attempting to suggest ways in which these two increasingly divergent strands of archaeology could be reconciled. I also hope to highlight the inherent dangers of either ignoring churches (which constitute one of our most substantial data sets for Medieval Greece), or treating them passively as an entity which somehow existed alongside society, rather than being a product of that society like pottery or coins.

THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY IN GREECE

The origins of Christian archaeology in Greece are deeply rooted in both Classical archaeology and the nationalist and irredentist politics of the post-independence period of the country’s history. During the first half of the 19th century, however, attention was firmly fixed on the Classical past, notably the golden age of Athens, with all later periods of Greece’s history viewed as inferior. A correspondingly negative view of the Byzantine Empire had prevailed in the intellectual circles of Northwest Europe and the Philhellenes, for whom ancient Greece figured as ‘the childhood of Europe’, saw the Byzantine Empire as a byword for decadence and depravity. This view was shared by contemporary Greek academics. Adamantios Korais, the most influential scholar of preindependence Greece, had dismissed Byzantium for its ‘priest-ridden obscurantism’, saying that to read a single page of a particular Byzantine author was sufficient to induce an attack of gout (Clogg 1992, 1-3).

Medieval archaeology in Greece, at least in the form in which it was present at Corfu, derives its methodologies in part from the processualist phase of archaeology, favouring field survey and sampling strategies over excavation and artefact typologies. The so-called ‘New Archaeologists’ of the 1970s positioned themselves in radical opposition to the ‘traditional’ archaeologists, whose goals and methods were seen as both anachronistic and theoretically moribund. Medieval archaeologists in Greece are similarly keen to distance themselves from the art-historical methods of Classical archaeology (to which Medieval archaeology remains a poor relation in Greece). As will be examined below, church archaeology is perceived (perhaps rightly) as part of this tradition of Classical archaeology. However, the danger lies in confusing the subject and data with the methods that have

Towards the middle of the 19th century, Greek academics began to reject the ideas of the European Philhellenes, who considered the Modern Greek population which they encountered on their pilgrimages to Greece to be a poor reflection of that which inhabited the pages of Herodotus and Thucydides. The Europeans considered the state of the Modern Greek to be a reminder of the price paid for the depravity of Byzantine society, while they themselves were the true heirs of the Hellenic spirit. In the 1830s, it had become common to suggest that the Modern Greek population was one of Byzantinized Slavs, a view propounded by the Austrian historian J. P. Fallmerayer. 93

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Fallmerayer caused outrage among the emergent intelligentsia of post-independence Athens by casting doubt on the Greek population’s lineal descent from their purported ancient forebears (Morris 1994, 23).

almost exclusively on the Christian basilicas (Pallas 1971, 214-232 for full bibliography on the early excavations). Between the wars Christian archaeology in Greece reached its zenith and in the period between 1925 and 1940, Georgios Soteriou and Anastasios Orlandos excavated more than twenty basilicas between them (Frend 1996, 244-245). William Frend has suggested that Greek determination to rise above the disaster of the sack of Smyrna in 1922, and the subsequent population exchange, was behind the renewed sense of Christian identity which favoured research into early Christian buildings. Certainly, claims made regarding ecclesiastical architecture had implications beyond the spheres of art history and archaeology. In 1929, Soteriou, for example, suggested that the Christian architecture demonstrated that ‘Greece had a claim to be regarded as an independent cultural province’; a province to which Orlandos then added the newly excavated church of Stobi in what was then Yugoslavia (Frend 1996, 205-206).

In the mid 19th century, as a direct response to Fallmerayer, Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos of the University of Athens formulated a thesis which was to prove the foundation of Greek archaeological and historical thought. Paparrigopoulos’s interpretation, which eventually ran to five volumes (appearing in George Finlay’s translation as History of the Greek Nation) established a single narrative of Greek history in which ancient, Byzantine and modern Greece flowed together in a seamless continuum (Mango 1965, 40-41; Kitromilides 1998). The idea of racial and cultural continuity which formed the basis of Paparrigopoulos’s thesis, together with an emphasis on the classical period, has been fundamental in shaping the approach to the past in Greece (Kaiser 1995). It is now my intention to examine both the role played by Christian archaeology in fulfilling this need for cultural continuity and the methodology which has developed as a response to the imperatives of the discipline. It is these elements which form the basis for the disfavour with which Christian archaeology is viewed by other branches of the discipline.

CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND CULTURAL CONTINUITY

As well as its use in demonstrating territorial primacy, Christian archaeology played a fundamental role in providing physical illustration of the purported cultural continuity between ancient and Post-Ottoman Greece. The research methodology employed was consistent with that utilised for the Classical period in which archaeology provided illustrative material for an established and accepted historical narrative, rather than a way in which to alter this narrative or formulate a different one. In Classical archaeology, the energies of archaeologists continue to be directed largely towards the analysis of objects rather than any real discussion of the past, thereby ‘avoiding disrupting the way in which the intellectual landscape had been prefigured’ (Morris 1994, 37).

CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ‘MEGALI IDEA’

The rehabilitation of Byzantium in Papparigopoulos’s thesis in part provided the ideological basis for the megali idea, the irredentist foreign policy which sought political and territorial unity for all the Greek populations within the former Byzantine Empire. Papparigopoulos was a vociferous advocate of this position, urging Heinrich Kiepert to modify his ethnographic map of 1876 (used as a basis for the borders drawn up at the Congress of Berlin in 1878) to reflect Greek views on the ethnicity of neighbouring populations (Peckham 2001, 141). The fluctuating status of Greece’s borders in the period between independence and the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-22, and the subsequent territorial disputes which continue to dog relations between Greece and its neighbours, provided fertile ground for Christian archaeology. Christianity provided a potentially powerful link with the territories which had recently shaken off the rule of the Ottoman Porte. The Byzantine Empire had been a Christian empire and consequently Christianity was closely associated with its resurrection through the megali idea.

Although Ian Morris was discussing Classical archaeology, his conclusions are equally applicable to Christian archaeology. Christian archaeology focused on the excavation and publication of churches to the exclusion of other aspects of the archaeological record. Within Epirus, for example, by 2000 more than fifty early Christian churches had been the subject of investigation and publication, while to my knowledge only two pieces of Late Antique pottery had been published from the area. The implication must be that ceramics were superfluous to the research priorities of the excavators and that the significance of the basilicas lay in the fact of their existence. The study of churches was (and is) conducted largely within an art-historical research framework which allowed and encouraged debate on the chronologies and typologies of sculpture or mosaics, and the relationship between architecture and liturgy. However, the adoption of these topics as the basis of a legitimate research paradigm enabled archaeologists to avoid participating in a wider discussion of the past or altering the set of historical assumptions with which they were working.

Archaeology played a potent role in this debate. In Epirus, for example, as the Ottoman armies retreated, excavations of Christian buildings commenced almost immediately (Pantou, Merkouri and Voutsa 2007). On the 20th October 1912, the Turkish garrison at Nikopolis surrendered. In the summer of 1913, Anastasios Philadelpheus commenced his excavations on the site and by 1916 he had revealed both Basilica A and the socalled ‘Bishop’s palace’. Excavations at Nikopolis continued throughout the 1920s, and 1930s, focused 94

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developed in isolation, with some archaeologists and art historians assuming that the builders of Christian monuments had little in the way of interaction with the world around them. Churches are seen as having been ‘influenced’ by other churches rather than the whims of ecclesiastical and secular patrons who are unlikely to have had the same overview of Christian architecture as modern scholars. Consequently, as I will demonstrate below, it is possible for a church to be ascribed to the problematic Post-Roman period purely on a basis of comparison with buildings which had been assigned to earlier or later periods.

Churches also bridged periods which contained potential ambiguities for a historical narrative which stressed both racial and cultural continuity, particularly the PostRoman ‘Dark Age’ in Greece where there is remarkably little archaeological or historical evidence relating to activity or occupation of any sort. The period which lasted from the mid 7th until the late 9th century is also the period when large areas of Greece are recorded as being under Slav occupation. Leaving aside the problematic nature of the evidence regarding the nature and extent of a Slav presence in Greece during this period, it suffices here to examine the contribution of Christian archaeology to the debate.

CHURCHES OUT OF CONTEXT: THE CASE OF MASTRON

Until recently the study of Late Antiquity and the PostRoman ‘Dark Age’ has, with one or two notable exceptions, been confined to the excavation and investigation of churches carried out within the methodological and theoretical framework outlined above. This methodology allowed churches to be studied in isolation with little reference to the society which constructed them or the circumstances in which they were built. Christian archaeology became a largely selfreferencing discipline in which it was considered sufficient to discuss one building in comparison with another. Churches became ‘independent biological organisms’ which existed outside the mainstream of political and social history (Mango 1976, 9-11). Buildings were interpreted by comparing them with other buildings and by duly noting similarities and differences.

An interesting example of a church that has been studied within this ‘biological’ framework is that of Mastron in Aetolia which has been suggested to date to the late 7th or early 8th century (Vokotopoulou 1992, 181). However, the dating of this church to the late 7th or 8th century is far from certain and I would suggest that it results largely from the fact that Panagiotis Vokotopoulou, who was responsible for the major publication on the building, was working within the dominant research paradigm described above. The research paradigm was based on two principal (although separate) assumptions. First, it was assumed that there was a continued Greek presence in the area and that there was cultural continuity between the 7th and 10th centuries, as indeed is indicated by the title of the book in question (Η εκκλησιαστική αρχιτεκτονική εις την Δυτικήν Στερεάν Έλλάδα και την Ήπείρον απο του 7ου μέκρι του τέλος του 10ου αι.). Second, it was assumed that Christian architecture was insular and largely selfperpetuating, rather than being an element of a wider social and economic system.

In this way a typology of Christian buildings has been developed in which architectural and decorative features are ascribed origins in particular geographical areas or chronological periods. The development and spread of these features has been noted, based around the idea that Christian architecture evolved organically and in a linear fashion. Moreover Christian architecture is seen to have

Fig. 1 - View of the church at Mastron (W. Bowden)

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The first assumption, regarding the continued Greek presence in the area between the two periods of Byzantine rule, is explicitly stated in the opening section of Vokotopoulou’s book. This is an historical overview in which among other things he suggests that the surviving Slav toponyms provide a picture of Slav villages as ‘islands established among solid populations of Greeks’ (Vokotopoulou 1992, 4). This book is nonetheless a splendid and beautifully illustrated piece of work which will remain the standard publication on the subject for years to come. The quality of Vokotopoulou’s book is indicated by the fact that it is possible to take issue with the author’s conclusions almost entirely on the basis of the information contained within it.

the nave and aisles, a tribelon that formed the main door of the church, and fragments of mosaic pavement which are clearly executed in an Early Christian idiom. Other elements of the building, however, such as the stepped apse and the arrangement of the chancel arch and the vaulting, could be indicative of a later date, ranging from the 9th to the 13th century. Vokotopoulou’s treatment of these elements is comprehensive and there is little reason to doubt his descriptions of them. He concluded that the presence of architectural features of both the Early Christian and Medieval periods indicated that the church was constructed at some point between the two and suggested therefore a date of the late 7th or 8th century. However, even his own analysis suggests that there is very little apart from the mosaic to argue for a construction date earlier than the late 9th century. The relationship between the mosaic and the rest of the church is far from clear, and it is possible that much of the church is a later construction on the site of an Early Christian basilica. This indeed was the conclusion reached by Peter Megaw who, after a detailed examination of the evidence, suggested a 9th century date of construction in his review of the first edition of Vokotopoulou’s book (Megaw 1977). Demetrios Pallas, by contrast, suggested on the basis of the same evidence that Mastron dated to the late 6th century (Pallas 1977, 26-28).

The church of Mastron, known locally as “Episkopi”, stands on a small but commanding hill overlooking the plain of the Acheloos river (Figs 1-3). It is a picturesque although sadly rather neglected church, which is now reduced to a single nave.

The precise date of the church at Mastron is not at issue here, suffice to say that various elements of the building could in fact date to any point between the 6th and 13th centuries, as the different dates offered by Megaw and Pallas suggest. Nonetheless, the 7th to 8th century date of construction of the church at Mastron, suggested by Vokotopoulou, has largely passed into a canon of accepted archaeological fact, in which capacity it appeared at the Corfu conference which is the subject of this volume. However, the 7th to 8th century construction date is based on a model which assumes that architectural innovation proceeds in a smoothly linear fashion, rather than being governed by social and political imperatives. The church at Mastron is not a unique building. It shares similarities with a number of other churches in Northwest Greece. Of particular note in this context is the church of Hagios Theodore on Corfu (Pallas 1977, 143-145). This was constructed on a basilican plan which featured arcades supported by masonry piers. Like the church at Mastron the outer walls of the principal apse featured a step close to the roof line, marking the point from which a semi-dome sprang on the interior. The apse at Hagios Theodore was pierced by a trifora window, in which the bays were divided by colonnettes surmounted by crutch capitals decorated with equal-armed crosses.

Fig. 2 - The door of the church at Mastron (W. Bowden)

Originally it was a three-aisled basilica, of which all three aisles terminated in apses, with a narthex that has also now largely vanished. It is an unusual building which displays a number of elements characteristic of Early Christian basilicas in the area, including the apparent use of stylobates and masonry piers which partially divided

Using the same framework that gave Vokotopoulou the late 7th or 8th century date for Mastron, Pallas similarly dated Hagios Theodore to the 8th century. I have suggested elsewhere (Bowden and Mitchell 2003, 110) that a major rebuilding of the Great Basilica at Butrint also shows some similarities to Mastron and Hagios 96

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A possible answer to this question, or at least an indication of the type of answer that we should be seeking, may be found in the Christian architecture of the Byzantine successor states of the 13th century, which appears to consciously recall aspects of much earlier forms of Christian building. Krautheimer notes in particular the use of the Greek cross octagon plan in the Parigoritissa church in Arta in Epirus (dating to 12821289) which he argues revives a plan last used in the 11th century at Daphni. He goes on to argue that ‘a renascence of church plans fallen into oblivion centuries before seems a natural phenomenon in the spurt of enthusiasm accompanying the resurgence of a Byzantine Empire in the last third of the 13th century’ (Krautheimer 1986, 417).

Theodore, although in the case of Butrint I have argued that this rebuilding may be as late as the 13th century. None of these cases, however, can be dated on independent archaeological grounds. If, however, we attempt to look at Christian buildings as products of their social context we can at least approach the discussion of Mastron and the other churches mentioned above in a way that goes beyond the typological approach previously applied. It is clear that the churches in question have a number of features in common (particularly the basilican plan) that are strikingly reminiscent of Late Antique churches. If we accept that these churches are not 5th or 6th century buildings (which seems unlikely for a number of reasons, not the least of which is their survival to roof height) then we need to explore other reasons for their appearance. We also need to accept that the people who built them consciously adopted the architecture of earlier buildings for particular reasons. We must then ask what those reasons might have been. It may be that these reasons were practical, in that it was understood that this was a tried and tested building form that had worked previously. Alternatively, it may be that the reasons were ideological, in that the basilican form and the other ‘early’ features utilised, had religious or other associations that the builders consciously wished to invoke. It may have been a combination of practicality and ideology but at the very least we must explicitly acknowledge that human agency played an active role in shaping these buildings.

While Krautheimer notes revivalist tendencies in the plans of the Parigoritissa and other contemporary churches he does not comment upon their other most striking characteristic, which is particularly marked in the churches of the Despotate of Epirus in and around Arta. This characteristic is their highly conspicuous use of spolia from the Roman and Early Christian periods. The dome of the Parigoritissa church is supported via an extraordinary triple order of reused column shafts, two tiers of which stand on other re-used columns which project horizontally from the walls in a rather precarious looking cantilevered arrangement (Fig. 4). The re-used columns, capitals and imposts dominate the interior of the church (Orlandos 1963; Pallas 1971, 266-274; Krautheimer 1986, 417-420).

Fig. 3 - Simplified plan of the church at Mastron, with later additions shaded (after Vokotopoulou)

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This dominant use of spolia is even more marked in the church of Hagia Theodora, also in Arta, thought to date to the mid 12th century. Here, a small basilica features four columns that divide the nave and aisles (Pallas 1971, 244249; Bowden 2003, 116-119). These are surmounted with a set of massive composite capitals of the 6th century, which are entirely out of proportion to the columns that sit on them and the church as a whole (Fig. 5). They form the principal feature of the church’s interior. A further late 5th century Corinthian capital of a type known from Basilica D at Nikopolis was reused in the narthex.

Fig. 5 - Reused 6th century capitals at Hagia Theodora in Arta (W. Bowden)

It is clear that the use of spolia in the Arta churches noted above does not simply represent a pragmatic use of earlier material but instead may have been a means of making specific reference to an earlier period. It probably involved extensive quarrying at Nikopolis and the subsequent transporting of the material some 25 km to Arta and its vicinity. This transport may have been by road, or partly by boat via the Ambracian Gulf, and represents a considerably greater effort than simply reusing material that was easily available in the vicinity. The site of Nikopolis had a number of powerful associations as the city founded by Augustus but also as a major centre of Early Christianity traditionally thought to have been visited by St Paul in AD 65 (Meletios 2007). Away from Arta, making explicit links with the Early Christian past seems to be a common feature of Christian building in Epirus. As noted above, this could be done either through reused material or through the redeployment of earlier architectural forms. It could also be done through the building of new churches on the sites of Early Christian buildings as seems to have occurred at Glyky, where a large church, possibly of the Despotate, was erected on the site of an Early Christian church (Pallas 1977, 139-140). The reuse of Early Christian sites in the Medieval period is commonplace in Epirus, although in most cases the later churches are difficult to date with any accuracy (Bowden and Mitchell 2003, 124125).

Fig. 4 - Spolia used within the Parigoritissa church at Arta (W. Bowden)

A further example of this highly visible use of spolia was found in the remains of the 13th century monastery of the Pantanassa at Philippiados slightly to the North of Arta. As well as a Corinthian capital similar to that noted at Hagios Theodora, this included both sides of an impressive marble ambo, of the type accessed by stairs from either end. Each side was formed from a single piece of white marble, carved in a way which divides the ambo into three sections consisting of two flat plaques at either end, and a central curving section which bows outwards to form the pulpit. Each section was decorated with a Latin cross in relief. The excavator reasonably hypothesised that it had originally come from Nikopolis some 25 km to the Southwest (Acheimastou-Potamianou 1975).

CONCLUSION: ‘CHRISTIAN’ AND ‘MAINSTREAM’ ARCHAEOLOGY

The church at Mastron discussed above is particularly interesting in the context of this volume because it featured in two of the papers read on Corfu relating to field survey projects in the area. In both cases Vokotopoulou’s suggested date of the late 7th to 8th 98

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remarkably resilient thus far, there are clearly dangers in operating outside the main body of a parent discipline whose other members increasingly perceive it as irrelevant. However, the ‘mainstream’ of Medieval archaeology should also be wary of confusing the material with the methodology, in that one cannot dismiss churches as archaeological evidence purely on the basis of the ways in which they have been examined in the past.

centuries was accepted and was used as a benchmark to infer other activity in the area during the period in question,1 (which, as noted earlier, remains one of the most problematic periods for archaeology in Greece). The example of Mastron demonstrates that the findings of Christian archaeology can have direct repercussions on the concerns of other branches of the discipline such as field survey. Christian archaeology has, however, become increasingly removed from other areas of the subject, illustrated by its absence from the Corfu conference. The relationship between the two different areas is characterised by indifference on the part of Christian archaeologists and increasing antipathy from their counterparts in Medieval archaeology.

There is clearly a need to incorporate churches into the overall assemblage of archaeological materials in Greece. On a practical level Medieval archaeology in the country is in its infancy, and in some areas the vast majority of published archaeological material relating to the PostRoman period (particularly Late Antiquity) takes the form of churches. By ignoring this material or by failing to engage with it at more than a basic level, archaeologists are effectively dismissing a large proportion of their available data base. Equally, the meticulous typologies of column capitals and mosaics compiled by church archaeologists over the decades can provide a wealth of information, while churches themselves have been excavated and catalogued in such numbers throughout Greece that they allow a degree of inter-regional comparison which is often unavailable for other aspects of the archaeological record.

This bi-partite division is the result of a number of factors which can be characterised in terms of the conflict between old and new, or tradition and innovation. Medieval archaeology in Greece has roots in both camps; that of Byzantine/Christian archaeology, which, as described above, is effectively an extension of Classical archaeology in terms of its research objectives and its methodology, and that of the ‘new’ archaeology, which set itself up in direct opposition to traditional objectoriented approaches based on established narrative history. In Greece, the gulf between the two areas is perhaps wider than elsewhere, creating an atmosphere in which scientific data-recovery techniques can be dismissed as ‘the archaeology you do when you do not find anything’ (quoted by Muhly 1980, 101; Morris 1994, 38). Here perhaps lies the dilemma of Medieval archaeology in that the period it covers means it must encompass two camps whose methodologies and goals are diametrically opposed to one another.

In conclusion, therefore, I hope that this brief paper has demonstrated that, although they ostensibly deal with the same chronological period, Christian archaeologists and Medieval archaeologists are working within fundamentally different and ever more divergent research paradigms. While this goes some way towards explaining the increasing distance between these two branches of archaeology, I hope also to have highlighted the need for a rapprochement between them, which could be of considerable benefit to all concerned.

The evidence of the Corfu conference suggests that Medieval archaeology in Greece is rapidly moving away from traditional approaches. This only to be expected as the nature of the ‘new’ archaeology and its theoretical successors demands innovation. The currency of ‘mainstream’ archaeology is now ideas as much as data or materials, with the result that the discipline has become more iconoclastic than ever before, with each new generation finding it necessary to challenge both the results and the methodologies of its predecessors. This means that the different groups who study aspects of Medieval archaeology in Greece are essentially incompatible. On the one hand there is Christian archaeology which is effectively self-justifying and selfperpetuating and perceives little need to alter the assumptions of the research paradigm in which it operates, and on the other there is ‘mainstream’ archaeology for which stagnation is anathema.

NOTES 1

The contributions in question were those of Sebastian Bommeljé and Frank Trombley. Although I consider the date of the church to be doubtful, I cast no aspersions on their respective conclusions. I am particularly grateful to Sebastian Bommeljé for his helpful discussion of this issue at the conference and in subsequent correspondence. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acheimastou-Potamianou, M., 1975, ‘Ευρημα παλαιοχριστιανικού άμβωνος είς περιοχήν ναού Παντανάσσης Φιλιππιάδος’, Athens Annals of Archaeology 8, 95-103. Bowden, W., 2001, ‘A new urban elite? Church builders and church building in late-antique Epirus’, in L. Lavan (ed.), Recent Research on Late-Antique Urbanism, Journal of Roman Archaeology Suppl. Series 42, Portsmouth, Rh. Island, 57-68. Bowden, W., 2003, Epirus Vetus: the Archaeology of a Late Antique Province, London: Duckworth. Bowden, W., and Mitchell, J., 2003, ‘The Christian topography of Butrint’, in R. Hodges, W. Bowden and K. Lako (eds), Byzantine Butrint:

It is within these factors, I would suggest, that the causes of the problem lie, although whether the members of these various sub-disciplines perceive a problem at all is open to question. After all, their respective research objectives, although not entirely mutually exclusive, rarely converge, and increasingly function independently from one another. Nonetheless, for Christian archaeology the problems seem manifest. Although it has proved 99

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Excavations and Surveys 1994-1999, Oxford: Oxbow, 104-125. Clogg, R., 1992, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frend, W.H.C., 1996, The Archaeology of Early Christianity, London: Geoffrey Chapman. Kaiser, T., 1995, ‘Archaeology and ideology in south-east Europe’, in P.L. Kohl and C. Fawcett (eds), Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 99-119. Kitromilides, P.M., 1998, ‘Paparrigopoulos and Byzantium’, in D. Rick and P. Magdalino (eds), Byzantium and Modern Greek Identity, London: Ashgate, 25–33. Krautheimer, R., 1986, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mango, C., 1965, ‘Byzantinism and romantic Hellenism’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28, 29-43. Mango, C., 1976, Byzantine Architecture, New York: Harry N. Abrams. Megaw, A.H.S., 1977, ‘Review of P. Vokotopoulos (1975) Η εκκλησιαστική αρχιτεκτονική είς την Δυτικήν Στερεάν ‘Ελλάδα και την Ήπειρον από του 7ου μέχρι το τέλος του 10ου αι’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 97, 237-238. Meletios (Bishop of Nicopolis), 2007, Ό Άπόστολος Παύλος στήν Νικόπολη’, in K. Zachos (ed.), Proceedings of the Second International Nicopolis Symposium (11-15 September 2002), Preveza: Actia Nicopolis Foundation, 23-133. Morris, I., 1994, ‘Archaeologies of Greece’, in I. Morris (ed.), Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 8-47.

Muhly, J.D., 1980, ‘Review of G. Rapp and S. Aschenbrenner (eds) (1978), Excavations at Nichoria in south-west Greece 1’, American Journal of Archaeology 84, 101-102. Orlandos, A.K., 1963, Ή Παρηγορήτισσα της Άρτης (Βιβλιοθήκη της εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας, 52) (Athens: εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία/Athens Archaeological Society). Pantou, M., Merkouri, Ch., and Voutsa, K., 2007, ‘Νικόπολις έν άρχείος’. Μαρτυρίες για τη Νικόπολη από το Ιστορικό Αρχείο της Αρχαιολογικής Υπηρεσίας’, in K. Zachos (ed.), Proceedings of the Second International Nicopolis Symposium (11-15 September 2002), Preveza: Actia Nicopolis Foundation, 699-737. Pallas, D., 1971, ‘Epiros’, in M. Restle and K. Wessel (eds), Real Lexikon zur Byzantinischen Kunst, Band II, Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 207-334. Pallas, D., 1977, Les Monuments Paléochrétiens decouverts en Grèce de 1959 à 1973, Vatican City: Pontificio. Istituto di archeologia cristiana. Peckham, R.S., 2001, National Histories, Natural States: Nationalism and the Politics of Place in Greece, London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Vokotopoulou, P., 1992, Η εκκλησιαστική αρχιτεκτονική εις την Δυτικήν Στερεάν Έλλάδα και την Ήπείρον απο του 7ου μέχρι του τέλος του 10ου αι, Thessalonica: Byzantine Research Centre. William Bowden Department of Archaeology University of Nottingham [email protected] ______________________________________________

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2.2 A New Approach to an Old Archaeological Site: The Case of Delphi* Platon Petridis For each of the known and established archaeological sites more or less concrete images have been formed in the collective subconscious. These notions include an approximate idea of the period of flourishing, and also the moment of decline. The archaeological site of Delphi, one of the first excavated in Greece, is no exception to the rule. The most famous monument of the archaeological site, the Tholos, constitutes a trademark through which everyone recognizes the specific place, or at least hopefully so. However, only a few, as we are taught by our contact with the visitors through the years, can date it to the 4th century BC. The period in which the monuments where Pythia delivered her oracles were constructed, and during which they were functioning, is usually identified with the Archaic and Classical era. The dating has been supported by famous offerings, such as those of Croesus, as well as the bronze serpent column of Plataea. Other periods, though equally important for the sanctuary, such as the Hellenistic, during which local magistrates and sovereigns or wealthy citizens performed various offerings to the gods, or even the Roman period, are rarely related to Delphi. In contrast to this lack of diachronicity, a very concrete picture of the period, or more precisely, of the moment of decline of the oracle of Apollo exists in the mind of the general public. Unfortunately, this picture is identified with the definitive end of the city of Delphi.

himself, or someone associated with him produced the oracle, since the temple had practically been closed. The dispute remains open. Still, what is important is that this text has a significant weight, real as well as symbolic, concerning the transition from the old religion to Christianity, regardless of the place where it was delivered, and whether the specific oracle was ever delivered. Even if it did not refer to Delphi, the condition of the oracle and of any ancient temple at the end of the 4th century AD was not far from the romantic picture of abandonment, which those verses inspire. The most important buildings must have been already ruined, not so much because of Christian actions, but through natural causes and lack of revenue to sustain them.

The last oracle that was, according to tradition, delivered by Pythia,1 is said to have been the answer to Oribasius the Quaestor, a delegate of the Emperor Julian, known in history as the Apostate. In the word ‘Apostate’ lies perhaps the reason why this oracle became so famous. It definitely meant the triumph of the new religion over the old one, the end of the pagan world and the establishment of Christianity in an undeniable and irrevocable way. This is also the reason why this oracle has been delivered in identical form or in paraphrase by the Fathers of the Church and other Byzantine writers,2 and has wrongly been identified with the end of Delphi, thus symbolizing the end of an era. This concept became a commonplace always referred to by the tourist guides,3 and widely used in books for children and young people,4 flavoured with an intense shade of sadness for the irrevocably lost era. Only few know, of course, that there has been a dispute about the relation of this oracle with Delphi since 1962.5 It has been argued that the oracle was delivered not at Delphi, but by the oracle of Daphne near Antioch. Also here was a spring named Castalia, and indeed, the oracle was delivered according to the interpretation of the bubbling of its waters. Later, in 1978, this view was contradicted and the original interpretation was reestablished.6 It was actually argued that Oribasius

The impression of the final disappearance of a city is engulfed by a misty and over-simplified picture of natural destruction. As a matter of fact, mist covers ignorance. Those initiated in the science of archaeology and history and, as it unfortunately seems, only they know, of course, that Delphi survived the closure of the oracle. Thus, what modern research comes to prove is that Delphi not only survived the transition from the old religion to the new one, but even was a flourishing city that had no need to envy other provincial cities of Southern Greece. This new approach of placing an old archaeological site under the light of newer research actually extends Delphi’s period of occupation for two and a half centuries, dating the end of the continuous period during which it was inhabited to c. AD 620.

But that did not happen with the city of Delphi. The guides and the books intended for the broad public continue to support the view that with the closing down of the temple, Delphi too withered.7 It was considered to be more appropriate that a place so deeply influenced by the ancient spirit in every expression (religious, athletic, even political) would have died together with it. In a book for children it is mentioned: ‘In AD 394 Theodosius the Great closes down the oracle, orders the destruction of the temples of the old religion and abolishes the games. Little by little soil and rocks falling from Parnassus started covering the temple. So did Delphi vanish.’8

In the one hundred and sixteen years separating us from the beginning of the ‘Great Excavation’ that brought to light the sanctuaries of Apollo and Athena, the Gymnasium, the Stadium, the tombs and the secular buildings, the Christian past of Delphi has not passed unnoticed. However, it never gained the appropriate significance. Being closely attached to the study of the sanctuaries, and the oracle’s period of flourishing (mainly Classical and Hellenistic), former generations of 101

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moment when it ceased to exist as a city, we are helped by: • The written evidence; • The monuments from the 4th to the 7th century AD (consisting of buildings and scattered architectural elements); • The stratigraphic excavations carried out in recent years by the French School of Archaeology; • The archaeological finds retrieved from these excavations (mainly ceramics and coins).

archaeologists and historians dedicated only a minimal part of their rich bibliographical production to the period from the 4th to the 7th century AD. Consequently, the monuments dating to this time-span were hardly ever mentioned. There are quite a few cases, where these monuments had been destroyed to allow research in lower layers,9 or even to facilitate the admission of tourists (Fig. 1).10 One should not wonder why the crowds of tourists that visit Delphi every year do not take the slightest notice of the monuments of the Christian period. However, the research of the last eighteen years, re-orientates us towards the restoration of that period in the collective memory as a period of flourishing for Delphi, yet totally different from the thriving city during the ‘heyday’ of the oracle. Delphi, thanks to its symbolic context, can function as an example to help us understand that the transition from the pagan period to the Christian era was smoother than was up to now believed. Above all, Delphi shows that the decline from the urban standards these cities had acquired in Greco-Roman Antiquity happened later and was not connected with religious intolerance, but with other, more complicated internal and/or external factors.

The number of inscriptions and other written evidence that survived from the second half of the 4th century AD and onwards, is relatively small, but enough to prove that Delphi had not been erased from the map and still attracted the interest of the central authorities. This is evidenced by a pedestal bearing an inscription in honour of Valens and Valentinian,11 dated between AD 364 and 371, the period after the death of Emperor Julian. The two emperors are mentioned as benefactors of the city. A further indication comes from an excerpt from the Codex Theodosianus of AD 424, referring to an exemption from taxes to Rome, granted to Delphi because of some ‘new misfortunes’.12 Delphi is also mentioned in Hierokles’ Synekdemos,13 while the only Christian inscription found is the tombstone of deaconess Athanassia from the 5th century AD.14

In our attempt to restore the truth about the evolution of Delphi, after the closing of the oracle, and until the

Fig. 1 - Surviving northern wall of the ‘Lower Thermae’, the other walls of the baths were removed to provide access to the site

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The monuments dating to the period between the 4th and the 7th century AD, which are visible today, are located within an area which extends from the temple of Athena in the East, to the entrance of the modern village in the West. In the North it reaches the Cnidian Lesche, and in the South the fringes of the pedestrian road leading from the archaeological site to the museum.15 A larger concentration of buildings is found around the sanctuary of Apollo, where existing older terraces made the terrain suitable for the construction of buildings of larger dimensions. In fact, the Great Excavation, to which we owe the majority of the monuments of the Early Christian era that are visible today, did not advance too far a distance from the Sacred Wall, thus confining the known extent of the area. Only few of these monumental buildings had been studied before recent research turned its attention to them. These recent studies have focussed on the Roman Agora and the Southeastern Villa, but also investigated the location and the plan of the remaining structures.

The Roman Agora (Fig. 2) is a secular building whose axis was slightly altered in the 4th century AD to get adjusted to the ancient Sacred Way. These interventions probably coincided with activities which altered the Sacred Way and turned it into a trade road. Along the Sacred Way, but also at other points inside the sanctuary, shops, workshops and houses were established. The Southeastern Villa (Fig. 3), outside the ancient Sacred Wall, constitutes a typical example of a private building with reception rooms (the so-called triclinia), storage rooms, accommodation rooms and small, but very elegant private baths. The picture is enriched by other private villas of the Early Christian period, however, of smaller dimensions. A considerable number of villas are located west of the temple of Apollo. It does not seem that any particular pattern has been followed in the plan, because of the particularity of the ground and the fact that some of them have been constructed within already existing buildings whose use has changed.16 Poorer buildings are found around the Roman Heroon. The expansion of the city to the West is most obvious and the area that it covers in the Early Christian years is larger than in any other previous period. In response to increased demands for water, a big cistern was built to the West, re-using materials from older buildings. Attalus’ Portico had also been transformed into a reservoir since the 3rd century AD, providing water for the most important public baths, the ‘Eastern Thermae’. A picture of ‘constructional explosion’ emerges, from which we cannot omit references to places of Christian worship. Two basilicas have been found, one in the Gymnasium, and the other at the entrance to the modern village. Architectural sculptures give evidence to the existence of a third basilica at a central point of the city, perhaps to the East of the Roman Agora. As for the cemetery, it seems from the saved arcosolia, that this was placed to the West, following the expansion of the urban fabric. From the excavations carried out by the French School of Archaeology between 1987 and 1997, it is worth mentioning at first the Xystos of the Gymnasium.17 There, the excavations have securely established that a ceramic workshop was active already since the second half or the end of the 4th century AD. Another shop or workshop has been studied in the Roman Agora, while the most important elements of information of the history of Delphi in Late Antiquity, and especially of the last period of the city have been provided by the excavation of the Southeastern Villa.18 Constantly increasing prosperity has been attested from the 5th through the 6th century AD. This is indicated by transformations of the house plan and the addition of other triclinia besides the original eastern triclinium. A first abandonment around AD 580 comes to interrupt these elaborations. A few years later its rooms were transformed into workshops, with mostly ceramic production (Fig. 4).

Fig. 2 - Northeastern part of the Roman Agora, shop/workshop excavated by the French School of Archaeology

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Fig. 3 - The Southeastern Villa

A final abandonment of the place, which corresponds with the end of the city of Delphi, is observed around AD 620. The years between AD 580 and 620 bring an evident reduction of the urban fabric. However, the last quarter of the 6th century ceases to be the benchmark for the total abandonment of Delphi, as had been previously supported. On the contrary, the existence of workshops producing ceramics of the same type as those produced before AD 580, the imports of ceramics that continued albeit reduced, and the coins, prove that life in Delphi found again its pace and continued until the first quarter of the 7th century AD. Whatever reason it was that forced the residents of the Southeastern Villa to abandon it in the last quarter of the 6th century (inability to afford its maintenance, an epidemic or a raid of Slavic tribes), it did not give the final blow to the city. This must have come in the first quarter of the 7th century. The picture we have from the stratigraphy is that of a sudden abandonment of the place. From this point onwards, architectural remains as well as ceramics and coins (with few exceptions) disappeared completely. The combined evidence leads us to believe that an urban formation in the form of a city ceased to exist in Delphi. This was to remain during the centuries to follow and lasted until the formation of Castri, which existed already in the 15th century; however, we do not know the exact date of its foundation.

offer an insight into the social framework that used, produced, or imported those objects. These finds reflect the tendencies of the time, the practical and/or aesthetic needs of the local clients, and also their economic capacity. The study of imported ceramics in particular, allows us to place Early Christian Delphi within a network of commercial communication, within which all the cities of Southern Greece are situated and where imports from Northern Africa occupy a prominent position.

As far as the finds from the excavations are concerned, they allow us to date the construction phases of the buildings and, in particular the Southeastern Villa. They help us to establish the critical moments of the first abandonment, the consecutive development of workshops, and the final abandonment, which proves to be significant for the history of the whole site. The finds

The combined evidence offered by modern research, which has been presented in brief, converges at a point which leads to a new picture of welfare and comfort for Delphi in the period from the 4th to the 7th centuries AD. The new picture is very remote from the impression established in people’s mind of a ruined, deserted and forgotten place.

Fig. 4 - Local amphora with painted decoration (AD 6th -7th century)

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NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

* I would like to thank Dimitris and Eleni Tsougarakis and John Bintliff for having invited me to such an interesting conference and Joannis Georgopoulos for having translated my text. A Greek version of this article has been previously published (Petridis 2006). 1 On the Delphic Oracle see Parke and Wormell (1956, 194) and Athanassiadi 1991. The oracle is mentioned by the Christian writers Philostorghius and Cedrenus. Philostorghius, a contemporary of the Emperor Julian, does not refer to the assignment of Oribasius, but speaks of a visit. Cedrenus, a few centuries later, expresses the notion of an assignment given to Oribasius connected to the construction, or more plausibly, to the repair of the temple of Apollo. In the first case we can imagine that the priests appealed to the Emperor for help, which brought about a visit to Delphi by Oribasius, one of the emperor’s closest companions. In the second case, it is Apollo himself who refuses the help of the Emperor, since everything was considered lost. 2 Gregory of Nazianzus, In Julianum imperatorem invective, and Cedrenus. 3 (Miliadis, 1930, 28) ‘After the abolition of the old religion, the city of Delphi too followed the decline of the Ocracle’. Miliadis admits that life continued for a while, but he does not refer to any archaeological remains except for the wall, the Christian cemetery near the temple (without giving a specific identification) and the sculptures. Carouzos (1974) leaves the post-Julian period largely unnoticed in his historical retrospective, except for a reference to the Edict of Theodosius, and a further reference to Bishop Pantimianos. In the guide to Delphi by Petrakos (1977) there is no historic mention of the years after Emperor Julian, while a single reference is made to archaeological material from the Early Christian period, namely the mosaics exposed in front of the entrance to the Museum. 4 Crontiras (1996, 63). 5 Vatin (1962, 235-238). 6 Parke (1978, 199-219). 7 In the best of cases we meet an indirect admission of the continuation of life in the place, with the mistaken reference to the construction of churches within the oracle. See Assimomytis, Gountakis and Katsoulakos (1998, 157) for another widespread model with clear ideological bias. This model suggests that Christians built their churches precisely over all ancient temples to emphasize their victory over pagan cults. 8 Crontiras (1996, 64). 9 The remains of the Early Christian basilica of the Gymnasium are a case in point. 10 From the so-called Lower Thermae (see Fig. 1), only the northern walls have been preserved, while all other structures have been removed to create the entrance to the archaeological site and access to the Roman Agora. 11 Inv. No 7715 is located in the Roman Agora. The inscription reads: Τους δεσποτας ημων Φλ. Ιουλ. Βαλλε[ντ]ινιανον και φλ. Ιουλ. Βαλητα η πολις Δελφων τους εαυτης ευεργετας ανεστησεν. 12 Cod. Theod. XV, 5, 4: “Delforum Curiae facultates novis damnis frequenter adtritas Relatio Tui Culminis intimavit. Ideoque praeceptis ad universas Illyrici Civitates Iudicesque transmissis, notum omnibus faciat, nullum penitus spectacular oportere solemnia Urbis aeternae populis exhibere: sed unumquemque civium intra propriam civitatem debere solitae devotionis officia (prout patriomonii sui vires patientur) implere…’. 13 Hierokles’s Synekdemos, 643, 13: Delphi is classified in the ‘province of Greece that is called Achaia’. 14 Laurent (1899, 273-278). 15 Surprisingly, all these monuments have remained unnoticed by so many writers of guidebooks and manuals. 16 The villa constructed within the Western Portico is an example of such practice. 17 The following preliminary reports of the Xystos excavations have been published: Pentazos, Déroche and Queyrel, 1986, 1987, 1988; Queyrel 1986; Déroche and Queyrel 1986. 18 The preliminary reports of the excavations at the Roman Agora and the Southeastern Villa have been published as follows: Déroche 1991, 1991b; Déroche and Petridis 1992, 1992b, 1993, 1994; Déroche, Petridis and Badie 1995, 1996, 1997.

Athanassiadi P., 1991, ‘The fate of Oracles in Late Antiquity: Didyma and Delphi’, DChAE 15, 271-278. Assimomytis, V., Gountakis, G. and Katsoulakos, T., 1998, Ηπολιτιστική προσφορά του Ελληνισμού από την Αρχαιότητα ως την Αναγέννηση, History Book for Secondary Schools (Lykeion), Athens: OEDB. Parke, H.D. and Wormell, D.E.W., 1956, The Delphic Oracle, 2 vols, Oxford: Blackwell. Crontiras, L., 1996, Πρώτη γνωριμία με τους Δελφούς του Απόλλωνα, Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon. Déroche, V. 1991, ‘Agora Romaine et ‘Thermes du Sud’’, BCH 115, 700-702. Déroche, V. 1991b, ‘Ρωμαϊκή Αγορά και Νότιες Θέρμες’, ΑΔ 46, B1 Χρονικά, 202-203. Déroche, V. and Petridis, P., 1992, ‘Agora Romaine et ‘Thermes du Sud’’, BCH 116, 709-711. Déroche, V. and Πετρίδης, Π., 1992, Η ρωμαϊκή Αγορά και η νοτιοανατολική Έπαυλη, ΑΔ 47, B1 Χρονικά, 218-220. Déroche, V. and Petridis, P., 1993, ‘Agora Romaine et Villa Sud-Est’, BCH 117, 641-644. Déroche, V. and Petridis, P., 1994, ‘Agora Romaine et Villa Sud-Est’, BCH 118, 423-428. Déroche, V., Petridis, P. and Badie, A., 1995, ‘Agora Romaine et Villa Sud-Est’, BCH 119, 649-650. Déroche, V., Petridis, P. and Badie, A., 1996, ‘Agora Romaine et Villa Sud-Est’, BCH 120, 847-851. Déroche, V., Petridis, P. and Badie, A., 1997, ‘Agora Romaine et Villa Sud-Est’, BCH 121, 754-755. Laurent, J., ‘Delphes Chrétien’, BCH 23, 273-278. Miliadis, 1930, Δελφοί, Athens: M.S. Zikakis. Parke, H.W., 1978, ‘Castalia’, BCH 102, 199-219. Petrakos, B., 1977, Δελφοί, Athens: Clio. Petridis, P., 2006, ‘Από την Πυθία στην Αθανασία: οι Δελφοί της Ύστερης Αρχαιότητας υπό το φως των νέων ανασκαφικών δεδομένων’, Αρχαιολογικό Έργο Θεσσαλίας και Στερεάς Ελλάδας, Πρακτικά επιστημονικής συνάντησης, Βόλος 27.2 – 2.3.2003, Volos 2006, 1093-1103. Vatin, C. 1962, ‘Les empereurs du IVe siècle à Delphes’, BCH 86, 235-238. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ABBREVIATIONS:

DChAE = Deltion Christianikès Archaiologikès Elaireias BCH = Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique Platon Petridis University of Athens Byzantine Archaeology Email: [email protected]

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3.1 Medieval and Ottoman Mytilene Hector Williams The site is of particular interest, however, as the centre of the great Genoese/Byzantine dynasty, the Gattelusi that ruled Lesbos and eventually much of the Northern Aegean from 1355 to 1462. The subsequent Ottoman centuries down to the liberation of the Eastern Aegean islands in November of 1912 also left an archaeological legacy that is telling us much about life in a prosperous provincial town; indeed by the chance of discovery we are becoming modest pioneers in local Ottoman historical archaeology.

The city of Mytilene, one of the great centres of the Northern Aegean, has been surprisingly neglected by scholars in spite of its importance.1 Until recently there were no systematic excavations of any period, although the dramatic expansion of the modern town in the past thirty years has produced a great many unpublished or poorly published salvage excavations of sites from Early Bronze Age to Ottoman. Investigations in the Medieval castle of Mytilene (Fig. 1) since 1983 by the University of British Columbia, however, have revealed a rich variety of material from Medieval and Ottoman times. Between 1986 and 1990, U.B.C. together with the K’Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities also investigated a multi-period site in the lower town near the North Harbour, which included a Late Ottoman cemetery that lay over relatively well preserved Roman and Hellenistic remains.2 The Post-Antique levels in the castle overlie a late Classical to Early Roman sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, which in turn covers limited Archaic and Early Classical deposits.

There is a remarkable lacuna in the history of the hill that occupies the seaward side of Mytilene: over fifty trenches in different parts of the castle have revealed few traces of human activity between the mid first century after Christ and the 11th century. Even the period from then until the arrival of the Gattelusi is marked by only limited finds of pottery and coins although there is abundant evidence, written and archaeological, of activity in Early and Middle Byzantine times on Lesbos and indeed in Mytilene.

Fig. 1 - Mytilene Castle

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It is not until the mid 14th century that activity begins to pick up with the granting of Lesbos to Francesco Gattelusi as dowry for his marriage to Maria Palaeologina, sister of the new Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos. The role of Francesco in assisting the new ruler to achieve the purple is not entirely clear but it was sufficiently significant to create a remarkable new force in the politics of the Late Byzantine Empire.3 The castle itself was completed in 1373 and remained the focus of power in the area down to the early 20th century; there was undoubtedly an earlier fortified centre on the site but its extent is still not entirely clear.4 Our most important Medieval discovery was a church and associated burials on the upper terrace of the castle under the remains of a late 19th century mosque. It is almost certainly the Church of St. John, which is known from Medieval sources as the burial chapel of the Gattelusi family.5 Converted into a mosque after 1462, it seems to have survived until the great earthquake of 1867 that destroyed much of Mytilene.6 It was replaced by a modern mosque later in the century, but of this building only the lower walls remain. A proton magnetometer survey (conducted by the author in the spring of 1985) revealed a curving anomaly south of the mosque and subsequent excavations in 1986 confirmed the presence of the apse of the church (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 - External apsis at the eastern extent of the Medieval church

Beside it, on the northeast corner was a large added polygonal concrete base that probably supported the minaret visible in the Choiseul-Gouffier engraving. We were only able to excavate part of the east and west ends of the church (Fig. 3), but uncovered sufficient detail to allow a tentative reconstruction by our architect, Richard Anderson (Fig. 4). There is a polygonal external apse at the East, a wall apparently reinforced with buttresses (although in fact only two survive), and a narthex at the West. No trace of the original floor appeared, nor do we have much information about original conditions to the west of the narthex.

Fig. 3 - The remains of the Medieval church under later structures of a modern mosque

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Fig. 4 - Tentative reconstruction of the church (excavated areas are marked in black)

gaping open. The hands were folded over the chest and the body had been protected by roof tiles.

Investigations on the west side were hampered by piles of debris from the 19th century mosque that were heaped up against its surviving courses during a clean up of the site in the early 1960s. The removal of this material in recent years by the new local Byzantine ephoreia has made access much more practicable and we hope to have an opportunity to complete excavation of the structure in future seasons.7

The style of burial finds numerous parallels in cemeteries in the Frankish Levant and probably belongs to a Latin, perhaps one of the Italian dependents of the Gattelusi. Perhaps the most important evidence from the skeletons was the indication of the harsh life that the locals led from childhood. The study by Sandra Garvie Lok has given us a detailed examination of some fifteen individuals of varying ages and sexes. Linear hypoplasia in the enamel of the teeth are a likely indication of malnutrition at a young age in many, while traces of healed trauma abound. Garvie Lok’s article (this volume) presents a summary of a recent study of remains that is currently underway at the University of Alberta; it will give us further information about diet and everyday life.

Turkish activity in the area either after the conquest or during the building of the new mosque disturbed most of the Medieval burials that we have encountered in the area. Only in the northwest corner of the narthex of the church did we find an undisturbed double (male and female) burial in a well built grave that likely indicates higher status. Unfortunately it is clear that all the original interments in sarcophagi were long ago disturbed; only fragments of the marble pseudo-sarcophagi remain here and there around the castle.8 Elsewhere around the mosque and church the skeletal material was for the most part scattered, apart from a single interment east of the apse that had preserved the upper half of the skeleton.

Although we recovered over fifty coins (see Appendix) that represent most of the Gattelusi issues, we found surprisingly small quantities of other material in the areas that we have excavated. Among the Medieval pottery there were no evidently Western sherds; the fine wares were mostly late sgraffito. Perhaps the most interesting find was a small bone and iron trigger part from a crossbow, a weapon for which the Genoese were famous.9

This burial was striking confirmation of Western influence: the head had been propped up on a pillow-like stone with another stone below the jaw to keep it from

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Our excavations on the upper terrace have uncovered a series of Ottoman buildings, probably private houses, destroyed in a sequence of earthquakes; in places the destruction level is almost two metres thick. Streets and buildings of at least two successive periods have been determined (Fig. 6); it is likely that the latter structures were destroyed in the great earthquake of February 1867. It was so catastrophic as to attract a relief ship from the British navy and an illustrated article in the Illustrated London News of early April.

OTTOMAN PERIOD

The four hundred and fifty years (1462-1912) of Ottoman rule left numerous traces in the castle and town of Mytilene. Besides the three mosques that survive in different degrees of preservation in the lower town (two as crumbling historical monuments and the third converted to a commercial establishment on the North Harbour) there are arches of an Ottoman aqueduct on the hill on the western side of town as well as fountains in many neighbourhoods. Just west of the Yeni Tzami (‘New Mosque’ of 1821) is a well preserved set of 19th century public baths; an earlier set of uncertain date lies crumbling beside the road that runs through the lower castle. The most extensive remains, however, are in and around the castle which itself underwent some significant alterations after 1462. A number of inscriptions still in situ here and there in buildings and towers give invaluable evidence about date and builder.10 An outer circuit of artillery fortifications was added on the more vulnerable western and southern sides in the early 16th century.

Fig. 5 - RAF aerial photograph (1916): the castle of Mytilene and its surroundings

Fig. 6 - Streets and buildings of successive periods

Within the castle the most important building is a medrese or theological school of the 18th century; it consists of a two storied complex of a small mosque and students’ rooms on the upper floor (each with a hearth and facing on a veranda) and auxiliary rooms below all around three sides of a courtyard. Across from it and to the South is a small rectangular structure with hearth, a tekke or dervish shrine, while further up the cobbled kalderim that leads to the upper terrace of the castle is a gunpowder magazine with a roof nearly two metres thick that has recently been restored by the Ministry of Culture to serve eventually as a refreshment centre for visitors. An aerial photograph taken by the RAF in 1916 (Fig. 5), in fact reveals a large number of Turkish structures, mostly late 19th century and post earthquake, which survive only as grass covered mounds of debris.11

The most important discoveries of material from the Ottoman period include very large quantities of pottery as well as hundreds of tobacco pipes and a few for hashish or opium. There is a surprising absence of coins apart from a gold issue of c. 1798 (possibly a collector’s piece as it was found with an aureus of Brutus and Cassius of 43 BC) and of other small finds. The range of ceramics, however, is remarkable from Iznik ware of the early 16th to Turkish flower pots of the 19th century, while over a thousand clay pipes appear in the final catalogue by John Humphrey, University of Calgary (see article in this volume). The enormous amounts of pottery make up more than 70 % of all the ceramic material from the site. There is also a considerable amount of faunal material, including such forbidden materials for the Muslim diet as pork and shellfish, although it is of course possible that such food remains are residual from earlier levels.12 110

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some Christian burials; it was also a middle aged man with three spikes through his body.

NORTH HARBOUR SITE

Excavations in the North Harbour area of the lower city along Nikomedia Street have brought to light a large Turkish cemetery of the 18th and 19th centuries. Indicated clearly on the German map of Mytilene of 1890, the site was destroyed after 1912 and eventually became a stable and a soap factory according to local informants.13 Our excavations recovered a few shattered headstones and the remains of over sixty skeletons up to a metre below the modern surface level. Garvie Lok is also studying these remains and they provide an interesting corpus with which to compare the Late Medieval burials from the castle. One burial in particular has attracted a good deal of attention because of the unusual associated circumstances: we found a rectangular crypt hollowed out of the Late Classical city wall that runs through the site. In it were scattered remains of a wooden coffin and dozens of small nails that held it together; in the coffin were the bones of a man of middle years who appears to have been spiked into his grave by three curving iron nails, ca. 20 cm in length (Fig. 7). Study of the burial is not complete, but it is clearly one of a person believed to be a possible vampire or revenant. Such burials are widely attested in Central Europe and the Balkans but to my knowledge the Mytilene example is the first attested from a Muslim cemetery.14 Anastasia Tsaliki, who is studying such anomalous burials, informs me that another burial was found in a suburb of Mytilene in 1999 among

All other burials from the area were simple interments of bodies, perhaps wrapped in a shroud and deposited in the earth. There are some peculiarities about the body that may have led to this unusual treatment: there may be traces of a small lesion on the inside of the cranium that could have resulted in abnormal behaviour. Particularly odd is the absence of any collagen in the bone sample from one of the legs; other burials sampled all contained at least some collagen and they were buried in a less protected manner (if that has any relation to preservation). While we are in such interesting territory it might also be worth noting the presence of Mytilene in three of the quatrains (3.47, 5.27, and 9.32) of Nostradamus, the famous French prophet of the 16th century. Little noted by previous scholars on the subject, his predictions of invasion and naval activity give remarkable prominence to the island (referred to by its Post-Medieval name of Methelin). One might suggest that its most famous native son at the time, Khair-ed-Din (better known by his Western nickname of Barbarossa), who had become for the Christian powers the scourge of the Mediterranean, could have been responsible for the attention paid to an otherwise relatively unimportant place.

Fig. 7 - Skeletal remains of a ‘vampire’ – iron curved nail visible close to the heel of the left foot

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perhaps attest to the well known Turkish love of plants and blossoms.

Ottoman coinage is represented by eighteen examples from the 15th -19th centuries with one gold coin.15 Another aspect of our work on the Ottoman period is the rich collection of different ceramic wares from the 16th to 19th centuries.16 From the early years of the occupation come fragments of Iznik (coffee) cups, including at least one that can be attributed to the early production of the Iznik industry, known as ‘Abraham of Kutahya’, dated to 14801530. From later in the 16th century are small quantities of Italian Monte Lupo ware, while in the 18th century begin the imports of Chinese blue on white trade ceramics as well as Turkish copies.17 A striking ware, perhaps of the 18th century, is a dark green unglazed clay with incised decoration; the shapes are of water jugs and appear to owe much to metal prototypes for their form. Other imports of the late 18th to early 19th centuries include apple green glazed wares from Chios, Didymoteichon ware from Northern Greece with its characteristic variegated marbled surface, and a small quantity of Canakkale ware from the Dardanelles.

There is surprisingly little other material from the debris and it seems likely that the inhabitants were able to salvage much from their collapsed houses. Given the quantity of ancient inscriptions found reused elsewhere in the city we had hoped for some additions to the local corpus but in fact there were none. A few partial bronze or copper vessels (including most of an inkwell), some bronze coins and the gold one mentioned above, a few knives and forks, and a single spur are among the more noteworthy finds. Study and publication of the results of our work from 1984-1994 are currently under way and we hope to add further contributions to this period of the history of the Northeastern Aegean that to date has received little attention from archaeologists. ADDENDUM

The bulk of our pottery, however, comes from the 19th century and originates from the last settlement in this part of the castle, evidently destroyed in the major earthquake of 1867. The ‘fine’ wares tend to be crudely made glazed vessels covered with a green or brown glaze, with added decoration in lighter shades of green or beige.

Excavations were carried out under the aegis of the LZ Ephoreia of Byzantine and Post Byzantine Antiquities in the spring of 2009 in the central terrace of the castro under an Ottoman structure (possibly shops or a small house) built in the 1870s (coins of 1872 and 1876 in the fill below its floor) to replace an earlier structure destroyed in the great earthquake of February, 1867. The earlier structure, possibly part of a house, had disturbed a cemetery on the site; ten much disturbed burials appeared lying on bed rock. Their east-west orientation suggests a Christian cemetery but whether it was Medieval or Late Antique has not yet been determined. A second trench revealed a large dump of mid 19th century ceramics, glass bottles, cutlery, and pans under another floor.

The presence of several kiln supports glazed in the same way clearly indicates that the production was local, although exactly where is not yet known; it is likely, however, that present centres of production on the island like Mantamados and Agiassos were probably active in the last century as well. By sheer weight and volume the largest quantity seem to be flower pots, not unlike the cruder varieties sold cheaply in garden shops today; they

APPENDIX

Byzantine, Medieval, and Ottoman Coins Excavated at Mytilene (studied by Robert Weir, University of Windsor) MYT I: Kastro 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Myt. I, Byzantine, C 189: Constantine VII, 914-919 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 15: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 154: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 193: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 201: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 221: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 30: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 5: Francesco Gattilusio I, 1355-1376; uniface lead token or seal Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 23: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 199: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. I, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 30: Domenico Gattilusio, 1449-1459 Myt. I, Medieval —Thebes?, C 115: possibly Frankish duchy of Thebes, circa 1240-1300 Myt. I, Medieval —Venice, C —: tornosello of 14th century fabric Myt. I, Medieval —Venice, C 35: tornosello of 14th-15th century Myt. I, Medieval —Venice?, C 2: probably Venetian tornosello of 13th-15th century Myt. I, Ottoman, C 12: Murad II, 1421-1444 and 1446-1451 112

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17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

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Myt. I, Ottoman, C 22: Murad II, 1421-1444 and 1446-1451 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 114: Selim II, 1566-1574 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 24: Mehmed IV, 1648-1687 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 101: Mustafa II, 1695-1703 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 121: Ahmed III, 1703-1730 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 37: Mahmud I?, 1730-1754 Myt. I, Ottoman, C —: Mustafa III, 1757-1774 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 11: Mustafa III, 1757–1774 Myt. I, Ottoman, C —: Selim III, 1789-1807; gold coin of Cairo mint Myt. I, Ottoman, C 102: Mahmud II, 1808-1839 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 20: Mahmud II, 1808-1839 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 38: Mahmud II, 1808-1839 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 7: Abdul-megid I, 1839–1861 Myt. I, Ottoman, C 3: 14-16th century fabric Myt. I, Ottoman, C 222: 15th-17th century fabric Myt. I, Ottoman, C 34: 16th-18th century fabric Myt. I, Ottoman, C 10: 17th century fabric

MYT II: Epano Skala 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Myt. II, Byzantine, C 7: Justinian I, 527-565 Myt. II, Byzantine, C 47: Phocas, 602-610 Myt. II, Byzantine, C 10: Heraclius, 610-641 Myt. II, Byzantine, C—: Heraclius, 610-641 Myt. II, Byzantine, C 4: Leo VI, 886-912 Myt. II, Byzantine, C 48: Basil I, late 9th c. Myt. II, Byzantine, C 5: Constantine VII, class 5 follis, circa 945/950 Myt. II, Byzantine, C 6: anonymous follis of class A2, 969-1025 Myt. II, Byzantine, C 9: anonymous follis of class A, late 10th –early 11th century Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 16: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 39: Francesco I Gattilusio, 1355-1376 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 17: Jacques Gattilusio, 1376-1396 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C —: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C —: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 11: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 16: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 3: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. II, Medieval —Gattilusi, C 8: Dorino Gattilusio, 1400-1449 Myt. II, Medieval —Maona of Chios, C 106: king Conrad, after 1347 Myt. II, Ottoman, C —: Murad II, 1421-1444 and 1446-1451 Myt. II, Ottoman, C 26: Mehmed IV, 1648-1687 Myt. II, Ottoman, C 15: Ahmed III, 1703-1730 Myt. II, Ottoman, C 14: Abdul-Aziz, 1861-1875 Myt. II, Ottoman, C 109: 16th-18th century fabric Myt. II, Ottoman, C 14: 17th-19th century fabric Myt. II, Modern Greek, C 45: king Otho, 1867 Myt. II, Modern Greek, C 169: king Otho, 1882

NOTES 283). 4 For a recent discussion see Mazarakis (1996). Unfortunately excavations have not yet clarified the chronology of most of the fortifications and scholars differ on what might be Byzantine and what Gattelusi. A Latin inscription built over a gate on the west side dates at least that part of the structure to 1373. 5 See Ivison (1992, 423-447) and Williams (1996, 49-58). 6 Charles Newton records its existence ca. 1855 (Newton 1865, 117118) and its minaret seems to appear in an engraving by Choiseul Gouffier ca. 1780; the new mosque was destroyed in the 1920s after the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. Elements of it as well as its foundations, mihrab and lower courses are still visible at the site. 7 The ephoreia has also recently carried out excavations of Turkish

1

In the late 19th century a team of German scholars led by Robert Koldewey produced an important study of the antiquities of the island, but it paid little attention to Post Antique remains, see Koldewey 1890. 2 For reports see C. and H. Williams annually in Classical Views/Echos du monde classique from 1984-1991. The project is sponsored by the University of British Columbia and the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of British Columbia, and private donors. We also acknowledge with thanks the support of the K’ Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities at Mytilene and its Director, Mme. Aglaia Archontidhou, our coinvestigator at the North Harbour site. 3 For a discussion of Francesco Gattelusi’s role see Nicol (1986, 269-

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buildings on the central terrace of the castle. 8 See Hasluck (1908, 248-269) and Ivision (1992, 199). The latter points out that the large, apparently recut Roman marble sarcophagus illustrated was perhaps never used but abandoned when flaws in the marble stopped work during cutting the Gattelusi arms, a scale pattern, on the lower left hand side. It is a monumental work and certainly different from most of the typical high status sarcophagi created in Frankish Greece or for the Genoese community in Constantinople. One might indeed look further west for parallels. 9 The piece is a coarse bone or horn disk, notched as a cord release or nut, and transfixed by iron pins both through the axis and vertically (see Payne Gallway 1903, 95-97); the iron pin has caused a crack on the axis. Our example seems to be one of the ‘horn nuts’ illustrated in Payne Gallway (1903, fig. 52). 10 A complete study of the inscriptions has been conducted by M. Kiel (see Karydis and Kiel 2000). 11 An elderly workman informed me that around 1960 the then Ephor of Mytilene, Mr. S. Charitonides, brought in a small bulldozer to consolidate the collapsed heaps of rubble that lay scattered about the lower terrace of the castle. Our single trench in this area (some ten metres down the kalderimi from the medrese) uncovered a probably Hellenistic rock cut cistern whose limited contents were mostly late Ottoman in date. 12 A preliminary study of the faunal material from all our levels has been completed by Debora Ruscillo, University of Missouri, St. Louis. 13 Koldewey 1890. 14 See, for example, Barber 1988, or for a more traditional discussion Montague Summers (1991). Methods of dealing with suspected revenants varied from stakes to burning, to decapitation and separate burial of the head. I have found no other examples of three stakes. There is an account of Turks dealing with a suspected Greek vampire retold in Summers (1991, 207), but I have found none about Muslim revenants. Newton recounts a local practice, presumably Christian, on Lesbos of burying suspected vampires on offshore islets since they cannot cross salt water (1865, 213). 15 Robert Weir, University of Windsor, is studying and publishing all our numismatic finds. 16 Caroline Williams, on whose work this paragraph is based, is preparing the final publication of the pottery from our excavations. 17 Cheryl Ward, Florida State University, informs me that on the basis of her recent excavations of an Ottoman wreck in Egypt such trade pottery may in fact begin rather earlier (i.e. in the later 17th century) than usually dated.

Ivison, E., 1992, ‘Funerary Monuments of the Gattelusi at Mytilene’, Annual of the British School at Athens 87, 423-447. Karydis, D. and Kiel, M., 2000, Mytilinis astygraphia kai Lesvou horographia 15os-19os ai, Athens: Olkos. Koldewey, R., 1890, Die antiken Baureste der Insel Lesbos, Berlin: Riemer. Loupou, K., 2007, To kastro tis Mitilinis, Mitilini. Mazarakis, A. (ed.), 1996, Oi Gattelouzoi tis Lesvou, Athens: Phoiniki. Newton, C.T., 1865, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, London: Day. Nicol, D., [1967], 1986, ‘The Abdication of John VI Cantacuzene’ in Polychordia: Festschrift für Franz Doelger zum 75. Geburtstag, Amsterdam, 269-283, reprinted in Studies in Late Byzantine History and Prosopography, (1986) London: Variorum Reprints. Payne Gallway, R., 1903, The Crossbow: Its Military and Sporting History, Construction and Use, London. Summers, M., [1928], 1991 reprint, The Vampire, New York: Dorset Press. Williams, C. and H., 1984-1991, Mytilene Excavation Preliminary Reports, Classical Views and View / Échos du monde classique, Calgary: Classical Association of Canada. Williams, C. and H., 1984-1991, Mytilene Excavation Preliminary Reports, Classical Views and View / Échos du monde classique, Calgary: Classical Association of Canada. Williams, H., 1996, ‘The Castle of the Gattelusi at Mytilene’, in A. Mazarakis (ed.), Oi Gattelouzoi tis Lesvou, Athens: Phoiniki, 49-58.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hector Williams University of British Columbia Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies Email: [email protected]

Barber, P., 1988, Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality, New York: Yale University Press. Hasluck, F., 1908, ‘Monuments of the Gattilusi’, Annual of the British School at Athens 15, 248-269.

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3.2 Human Remains from the Fortress of Mytilene Sandra J. Garvie-Lok Somewhat more insight is offered by non-specific stress indicators. The incidence of linear enamel hypoplasia is high, with 52 teeth (41.3%) affected and all but one adult individual having at least one hypoplastic tooth.5 A similar high rate of affected individuals (35 out of 39) is reported at Saraçhane by Brothwell. Both of these sites stand in contrast to much lower rates reported for some earlier Medieval Greek populations, such as Early Byzantine Eleutherna and Messene (1.3% and 2.2% of teeth affected)6 and Early Byzantine Corinth (7 out of 50 individuals affected).7 Some other clues point to stress encountered at various points of life. Two adults show healed lesions of cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis, suggesting an episode of nutritional stress or illness in childhood.8 Three adults show diffuse subperiosteal bone depositions on the lower limbs, a condition that has been argued to reflect general stress due to poor nutrition or illness in adulthood.9 Thus, there are a number of indications that despite their high status, the population represented by the fortress burials was exposed to significant physiological stress caused by illness or nutritional difficulties.

INTRODUCTION

The human remains recovered from the fortress represent a small group of burials in relatively poor condition. Although some skeletons were discovered largely intact, most were recovered in a partial state, and a large amount of scattered human bone was excavated from the area of the burials. The condition of the remains reflects disturbance during the use of the burial ground, as well as building activity and other disruptions at the site after its use as a burial area. The recovery of small and poorly preserved series of burials is a common problem at Medieval Greek excavations. Although such samples cannot provide the richness of information that can be obtained from larger burial series,1 they can still provide interesting insights into life in this era. This brief summary of findings for the burials describes some of the information gathered on the remains and its implications for the activity, health and diet of those who buried their dead in the fortress at Mytilene. THE REMAINS

Excavations in the fortress produced the partial or complete remains of fourteen individuals (see Table 1). Of these, one burial was judged by the excavators to be an intrusion from the Turkish era. The condition of the remains precluded age and sex estimation for most individuals; those estimates that could be made are presented in Table 1.2 The small number of juveniles recovered relative to the number of adults does not reflect the expected pattern for a pre-modern population, in which most deaths would have occurred in childhood. Whether this reflects the burial of juveniles elsewhere in the site or the general bias against the preservation and recovery of small, fragile juvenile remains is uncertain. INDICATORS OF DIET AND NON-SPECIFIC STRESS

Information on the diet and general health of the Gatteliusi-era population is provided by oral pathology, non-specific stress indicators, and stable isotope values. Oral pathology was examined for all adult individuals, with dental caries, antemortem tooth loss and abscessing tallied; the results are shown in Table 2.3 The sample is small, and skewed by the presence of two individuals with extremely poor dental health. Given these limitations, all that can be said is that the values are not unusual for Medieval populations in the Eastern Mediterranean; e.g., the caries and abscessing rates, are not too different from those (9.6% and 5.5%) reported for Late Byzantine Saraçhane (Istanbul) by Brothwell.4 There is nothing to suggest unusually good or poor oral health in the group for the time and region.

Individual

Age

Sex

86-1-H1a

0.5 to 1 year

unknown

86-1-H2

adult

male

86-1-H3a

2 to 3 years

unknown

86-1-H4

40 to 60 years

male

86-1-H5

adult

unknown

86-1-H6

adult

male

86-1-H8

18 to 20 years

unknown

86-1-H9

over 50 years

female

86-1-H14

adult

unknown

86-1-H17

adult

unknown

87-1-H1 †

45 to 60 years

male

89-1-H1

adult

unknown

89-1-H2

adult

unknown

89-1-H3

35 to 40 years

female

† Likely intrusive burial from Turkish period

Table 1 - Tally of Individuals with Sex and Age Estimates

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A stable isotope analysis of the remains carried out as part of a larger study on health and diet in Medieval Greece gives an idea of what the group was eating.10 The analysis used bone collagen δ13C and δ15N and bone mineral δ13C to reconstruct the importance of some key foods including marine resources and other animal proteins to the diet.11 A summary of the results for the fortress burials is presented here. Bone carbonate δ13C values (see Table 3 and Fig. 1) indicate a primary reliance on staples such as wheat, barley and olive oil, which is not surprising given the staples still produced on Lesbos today. The scatter of the results may reflect minor and variable consumption of millet or sugarcane.12 Bone collagen δ13C values (see Table 3 and Fig. 2) suggest that the high-protein component of the diet consisted primarily of foods such as meat from domesticated animals, dairy products or game.13 Collagen δ15N values are high, especially for the infant 86-1-1a, which shows the elevated δ15N typical of a nursing child. The high δ15N values relative to local domesticate δ15N indicate that a large portion of dietary protein was provided by animal products; although legumes were important to some Medieval populations, this does not seem to have been the case here. Although the δ13C values of the fortress burials indicates a diet focused on land resources, the positive relationship between δ13C and δ15N values (see Fig. 2) indicates that some marine resources were also consumed.

Fig. 1 - Stable carbon isotope values of bone collagen and mineral from the fortress remains

The patterning of collagen stable isotope values seen in this group of burials is similar to that seen in a number of other coastal Greek populations of the Medieval period.14 As in this case, the values of those groups have been interpreted as reflecting a diet based on land resources and rich in animal products, primarily those of land animals but with some marine foods also consumed. These coastal Greek groups were not of particularly high status, and in the context of documentary evidence for diet in the period, the large amount of animal protein suggested by the δ15N values was likely consumed in the form of dairy products and eggs, supplemented by inexpensive fish products.15 In the case of the higherstatus fortress population, documents describing Medieval upper-class diets suggest that the animal protein in question would have come from a rich assortment of meat, game, fish and shellfish.16 Count

Percent

Tooth sockets examined

166

---

Teeth examined

126

---

15/126

11.9

Antemortem loss

8/166

4.8

Abscessing

6/166

3.6

52/126

41.3

Caries

Linear enamel hypoplasia

Fig. 2 - Stable isotope values of bone collagen from the fortress remains

INDICATORS OF HEALTH AND ACTIVITY

Pathological lesions reflecting joint disease and tendon and ligament stress suggest that this population led a relatively strenuous life. Four adults (86-1-H2, 86-1-H9, 89-1-H1 and 89-1-H3) show marked musculoskeletal stress indicators consistent with fairly heavy physical activity; these are most frequent in the shoulder.17 Signs of degenerative joint disease are seen in six adults: 86-1H2, 86-1-H4, 86-1-H6, 86-1-H9, 89-1-H2, and 89-1-H3. These vary in severity, and are most frequent in the spine (five of six individuals affected) and upper limbs (four of six individuals affected).18 While the appearance of osteoarthritis in older adults is expected, the tendency of both osteoarthritis and heavy musculoskeletal stress markers to appear in the upper limbs is interesting. Although the sample is too small to allow a systematic study of activity patterns, it suggests that at least some men and women in the group engaged in heavy physical activity, particularly using the arms, on a regular basis.

Table 2 - Oral Pathology

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Individual

Age

86-1-H1a 0.5 to 1 year 86-1-H2 adult 86-1-H3a 2 to 3 years 86-1-H4 40 to 60 years 86-1-H5 adult 86-1-H6 adult 86-1-H8 18 to 20 years 86-1-H9 over 50 years 86-1-H14 adult 86-1-H17 adult 87-1-H1 45 to 60 years 89-1-H1 adult 89-1-H2 adult 89-1-H3 35 to 40 years † Sample preservation unacceptable

3. Medieval and Ottoman Mytilene

Collagen δ13C (‰) -18.1 -19.5 -19.1 † † † -19.1 -19.5 -19.4 -19.8 † -19.1 -19.0 -19.1

Sex unknown male unknown male unknown male unknown female unknown unknown male unknown unknown female

Collagen δ15N (‰) 10.9 7.3 8.6 † † † 9.5 7.8 8.1 7.4 † 9.7 8.5 8.3

Carbonate δ13C (‰) † -10.4 -10.9 † † † -9.6 -12.3 -11.4 -11.5 † -11.2 † -11.1

Table 3 - Stable Isotope Results

assume that these two injuries were sustained in a single incident. The location of the break at the midshaft of the ulna, where modern parry fractures due to interpersonal conflict commonly occur, raises the possibility that the injuries were sustained in a fight. In this scenario, the left arm, raised to shield the head or face, would have been struck at least twice, once along the forearm and once at the wrist.

In one individual, the combination of musculoskeletal stress indicators and trauma suggests a particular activity. The adult male 86-1-H2 shows heavy development of the attachment areas for muscles and ligaments responsible for strengthening and stabilizing the right and left shoulders, along with heavy development of the attachment points of some muscles of the arm including the right deltoid, which raises the arm at the shoulder. These stress markers, together with signs of degenerative joint disease in the right shoulder, suggest strenuous habitual physical activity of some sort involving the shoulders and arms, especially the right arm. These indicators are accompanied by signs of injury to the left arm. The left ulna displays a fracture roughly halfway down the shaft (see Fig. 3). This healed fully before death, with no signs of major complications. The left wrist shows signs of another injury. Four of the carpal bones are fused into a single mass (see Fig. 4); the nonarticular surfaces of this mass are covered with webbed bone perforated by smooth-bordered holes, a likely sign of inflammation and infection. Two other carpals are separate from the mass, but show a similar surface appearance. The joint between the carpals and the radius shows arthritic changes, and foamy deposits of bone suggestive of inflammation extend from the wrist along the bones of the forearm (see Fig. 5). The extensive bony changes and signs of repeated remodelling suggest that the wrist injury, like the ulnar fracture, occurred well before death. The infection was clearly still active at the time of death. While it is not possible to say whether the condition contributed to 86-1-H2’s death, it would clearly have caused considerable and chronic pain. The appearance of the wrist best matches a diagnosis of septic arthritis, which is caused by the introduction of infective organisms into a joint, usually as a result of trauma.19 The origin of the infection in the wrist does not appear to be the forearm fracture, which does not show a similar infection. This makes it more likely that the wrist suffered from a separate injury that resulted in an open wound leading to septic arthritis. It is reasonable to

Fig. 3 - Individual 86-1-H2, dorsal aspect of left ulna showing healed fracture in shaft. The crack across the fracture area is due to post-mortem damage

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The presence of these injuries in an adult male from a turbulent and warlike period of Mytilene’s history raises the possibility that they were sustained in military combat. Mitchell’s extensive review of palaeopathological studies of Medieval military casualties shows the forearm to be a common location of injury,20 reflecting wounds inflicted while the arm was raised protectively over the face. Injury to the left side of the body, reflecting attack by a right-handed opponent, is also common. The injuries in the military skeletal series tend to be caused by cutting weapons, and to be more severe than those sustained by 86-1-H2, sometimes severing a limb completely. However, it is important to recognize that a soldier’s protective gear could turn a lethal cutting blow into a less severe wound.21 This can be inferred from descriptions of the protection worn in combat at the time.22 Coats of scales or mail worn in the Late Byzantine era were often elbow-length, leaving the forearms unprotected. Western body armour of that period typically consisted of a coat of mail which reached to the elbows or the wrists and could be worn with chain mail mittens. After the mid-fourteenth century, plated armour for the hands and forearms became common in Western Europe. Often, a shield would be held across the left forearm; this might be made of iron but was often leathercovered wood. These afforded imperfect protection; throughout Byzantine times, war chronicles made frequent reference to such wooden shields shattering in combat. This system of armour offers some plausible scenarios for injuries similar to those seen in 86-1-H2. A combatant whose shield broke or was dropped during combat might be left with only mail protecting the forearm; this could stop a deep cutting blow, but would not protect its wearer from a fracture, or from the effects of dirty links of mail impacted into the flesh. Alternatively, a blow shattering the shield in the centre could itself cause the injury, breaking the ulna and driving fragments of the shield into the flesh.

Thus, the indicators seen on the skeleton of individual 861-H2 present a suggestive picture: injuries consistent with combat, seen in an adult male showing signs of habitual heavy exertion of the arms and shoulders, whose association with the Gatteliusi chapel makes a warlike life a reasonable possibility. Although scenarios of this sort are always speculative, this one is plausible given the violent and warlike nature of the man’s time.

Fig. 5 - Individual 86-1-H2, dorsal aspect of left radius showing reactive bone adjacent to wrist

CONCLUSION

Despite its small size and poor preservation, the series of human remains recovered from the Mytilene fortress provides a fair amount of information on the lives of those interred there. Life was more stressful than their elite status might suggest, as several bear signs of vigorous physical activity and indications of physiological stress are common. In one individual, injuries and stress lesions come together to suggest the portrait of a man active in combat whose fighting career left him with an old injury that would still have been causing him considerable pain when he died. Stable isotope analysis suggests that the fortress group’s diet was based on staples such as wheat, barley and oil, supplemented with an ample amount of land animal protein and some marine resources. In the context of their high status and documentary evidence for upper-class diets of the time, this suggests a diet rich in meat and game, with fish and shellfish also eaten. Given this apparently rich and varied diet, it may be that the physiological stresses these people suffered were usually linked to various illnesses. All of these findings suggest that while rank may have had its privileges, it did not shield the elite of Mytilene from the physical demands and stresses of their era.

Fig. 4 - Individual 86-1-H2, fusion of left wrist elements. Bones included in the mass are the scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum and capitate. Palmar aspect of mass shown; scale is at medial side

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Bourbou, C. 2003, ‘Health patterns of proto-Byzantine populations (6th – 7th centuries AD) in south Greece: the cases of Eleutherna (Crete) and Messene (Peloponnese)’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 13, 303-313. Bourbou, C., and Garvie-Lok, S.J., in print, ‘All in the cooking pot: Invitation to a dinner in Byzantine Greece’, in A. Papathanasiou and M. Richards (eds), Stable Isotope Dietary Studies of Prehistoric and Historic Greek Populations, Occasional Wiener Laboratory Series, Princeton, NJ. Brothwell, D., 1986, ‘The human bones’, in R.M. Harrison, Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul. Vol. I: The Excavations, Structures, Architectural Decoration, Small Finds, Coins, Bones and Molluscs, Princeton University Press and Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 374-398. Buikstra, J., and Ubelaker, D., 1994, Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains, Arkansas Archaeological Survey Research Series no. 44, Fayetteville, AR: Arkansas Archaeological Survey. de Vries, K., 1992, Medieval Military Technology, Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. Galloway, J.H., 1977, ‘The Mediterranean sugar industry’, Geographical Review 67(2), 177-194. Garvie-Lok, S.J., 2001, Loaves and Fishes: A Stable Isotope Reconstruction of Diet in Medieval Greece, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Calgary Department of Archaeology. Hershkovitz, I., Rothschild, B.M, Latimer, B., Dutour, O., Léonetti, G., Greenwald, C.M and Rothschild, C., 1997, ‘Recognition of sickle cell anemia in skeletal remains of children’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 104, 213-226. Hillson, S., 1996, Dental Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Katzenberg, M.A., 2000, ‘Stable isotope analysis: A tool for studying past diet, demography, and life history’ in M. A. Katzenberg and S. R. Saunders (eds), Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, New York: Wiley-Liss, 305–327. Kolias, T.G., 1988, Byzantinische Waffen: Ein Beitrag zur Byzantinische Waffenkunde von den Anfängen bis zur Lateinischen Eroberung, Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Larsen, C.S., 1997, Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behaviour from the Human Skeleton, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, M.E., 2002, ‘Impact of industrialization: Comparative study of child health in four sites from Medieval and Post-Medieval England (A.D. 850-1859)’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 119, 211-223. Mintz, S., 1996, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom, Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

NOTES 1 See for example Lewis 2002, and the many other informative studies carried out on the large English Medieval skeletal series from Wharram Percy and St. Helen-on-the-Walls. 2 Sex and age estimations were determined using methods standard in the literature, as summarized by Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994). 3 The data reported exclude the Turkish-era intrusive burial. 4 Brothwell 1986. 5 Lesions of linear enamel hypoplasia reflect episodes of significant stress due to illness or poor nutrition suffered during childhood; their etiology and use as non-specific stress indicators in archaeological populations are reviewed by Hillson (1996) and Larsen (1997). 6 Bourbou 2003. 7 Wesolowsky 1973. 8 These conditions are associated with anaemia arising from illness or nutritional deficiency (Stuart-Macadam 1989; Larsen 1997). They can also result from thalassemia; however, the other lesions typically associated with thalassemia (Ortner and Putschar 1981; Hershkovitz et al. 1997) are absent in these remains, suggesting that the problem here was a significant episode of illness or nutritional deficiency. 9 Larsen 1997. 10 Garvie-Lok 2001. 11 Briefly, bone carbonate δ13C values, measured from bone mineral, provide information on the bulk diet, especially starch and fat staples. Low δ13C values around -12‰ reflect a diet based on staples such as wheat, barley and olive oil. Higher values reflect the incorporation of a few specific staple foods into the diet; in Gatteliusi-era Mytilene, the available foods of this type were millet and sugarcane. Collagen δ13C and δ15N values primarily reflect high-protein items in the diet. High δ15N values relative to local domesticated fauna suggest a diet rich in animal-derived proteins; coupled with elevated δ13C values, they suggest the consumption of marine resources. The nitrogen isotope effect of breastfeeding causes nursing infants to show δ15N values elevated above those of adults in the population. More detail on the theoretical basis of stable isotope analysis can be obtained from a review such as Katzenberg 2000. 12 Sugar was a luxury item in Medieval Europe (Mintz 1996; Adamson 2004), but given the status of the Gatteliusi and the importance of the Aegean sugar industry in their era (Galloway 1977), significant sugar consumption should be considered a definite possibility for this particular group. 13 The δ13C values of local domesticated animals average around 21.3‰; δ15N values average around 5.9‰ (Garvie-Lok 2001). 14 Garvie-Lok 2001; Bourbou and Garvie-Lok in print. 15 Garvie-Lok 2001; Bourbou and Garvie-Lok in print. 16 Adamson 2004. 17 The musculoskeletal stress indicators discussed here consist of bony signs of stress at the attachment points of major muscles and ligaments. Larsen (1997) reviews the use of the severity and patterning of these indicators to reconstruct habitual activity patterns in past populations. 18 Degenerative joint disease was diagnosed following generally accepted diagnostic criteria; these are reviewed by Roberts and Manchester (1995). Schmorl’s nodes of the vertebral bodies, which are associated with other indicators of intervertebral disk deterioration (Ortner and Putschar 1981, Roberts and Manchester 1995), were also noted. All counts in this section exclude the Turkish-era intrusive burial. 19 Positive matches to the features of septic arthritis as reviewed by Ortner and Putshar (1981) are fusion of the wrist bones, the presence of webbed bone with small drainage holes on their surfaces indicating long-term inflammation and infection, and the formation of reactive bone around the joint extending away from the joint along the shafts of the bones. Diagnoses rejected include degenerative joint disease, which rarely causes ankylosis, and rheumatoid arthritis, which typically affects multiple joints in a symmetrical pattern (Ortner and Putschar 1981, Roberts and Manchester 1995). 20 Mitchell 2004. 21 Mitchell et al. 2006. 22 Kolias 1988; DeVries 1992.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adamson, M.W., 2004, Food in Medieval Times, Westport, CT: Greenwood.

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Mitchell, P.D., 2004, Medicine in the Crusades: Warfare, Wounds and the Medieval Surgeon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, P.D., Nagar Y. and Ellenblum, R., 2006, ‘Weapon injuries in the 12th century Crusader garrison of Vadum Iacob castle, Galilee’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 16, 145-155. Ortner, D.J., and Putschar, W.G., 1981, Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, 28, Washington, DC: Smithsonian University Press.

Roberts, C. and Manchester, K., 1995 (2nd edition), The Archaeology of Disease, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press. Stuart-Macadam, P., 1989, ‘Porotic hyperostosis: Relationship between orbital and vault lesions’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 80, 187-193. Wesolowsky, A.B., 1973, ‘The skeletons of Lerna Hollow’, Hesperia 42, 340-351.

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Sandra J. Garvie-Lok Department of Anthropology University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta Email: [email protected]

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3.3 The Ottoman Clay Smoking Pipes from Mytilene John W. Humphrey other sites, it seemed useful at this stage to issue this preliminary report on the basic styles of Turkish clay smoking pipes from the excavation.

INTRODUCTION

Over several seasons of the Canadian excavations of ancient Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos, carried out since 1983 under the auspices of the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens,1 some 2,000 fragments of Turkish clay smoking pipes were unearthed, more than two-thirds of them sufficiently complete or unusual to warrant being inventoried. Almost all these pipes came from a series of trenches on the acropolis,2 which is now dominated by a 14th century Genoese castle that, together with the rest of the island, passed to the Turks in 1462 and did not revert to Greek control until 1912. While it may not initially seem surprising that such a large sample of smoking pipes should result from a period of four and a half centuries of uninterrupted Turkish occupation of the acropolis, during the last three of which pipe-smoking became a common habit among both the Turks and Greeks, it should be noted that the only collection of similar size that has hitherto been described (albeit briefly) by its excavators is that from the Dumbarton Oaks excavations at Saraçhane and Kalenderhane in Istanbul, a city that was itself a centre of pipe production.3

Robinson in particular has done much to advance our knowledge of the history, manufacture, and evolving styles of the lüle, or ceramic pipe-bowl, from its first appearance just after 1600 until its replacement in the early part of the last century by the more practical (and, not incidentally, cooler) Western European briar pipe.14 Fortunately, some of her examples from the Greek mainland and many of those outlined by John Hayes in his typology of the pipes from Istanbul were found in dated contexts, allowing them to posit a tentative chronological development of the clay pipe-bowl from the small, early varieties in greyish-white clay to the larger, generally more ornate, reddish-brown styles of the 19th century. THE OTTOMAN PIPES OF MYTILENE IN CONTEXT

The extraordinarily large sample from Mytilene, it seems, covers most of this period, at least up to the mid 19th century,15 with unusual quantities of the early forms in particular, most of which seldom appear at other sites; indeed, of the seventy major distinct types of tobacco pipe found, fewer than half have immediate parallels in the previously published collections.

From elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean the samples (at least those published and generally accessible) are rather more meagre, though a few have been admirably catalogued. Magdalena Stanceva and Valka Iltcheva have described several varieties from Sophia, Varna, and Veliko Tirnova in Bulgaria, and have supplied our first typology of applied decorative elements.4 More importantly, Rebecca Robinson has issued the first systematic catalogues of Turkish clay smoking pipes, about 60 of them from the Kerameikos excavations in Athens,5 and another 180 from Corinth and the Athenian Agora.6 John Wood has written useful descriptions of pipes found in Malta and Tunis.7 Other more modest collections of items have recently been noted: six relatively insignificant fragments from Crete,8 a few examples from Kastellorizo,9 a review of the previously published finds from Jerusalem and the Levant,10 and a useful sociological analysis of pipe smoking based on artefacts recovered from an Egyptian shipwreck.11 Phillipe Gosse’s recent BAR publication of the pipes from the quarantine harbour of Pomègues in Marseilles contains several parallels, though very few for the finer pipes of Series 3;12 and all of us eagerly await St John Simpson’s forthcoming study,13 which will be the most comprehensive analysis of the artefacts to date. A full online catalogue of the pipes from Mytilene is now in preparation, but since much work remains to be done on the hundreds of apparently unique fragments that have no parallels either locally or in the published accounts of

Sadly, the pipes from the acropolis were found in a much disturbed surface level with no obvious stratigraphy and in context with few other finds that could be chronologically fixed. Indeed, it appears that, late in the Turkish occupation of the island, the top of the acropolis was artificially levelled off (perhaps to create a parade ground), with earth brought in from elsewhere in the city. It is in this imported stratum that most of the Mytilene pipes have been found. Their original provenance, and why so many were dumped in one place, cannot now be determined. But the distribution of the various styles around the acropolis suggests that the soil was brought from different sites (or from different strata within a single site), each with chronologically distinct pipe deposits. Inevitably, then, the assignment of dates to the various styles that follow is based for the most part not on local evidence but on comparative study with the (already tentatively) dated examples from Istanbul, Athens, and especially Corinth. Still, it is now possible to group together at least on general stylistic grounds some common varieties of lüle, based on the criteria of the pipe’s fabric and size, and the shape and decoration of its parts. This arrangement depends on five commonly accepted distinctions:16 first, 121

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In almost all cases the chimney19 above the bowl is either vertical or flares slightly outwards to the rim or lip, which can be flat, rounded, half-rounded, or bevelled. The chimney is often separated from the (generally more bulbous) bowl by a physical or a decorative division, the style of which varies greatly from the thin, slightly raised and rounded ridge typical of Type 3.1, to rouletted bands and more elaborate impressed designs. The generally rounded bowl, more often decorated than the chimneys, varies in shape from nearly spherical through oval and hemispherical to a thin disc; in some few examples, the bowl is quite angular or even reduced to little more than a transition from the high chimney to the keel.

that the white and grey clays were used earlier than the reddish browns; that smaller bowls and stem-sockets generally belong to pipes that were manufactured when imported tobacco was still expensive; that the keel first appears below the bowl around the beginning of the 18th century, perhaps somewhat earlier; that few stamped pipes can be dated before the 18th century, but most examples from the 19th century are stamped; and finally, that the larger disc-based pipes can usually be assigned to the second half of the 19th century. As a result, the pipes of Mytilene have been grouped into the following six major categories: Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 4

Series 5 Series 6

The keel is the point of transition between the vertical bowl and the angled shank, of which it forms a physical part. Viewed from below, it usually ends in a point as it slips into the front curve of the bowl, though in a few examples it can be dramatically squared off. In section the keel is usually rounded; in only a very few examples has it been flattened at the proper angle to act as a stable rest for the pipe. Here the physical design of the lüle restricts the decoration to V-shaped lines (single, double, or triple) following the creases between the bowl and the keel. In most cases this simple outlining is a combination of hand-incised grooves and wheeled rouletting; there are a few cases of lines of small, impressed diamonds; and less frequently there is no decorative division between bowl and keel at all.

small pipes of greyish-white clay, some with a dusky-red finish; 17th to 18th century small pipes of reddish-brown clay; 18th century large pipes of reddish-brown clay in traditional shapes, many with stamps; 18th to 19th century pipes of reddish-brown clay with applied red wash, and homogeneous bowl and shank; perhaps early 18th century lily-shaped pipes; late 19th century; only 6 possible examples hashish pipes; perhaps 17th century

Often this V-decoration of the keel is continued up and over the top of the joint between the bowl and the shank (consisting of the stem and nozzle), disappearing in the confined angle at the very top. Apart from faceting, the stem itself is only rarely decorated, though (most often on its lower right-hand side, as seen by the smoker) it bears the circular makers’ seals or stamps of origin, either symbols (like the bird so typical of Type 3.1) or Arabic monograms. The length of the stems varies from c. 0.6 to 3.0 cm (0.006 to 0.030 m), the shorter style being just long enough to allow the swelling nozzle to clear the bowl. A variety of simple decorations separates the stem from the nozzle: rouletting with one or two parallel, incised lines; a moulded, raised ridge; sometimes a vertical step. The nozzle itself20 appears in four main shapes (round, oval or compressed, flared, and angular or flanged); the distinction among them (though it is not always obvious) depending on the ratio between length and diameter or on the sharp angle between the two planes of the nozzle. The style of decoration, too, varies considerably: it is sometimes limited to one or two shallow bands continuing the decorative theme between the stem and the nozzle; not infrequently the entire nozzle is elaborately decorated; more often there is a design, usually impressed triangles or carved scallops, immediately below the bevelled or stepped surround of the socket.

The first three of these styles account for the great majority of our collection (the other series, especially the hashish pipes, each have unique forms), and it is a selection of these that are illustrated in the catalogue that follows. The related designs are ordered according to the shape and decoration first of the chimney and bowl, then of the shank (that is, the stem and the nozzle) if appropriate.17 At times, the groupings may seem somewhat arbitrary, since not always are all the examples of a particular type identical18 (although there are usually at least several pairs or triplets within any group), but there are clear relationships among all the pipes in each of the sub-categories. The clay bowl that has survived at Mytilene in such large quantities is only one of three parts that originally made up a smoking pipe, but all evidence of the long, hollow, wooden stems and most of the fine amber mouthpieces have disappeared. The lüle itself is composed of three basic parts: the vertical bowl and chimney, the angled shank, and the socket into which the stem was inserted. The fabric, size, shape, and decoration of these three constituents vary widely, a fact that accounts for the individual beauty of the pipes.

TYPE 1.3

The socket, designed to receive the long wooden stem, varies in diameter from the 0.006 m (0.6 cm) found in the small, early models of Series 1 to more than double in the larger examples from Series 3: a development that has

TYPE 3.1

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been associated with the decreasing cost of tobacco as importation increased.21 The area immediately around the socket could be left undecorated, could be flattened, or could bear a ridge (shallow or deep) that is stepped or bevelled.

Type 1.1 18 pipes Clay: white, sometimes pinkish-white or light grey. Surface: white or light grey, occasionally a darker grey or very pale brown.

We have not yet made a detailed analysis of the impressed stamps that appear on many of these pipes, beyond noting the frequency of the circular, oval, and occasionally rectangular stamps that were impressed most often into the lower right shank of pipes of Series 2 and especially Series 3, and recording their designs. Most common are what appear to be Arabic seals, though (as with other collections) many are unintelligible or nearly illegible; but recognizable are words like gamali (probably a proper name), sayed (master), shak’y (miserable), zahiy (bright), and rakha’a (prosperity)…a mixture, then, of makers’ names and wishful attributes. Other stamps, common especially on Series 3 pipes, resemble collections of raised dots, stylized birds, and sprays of lines and dots: their individual significance is not yet clear. Of special note are the Arabic inscriptions that appear encircling the chimney or shank of pipes belonging to Type 1.1, which most commonly include surprisingly romantic phrases such as ‘the beloved,’ ‘the meeting of hearts,’ and ‘the meeting of the beloved.’

Thick, slightly flaring chimney with decoration; chamfered keel; long, faceted stem with prominent nozzle and stepped socket. Hayes Type I; 17th century, perhaps early. H 0.037; L 0.073; D ± 0.029; S ±0.008. _____________________________________________ Type 1.2 6 pipes

A SELECTION OF MYTILENE PIPES

Clay and surface: white, pinkish white, or light grey.

What follows is a partial inventory of the pipes from Mytilene, arranged according to the local typology. Included here are only the most common types, supplemented by some varieties that mirror pipes from other excavations, and a few pieces that have not appeared elsewhere. The full catalogue of pipes from Mytilene will appear in late 2009 on a website that will include all 1500 pipes with colour photographs and detailed measurements and colour analysis.

An unusual design: very short, flared, undecorated chimney; horizontally cylindrical bowl with a circle of moulded wedge-like or floret motifs on sides; stem of medium length; compressed oval nozzle with shallow stepped socket-ring. For the only parallels to date, see Brusic TII.13 and TIV 5 (17th century) and Gosse 196, 302-305.

MYTILENE PIPES - SERIES 1

375 pipes, 17th to early (?) 18th century Twenty-three major types within this series show a great variety of shape and decoration, but all are small and of greyish-white clay, some with an applied dusky-red finish. Most of the pipes of this series have at least a shallow, nascent keel (rather more distinct in some examples), in only a few cases outlined with the incised or rouletted lines more typical of later styles. Compare these shapes with those of Series 2, which includes many similar designs but in reddish-brown clay. No makers’ stamps. Remarkably few of these pipes have published parallels from other sites.

H ≥0.036; L 0.052; D ±0.024; S 0.008. ______________________________________________ Type 1.3 102 pipes Clay: white (most 5YR 8/1), a few with a greyish or pinkish tinge. Surface: predominantly white; some light grey, weak red, or dusky red.

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Type 1.20 15 pipes Clay: mostly white (7.5YR 8/0, N8); 2 reddish-yellow. Surface: light grey and dark grey; some white, light red, and pink.

Tall, vertical chimney, generally undecorated; rounded, sack-like bowl with simple combed or lattice decoration; shallow keel usually outlined by V-grooves; oval nozzle. The seven sub-types differ primarily in the decoration of the bowl. Similar to Hayes Type IX, but with a shorter and more substantial shank; cf. Robinson K8 and A4, of which these pipes may be a finer and somewhat later version. Early 18th century?

Heavy, flared chimney, decorated or faceted; biconical bowl, with impressed motif on long, sloping shoulder and deep gadroons on lower half continuing to keel, often with a stamp in the centre bottom; long, heavy shank with oval nozzle and high stepped socket. Cf. Hayes Type III; Robinson C2, K10. Late 17th century?

H ±0.043; L ±0.047; D ±0.025; S ±0.008. ______________________________________________ Type 1.19 23 pipes

H ±0.035; L ±0.055; D ±0.031; S ±0.008. ______________________________________________

Clay: uniformly white (almost all 7.5YR 8/0). Surface: mostly white (10YR 8/1, 8/2); several grey; a few pink.

MYTILENE PIPES - SERIES 2

322 pipes, 18th century Twenty types of reddish-brown pipes fashioned from red clay. They are generally slightly larger than those of Series 1 – some of whose shapes are duplicated here – and smaller than their close relatives in Series 3. The socket diameters of pipes in Series 2, for example, are less than 10 mm (most of them considerably less); those of Series 3 are larger (usually more than 11 mm). Few stamped examples. Within this series, the types progress from round to more compressed bowls.

1.19a

Type 2.1 44 pipes Clay: light red, red, or reddish-yellow. Surface: predominantly red (2.5YR 5/8) or light red (2.5YR 6/8); some reddish yellow or yellowish red.

1.19b A uniform category of small, heavy pipes: short, slightly flared, and undecorated chimney (though some have a simple rouletted line around rim); compressed bowl with impressed lozenge decoration shoulder; medium keel with rouletted V (and often an inscribed centreline or zipper down length of keel); short shank with rounded nozzle and stepped socket. Hayes Type XXIV; Robinson C3 and K11; Wood VTR 1994 44. Late 17th to 18th century. H ±0.034; L ±0.050; D ±0.030; S ±0.0085. 124

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Type 2.9 25 pipes Clay: light red, reddish yellow, red, or pink. Surface: evenly distributed between light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8) and red (2.5YR 4/6, 5/6, 5/8); a few yellowish red and light reddish brown.

Flared or slightly flared chimney, undecorated; rounded bowl (most vertically combed); shallow keel, sometimes with incised or rouletted V; medium shank; compressed, simple nozzle, often flanged; small socket; one stamped. Larger and coarser than its equivalents in Series 1 (e.g., Type 1.3); and a taller, slimmer, and generally finer version of Type 3.4. No direct parallels come from other sites, but, as with Type 2.2, there are some resemblances to Robinson K14-15; cf. Gosse 264-268. Early 18th century?

Small disc-based pipes, with very tall, vertical, undecorated chimneys, a thin beaded or rouletted divide, and very compressed bowls with combed or petaled shoulders; on many, the combing is continued along the bottom as far as the keel (flattened in one example); almost all nozzles are angular, with combing or lattice. The shapes are similar to Robinson K40 (18th century?).

H ±0.44; L ±0.049; D ±0.029; S ±0.0075. ______________________________________________ Type 2.2 48 pipes

H ±0.046; L ±0.054; D chimney ±0.022, bowl ±0.035; S ±0.008

Clay: mostly light red (2.5YR 6/8); some red or reddish yellow. Surface: mostly red and light red; a few reddish yellow, yellowish red, or reddish brown.

______________________________________________ Type 2.10 23 pipes (including 3 identical pairs) Clay: mostly light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8, 5/6); several reddish yellow and red. Surface: about half light red (2.5YR 6/6); the rest red, yellowish red, and reddish yellow.

Like 2.1, with a (usually) plain, tall chimney (of which only six survive); but with a more compressed bowl beneath an (often) elaborately decorated waistband, whose motif is usually repeated on the nozzle (compressed, normally angular). Cf. Hayes Type VI; Robinson K14-15. Early 18th century. 2.10a

H ±0.44; L ±0.049; D ±0.029; S ±0.0075. ________________________________________

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Type 3.1 116 pipes Clay: almost exclusively light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8); a handful red or reddish yellow. Surface: half of sample red (2.5YR 5/8); significant proportions light red, reddish yellow, and yellowish red; a few reddish brown and brown.

2.10b Similar to 2.9, but of mixed sizes and decorations: few chimneys survive; some with concave moulding between chimney and disc; elaborate decoration on shoulder of bowl and sometimes on bottom of disc; only 2 nozzles survive: 1 round, 1 compressed. Perhaps Gosse’s T 3 (Gosse 216). 3.1a

H ±0.045; L ±0.055; D chimney ±0.023, bowl ±0.038; S ±0.0085. ______________________________________________ Type 2.12 21 pipes Clay: mostly light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8); a few red (2.5YR 5/8). Surface: mostly red (2.5YR 4/6, 5/6 and light red (2.5YR 6/8); a few reddish brown, reddish yellow, and yellowish red.

3.1b

Very tall chimney on a thin disc-shaped bowl of slightly larger diameter; all with angular nozzle. Cf. Robinson A11: 18th century.

3.1c A compact and attractive pipe, and a common and very uniform category, accounting for almost a twelfth of all examples found at Mytilene. Slightly hourglass-shaped body, undecorated except for thin moulding or shallow indentation dividing chimney and bowl. These are generally of about the same height; slight keel, always highlighted by a rouletted V of one to four lines; very short stem; oval, swelling nozzle sometimes set off from stem by a raised collar, shallow groove, or rouletting; stepped or bevelled socket. About three-quarters of them are stamped on the right side or bottom of shank (irregularly on nozzle), most commonly with a stylized bird either alone (21) or in conjunction with a circle of raised dots (20); with an Arabic seal (35); or with both Arabic and a bird (9). For fabric and colour, nozzle,

H ±0.042; L ±0.046; D chimney ±0.024, bowl ±0.032; S ≥0.008. ______________________________________________ MYTILENE PIPES - SERIES 3

370 pipes, 18th to 19th century Larger pipes than those of Series 2, though of similar fabric and reddish finish; plain chimneys, either vertical or flared enough to resemble a modern Turkish çay glass. The majority are stamped, some with Arabic signs, others with a stylized bird. As in Series 2, the types here progress from deeper to more compressed bowls. 126

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relatively small socket diameter, and stamps, compare Type 3.20, surely from the same workshop. These pipes belong to Varna Type 3 (see Varna, 88-89, fig. 12-13) and Hayes Type XXII; see also Robinson C27-28 and K17 (with bird seal), although A10 seems the best parallel. They have traditionally been attributed to a workshop in Varna because, until the excavations at Mytilene, by far the largest number of them had been found there. Second half of the 18th century.

Plain, flared chimney; round bowl with broad carved petals filled with vertical combing; faceted stem; wreathed nozzle with bevelled socket. No stamps. Except for chimney, very like Robinson C33 (= Hayes Type V), from Istanbul. 18th to 19th century. H ±0.041; L ±0.057; D ±0.033; S ±0.013. ______________________________________________ Type 3.8 10 pipes

H ±0.043; L ±0.052; D ±0.031; S ±0.011. ______________________________________________

Clay: mostly light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8); some reddish yellow. Surface: mostly reddish yellow (5YR 6/6, 6/8, 7/6); some yellowish red and red.

Type 3.4 21 pipes Clay: mostly light red (2.5YR 6/8), some reddish yellow, 2 red. Surface: almost all red (10R 4/6, 4/8, 5/6, 5/8); a few weak red, light red, or reddish brown.

Vertical, faceted chimney, plain or with stamped floral decoration; compressed, faceted bowl; flaring nozzle. Three with Arabic seals (two with double seals). These belong to Hayes Type X, dated to after the middle of the 19th century. (If this chronology is accurate, these are apparently the latest pipes found at Mytilene.) Cf. Robinson C93-96, A20; Varna Type 1 (see Varna, 84, fig. 8).

A uniform category: plain, flaring chimney with heavy, moulded rim; varied impressed designs separating chimney from round, vertically combed bowl; keel with V decoration; short shank with oval nozzle (cf. Robinson C30). Almost all surviving nozzles (16) bear similar Arabic seals on their underside. Second half of 18th century?

H ±0.036; L ±0.057; D ±0.036; S ≥0.013. ______________________________________________ Type 3.9 7 pipes

H ≥0.039; L ±0.055; D ±0.033; S ±0.014. ______________________________________________

Clay: all light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8) but 1 red. Surface: red (2.5YR 5/6, 5/8), reddish yellow, or light red.

Type 3.7 7 pipes Clay: reddish yellow (5YR 6/6, 7/8) or light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8). Surface: mostly reddish yellow (5YR 6/6, 6/8); some yellowish red, red, or light red.

Plain, usually vertical chimney with moulded lip; rounded bowl, swelling outward at middle, vertically combed or otherwise heavily decorated; disc-like foot, with flattened keels in some examples; oval and flared nozzles. Two Arabic stamps. For this unusual and 127

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attractive shape there are no real parallels from other sites. H ±0.041; L ±0.056; D ±0.035; S 0.013. ______________________________________________

Plain chimney, most vertical, some flared or tapered; round bowl (some deeper, others very slightly compressed), with vertical petals containing stamped floral motifs; nozzle usually wreathed and scalloped. Five stamps. Early 19th century?

Type 3.11 2 pipes

H ±0.042; L ±0.055; D ±0.033; S ±0.012. ______________________________________

Clay: yellowish red (5YR 5/6. Surface: red (2.5YR 4/8, 5/8).

Type 3.17 9 pipes Clay: light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8) or reddish yellow (5YR 7/6). Surface: predominantly red (10R 5/6, 4/6, 4/8, 5/8).

A pair of very odd pipes, clumsily formed and excessively decorated, quite clearly by the same maker, one hopes an apprentice. Slightly flaring chimney decorated (in one surviving example) with an awkward palm-motif, separated from the bowl by a band of impressed crosses; rounded bowl covered with a stunning variety of impressed and incised designs that made use of perhaps every tool in the maker’s kit: crescents, wedges, circles, crosses, combing, and rouletting; plain stem; deeply notched, angular nozzle with bevelled socket surround.

Highly burnished. Plain, mostly vertical chimneys (several faceted); deeply gadrooned bowl; rouletted and incised V decoration along keel; short stem; nozzle flared or oval/angular. All but two surviving stems with Arabic stamps. Cf. Robinson 1985, pl. 40, which shows an illustration of this type of pipe from 1822. H ±0.041; L ±0.057; D ±0.036; S ≥0.010. ________________________________________ Type 3.19 36 pipes

H 0.048; L 0.054; D 0.032; S 0.010. ______________________________________________

Clay: predominantly light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8); some reddish yellow, a few red or yellowish red. Surface: mostly red (10R 5/8, 5/6, 4/8, 4/6); a few light red.

Type 3.14 29 pipes Clay: predominantly light red (2.5YR 6/8, 6/6); some red, a few reddish yellow and reddish brown. Surface: mostly red (2.5YR 5/8, 4/6, 4/8, 5/6); significant proportion light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8); others yellowish red and reddish brown.

A very uniform group in colour and design (only the shape of the bowl differs): vertical chimney, two examples with fine, shallow vertical combing; concave waistband (three filled with gold leaf), sometimes highlighted by rouletting; bowl of varying heights, from

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hemispherical to compressed; prominent keel outlined by incised or rouletted V; flat, flanged nozzle with bevelled socket surround. Three stamps, two of them stylized fish (?). 18th century, perhaps from Istanbul. H ±0.041; L ±0.053; D ±0.032; S ±0.013. ________________________________________ Type 3.20 26 pipes Clay: predominantly light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8); some reddish yellow. Surface: red (2.5YR 5/6, 5/8), light red, reddish yellow, yellowish red; 2 reddish brown.

Very high, vertical, undecorated chimney; bowl compressed to a thin disc of only slightly larger diameter than chimney (cf. Type 2.11); if decorated, only rouletting or a narrow band of impressed motif at bottom of chimney; keel with lightly incised or rouletted V; nozzles oval (three: cf. Robinson C25), angular (three), or flared (four). Nine Arabic seals, one dotted stamp. Robinson C13 and C70-71 show the same general shape; cf. Gosse 215. 18th to 19th century. H ≥0.037; L ±0.059; D ±0.036; S ±0.012. _______________________________________ ABBREVIATIONS

H= A high, vertical chimney, spreading outward beneath a rouletted or raised divide to join an extremely compressed bowl; undecorated except for a rouletted V around keel; short shank with a plain oval nozzle. The majority are stamped: four with raised dots in a circle, five with an Arabic seal, and three with a stylized bird. Indeed, the fabric and colour, nozzle, relatively small socket diameter, and stamps make this a very close relative of Type 3.1: both belong to the extensive Type 3 from Varna (see Varna, 88, fig. 12), where a total of 26 examples were found, a quantity that suggested local workmanship. To date, Mytilene has yielded six times this number. See, as well, Robinson C23 in particular (with bird stamp), K18, A11. Second half of 18th century.

L= D=

S=

height of complete pipe, measured vertically when the rim is horizontal. length of complete pipe, measured along a line parallel with the rim.22 maximum outer diameter of bowl (where there is a considerable difference in the diameters of chimney and bowl – as in disc-based pipes – both measurements are given). maximum inner diameter of stem-socket. [Most of the four preceding measurements are the median dimensions of those samples large enough or similar enough to be meaningful.] The dimensions are indicated in metres.

Robinson – catalogues of pipes from the Athenian Agora (A), Corinth (C), and the Kerameikos (K) (see notes 5 and 6 above) Hayes – provisional typology of pipes from Istanbul (see note 3 above) Varna – typology of pipes from Varna (see note 4 above: Stanceva 1972) Sofia – examples of pipes from Sofia (see note 4 above: Stanceva and Medarova 1968) Wood – examples of pipes from Malta (see note 7 above: Wood 1998).

H ±0.040; L ±0.055; D ±0.035; S ±0.011. ______________________________________________ Type 3.21 27 pipes Clay: predominantly light red (2.5YR 6/6, 6/8); 6 reddish yellow, 2 pink, and 1 red. Surface: mostly red (2.5YR 5/6, 5/8); several reddish yellow, a few light red.

The descriptions of colours are based on the Munsell Soil Color Chart (Baltimore, 1975).

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3. Medieval and Ottoman Mytilene 19 I think it preferable to divide the vertical part of the pipe into ‘chimney’ and ‘bowl,’ the division between the two being made according to either shape or decoration. Though Robinson follows Hayes in using the term ‘rim’ for the chimney, it more appropriately describes the lip, and seems especially out of place in the case of discbased pipes, when the chimney replaces the bowl. 20 Called the ‘termination’ by Robinson. 21 It is not so simple, however: the significant measurement in this regard is the diameter, not of the socket, but of the small hole joining the bottom of the bowl with the shank—and this is a fairly consistent 34 mm in all pipes from all periods. A more useful measurement would be the volume of the bowl (and chimney), a measurement fortunately adopted by Gosse. 22 For these standards of measurement see Robinson (1983, 273, note 33).

NOTES 1 Now the Canadian Institute in Greece. The Ottoman pipes figure in most of the annual reports of the excavation by Caroline and Hector Williams, which can be found annually in the relevant numbers of Classical Views/Echos du Monde Classique, beginning with 29 (1985), 225-233; preliminary surveys of the pipes appeared in Humphrey 1990a and 1990b. My work on the pipes of Mytilene has received generous financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from the Research Grants Committee of the University of Calgary. For assistance in the field I am grateful to the many colleagues and students who found themselves as captivated as I by the beauty and craftsmanship of these ‘unclassical’ artifacts. I owe special thanks to Mme Aglaia Archontidhou, Director of K’ Ephoreia of Antiquities, for arranging my continuing access to our collection of pipes, now stored in the new Archaeological Museum in Mytilene; to Rebecca Robinson, for her early encouragement of my modest attempts to build on the substantial foundations she has laid; to St John Simpson of the British Museum; and to Philippe Gosse of Marseilles, amateur diver, archaeologist, and friend, whose collection of pipes and even stems recovered from the quarantine harbour of Marseilles is an extraordinary resource for anyone toiling in this comparatively barren field. Finally, this article and the future online catalogue would be less accurate and more clumsily illustrated were it not for my wife, Laura McLeod, who has devoted most of five annual vacations to the study of these artefacts. 2 A small number of pipe fragments, amounting to about 4% of the total collection (but accounting for 39% of all the hashish pipes of Series 6) was also found in our excavation in the lower city, along the city wall near the North Harbour. 3 See Hayes 1992, 391-395, 442, pl. 50, a slightly expanded version of his earlier and seminal typology in Hayes 1980. For the highly burnished red ‘Tophane ware,’ made in Istanbul of clay from the region of Lake Van, see below Type 3.19, and Bayraktar 1990. 4 See the following Bulgarian accounts (with unfortunately brief summaries in French, German, or English, but usually well illustrated): Stanceva and Medarova 1968; Stanceva 1972; Stanceva 1975; and Iltcheva 1975. 5 Robinson 1983. 6 Robinson 1985. 7 Wood 1998 and 1999. 8 Evely 1988. 9 Wood 1990. 10 Simpson 1990. 11 Ward and Baram 2006. 12 Gosse 2007. See, too, http://pagespersoorange.fr/philippe.gosse/Otto/Ottoman.htm 13 Turkish Delight: Studies in Late Ottoman and Related Clay Pipe Traditions from the Near East and Mediterranean, Oxford: Archaeopress. 14 A useful if brief survey of the evolution and social context of the Turkish pipe can be found in Baram 2000, 149-154. 15 Only a handful of the pipes found at Mytilene (the 10 items of Type 3.8 in particular) can be firmly dated after the middle of the 19th century, when the almost unrepresented lily-shaped pipes were common. 16 On all these points, see Robinson 1985, 153, 161-163. Her dates for the replacement of the white/grey clays by the reds and for the appearance of the keel (both c. 1700) are not so closely related, at least at Mytilene, where most of the small, greyish-white pipes of Series 1 have at least a nascent keel, and many were found in association with reddish-brown varieties. 17 Robinson (1985, 163) has suggested, with justification, that it is the form and decoration of the shank, not of the bowl, that is the most significant distinction among various styles of pipes. Certainly, a close study of the stamps that are found usually on the shank will reveal much about individual makers and their various styles; and if we can ever develop a firm chronology for the design and decoration of nozzles, which at least at Mytilene are the commonest elements to survive in fragmentary form, the size of our useful sample will increase dramatically. 18 The largest homogeneous groups of pipes are Types 1.3 and 3.1, which together account for 16% of all the inventoried items. But there are many other significant sets in which the pipes are essentially identical in fabric, size, shape, and decoration: Types 1.1, 1.7, 1.9.1, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12, 1.16, and 1.19; 2.1 and 2.12.3; 3.4, 3.8, 3.16, and 3.19.1; 4.0; and the individual styles of hashish pipes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baram, U., 2000, ‘Entangled objects from the Palestinian past’, in U. Baram and L. Carroll (eds), A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, New York: Kleuwer Academic Press, 137-159. Bayraktar, N., 1990, ‘Tütün lüleleri, Tophane isi eserler’, Türkiyemiz 20, 16-25. Bruslic, Z., 1986/1987, ‘Dio Tereta S Lade Iz 17. Stoljeca Potonule Kod Otoka Bisaga u Kornatskom Arhipelagu’, Prilozi Povijesti Umjetnos u Dalmaciji 26, 473-491. Evely, D., 1988, ‘Clay tobacco pipes from the University of Crete Medical Faculty’, Annual of the British School at Athens 83, 135-142. Gosse, P., 2007, The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe, XIX: Les pipes de la quarantaine: Fouilles du port antique de Pomègues (Marseille), edited by P. Davey, BAR S1590, Oxford. Hayes, J.W., 1980, ‘Turkish clay pipes: A provisional typology’, in P.J. Davey (ed.), The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe. Europe 1. IV, BAR Int. Series 92, Oxford, 3-10. Hayes, J.W., 1992, ‘Clay tobacco pipes’, in J.W. Hayes, Excavations at Saraçhane, Istanbul II, The Pottery, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Humphrey, J.W., 1990a, ‘Turkish pipes [Mytilene]’, Classical Views 9, 192-193. Humphrey, J.W., 1990b, ‘A typology for Turkish clay smoking pipes’, Society for Clay Pipe Research Newsletter 26, 2-9. Iltcheva, V., 1975, ‘Tönerne Tabakspfeifen aus Weliko Tirnowo’, Godishnik na Muzeite ot Severna Bulgarija 1, 179-199. Kocabas, H., 1962/1963, ‘Tophane lülecilig [Tophane pipe-making]’, Türk Ethnografya Dergisi 5, 12-14. Robinson, R., 1983, ‘Clay tobacco pipes from the Kerameikos’, Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts (Athenische Abteilung) 98, 52-56, 265-285. Robinson, R., 1985, ‘Tobacco pipes of Corinth and of the Athenian Agora’, Hesperia 54, 33-64, 149-201. Simpson, St J., 1990, ‘Ottoman clay pipes from Jerusalem and the Levant: A critical review of the published evidence’, Society for Clay Pipe Research Newsletter 28, 6-16.

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Stanceva, M. and Medarova, S., 1968, ‘Production of earthen pipes in Bulgaria’, Muzei i Pametnitsi na Kulturata 8.4, 4-13. Stanceva, M., 1972, ‘La collection de pipes du Musée de Varna’, Bulletin du Musée national de Varna 8 [=23], 81-99. Stanceva, M. 1975, ‘O proizvodnji keramichih lulu u Bugarskoj/La confection de pipes en Bulgarie’, Muzes Primenjene Umetnosti, Zbornik 19/20, 129-138. Ward, C. and Baram, U., 2006, ‘Global markets, local practice: Ottoman-period clay pipes and smoking paraphernalia from the Red Sea shipwreck at Sadana Island, Egypt’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 10, 135-158.

Wood, J., 1990, ‘Pipes from the Island of Kastelloriso’, Society for Clay Pipe Research Newsletter 25, 8-12. Wood, J., 1998, ‘Pipes from Malta: A short account of the tobacco pipes found in Dockyard Creek, Birgu’, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 27, 313-330. Wood, J., 1999, ‘A study of clay tobacco pipes in Tunis’, Post-Medieval Archaeology 33, 233-241.

John Humphrey Department of Greek and Roman Studies University of Calgary, Canada Email: [email protected]

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4.1 Social and Spatial Organisation in the Peninsula of the Mani (Southern Pelopennese): Medieval, Post-Medieval and Modern Times Yanis Saitas INTRODUCTION

This paper presents parts of an ongoing research project focussing on social organisation, kinship structures and their spatial configuration in the 'traditional' entity of the Mani* (Fig. 1). The emphasis here is on the period from the early 18th century onwards, when the local system had already crystallised; however, some features from earlier Medieval and Post-Medieval times are also discussed. The approach is based on a parallel examination of the social formation at functional and institutional levels (Fig. 2.1), and the natural and man-made environment (Fig. 2.2). The inter-relations and cross-influences of these formations are examined, and successive temporal moments are investigated on the basis of the evidence provided by archival as well as field research. Four successive scales of investigation are used, ranging from the regional scale through settlements down to individual buildings: 1. The entire entity of the peninsula, with its main sections - that is, the Outer, the Lower and the Inner Mani (NW, NE, SE and SW sections). 2. A local entity, which is a subdivision of the southernmost part of the Mani, consisting of a group of villages/communities. 3. The village/community of Vathia, corresponding to four main and four secondary clans and lineages. 4. A hamlet (xemoni) within the village of Vathia, forming the ward of one lineage. THE MANI: FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS OF SPATIAL ORGANISATION AND SOCIAL FORMATION

Network of settlements and population size

Fig. 1 - The peninsula of Mani subdivided into local entities; Inset: community of Vathia

The peninsula formed by the southern end of the Mt Taygetos massif has a total surface area of 930 km2 and includes fourteen watershed basins. The region is divided into the following main sections (Fig. 1):

Sections II and III (NE and SE): the 'Sunny' or Lower (Kato) Mani, with the relatively fertile NE section (II): surface area 210 km2, 40-70 settlements; and the arid SE section (III): surface area 110 km2, 25-40 settlements. Section IV (SW): the more rugged 'Shady' or Inner (Mesa) Mani: surface area 190 km2, 65-110 settlements.

Section I (NW): the Outer (Exo) Mani, with superior land and important natural resources: surface area 420 km2, 70-80 settlements in the period from 1840 to 1940. 133

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Fig. 2.1 - The spatial organisation of the South (Inner) Mani: The system of the regional entity (12), the main sections I-IV (11), the local entities (10), the local units (9), the 'communities' (8), the districts (7), the settlements’ vital spaces (6), the settlements (5), the wards (4), the building complexes (3), the buildings (2) and the buildings’ spaces (1)

Fig. 2.2 - The social formation of the South (Inner) Mani: The system of the phratries (7), the clans (6), the sub-clans (5), the lineages (4), the sub-lineages (3), the families (2) and the individuals (1)

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These main sections are further subdivided into local units. In the North, the units correspond to PreIndependence clans with established stratification based around hereditary chieftains (the kapetani), while in the South they correspond to consanguineous clans with collective control over their living spaces and elected chieftains whose authority could be revoked.

of the Mani grew from 34,000 to 40,000, and then continued to increase to a peak of 50,000 at the turn of the century. At that time the most populous Demes had reached the level of 8,000-9,000, while the smaller ones had populations of 2,000-3,000. During the 19th century, the population density of the Mani was 35-80 inhabitants per square kilometre, far higher than the average for the Morea, which ranged from 20 to 40 inhabitants per square kilometre.

The peninsula was densely populated in the 19th century and before. During the second period of Venetian rule (1685-1715), when the Mani consisted of the territories of Alta and Bassa Maina, the population density was 2035 per square kilometre, as opposed to only 8.4 inhabitants per square kilometre in the Morea as a whole, according to figures dating from 1700. Indicative data illustrating population size and settlement distribution are presented in Fig. 3.

Military and political organisation Within the region, there were marked differences between North and South in the way the patriarchal clans and their villages were organised. In the more rugged and inaccessible terrain of the South, the clans lived on internally equal terms and were strictly exogamous. They were governed by elected chieftains whose authority could be revoked, and collective control was exercised over the running of the village and strategic decisionmaking. The relative standing of the clans depended chiefly on their size and was fairly fluid, as the order of precedence could be reshuffled if one clan managed to gain the ascendancy or was weakened in war (blood feuds) with a rival clan. As a general rule, the clans lived in small villages or hamlets organised into fortified wards of one or more branches of the family, with the houses clustered around the collective war tower.

Thus, during the period from the early 17th to the 20th century, between 125 and 250 settlements were recorded. Of these, 115-235 settlements with a population size of 10-500 accounted for 90-95% of the total number of settlements and contained 70-80 % of the total population. Only 5-15 settlements had populations of more than 500, representing 5-10 % of the total number of settlements and 20-30 % of the total population. It follows that the Maniats lived in a large number of scattered and usually small settlements organised along military and agricultural lines. There were only a few populous ‘centres’: Oitylo and Kelefa during the 17th century, Platsa, Oitylo, Tsimova and Pyrgos Dirou in the 18th to the 20th, and, of course, Yithion from the mid 19th century onwards.

In the more northerly districts of the Mani, which were closer to Turkish-ruled Greece and better endowed with natural resources, a more complex socio-economic structure developed. There, the military and political system of kapetanies evolved gradually, hand-in-hand with the organisation of the population into clans with an established hierarchy, in which endogamy was not uncommon. Some clans, acknowledged as being of higher rank than the rest, ruled over the villages and the other clans in their district, which might cover a larger or smaller area. Ultimately, one family or branch of the most powerful clan would acquire a hereditary claim to the title of local kapetan, which passed from father to eldest son. These ruling families owned sizeable estates and built considerable fortifications which dominated the villages and commanded strategic positions on the coast and inland.

These settlements have been graded and codified by population as follows: - Isolated homesteads (D.c) with 5-20 inhabitants and small hamlets (D.b) with 21-50 inhabitants, usually corresponding to one sublineage or a minor lineage. - Small villages (D.a), with 51-100 inhabitants. - Medium-sized villages (C.b), with 101-250 inhabitants, and large villages (C.a), with 251-500 inhabitants; these would usually contain between one and five lineage groups. - Between three and twelve main villages (B.a and B.b), with 500-1,000 inhabitants, containing more than five lineage groups or clans. - Between two and four country towns (A.b) with 1,0002,000 inhabitants (among Oitylo, Kelefa, Platsa, Tsimova, Pyrgos Dirou). - One town, the port of Yithion, with 2,000-5,000 inhabitants (after the mid 19th century).

The number of kapetanies in the Mani in the years before the War of Independence is variously stated in the sources as being anything between six and fifteen. The figure did, in fact, vary because from time to time they merged or split up as the kapetans formed alliances or quarrelled. The larger and more influential kapetanies with the most powerful leaders - the ‘first and great’, as they were called - included other smaller kapetanies which might consist of only a few villages or even a single village. Historians of the War of Independence graded the kapetanies and their leaders into three categories: the ‘first, second and third houses’.

After the War of Independence, the peninsula was subdivided by the fledgling Greek state into 31 Demes or municipalities (1836-1840). These corresponded closely to the small Pre-Independence units. The ten Demes of 1840-1912 were formed by unification of their predecessors and ranged in population from 2,000 to 7,000. Over the period from 1840 to 1870, the population

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Fig. 3 - Distribution of settlements and population size from the early 17th to the early 20th century (indicative round numbers): In 1618: 125 settlements, ≈ 4,700 families, 20,000 inhabitants. In 1700: 70 recorded settlements, ≈ 3,100 families, 12,000 inhabitants. In 1829-30: 170-180 settlements, ≈ 6,000 families, 29,000 inhabitants. In 1870: 200 settlements, ≈ 46,000 inhabitants. In 1890: 240 settlements, ≈ 50,000 inhabitants. In 1940: 245 settlements, ≈ 47,000 inhabitants. In the 1980s: 225 settlements, ≈ 21,500 inhabitants

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Fig. 4 - Mani and the Bardounochoria: local entities, population distribution, elements of social formation and fortifications in the period 1820-1830. The Western sections I, IV and the Eastern sections II, III

archaic social structures connected to the particular historical conditions which prevailed over long periods of time.

Fig. 4 shows the salient features of population distribution, the military and political organisation, and the distribution of the various types of fortified buildings in the local subdivisions of the peninsula during the crucial years of the War of Independence (1820-1830). At that time, the Mani had about 200 settlements and 800 war towers, and it could field between 6,000 and 10,000 fighting men out of a population of 30-37,000. The nearby, and also warlike, district of the Bardounochoria then consisted of 38-40 villages; it had 48-80 war-towers and the fighting men among its population of 4,500-6,000 numbered between 1,500 and 3,000. They were under the orders of local Muslim Albanian chieftains bearing the title of Aga Dervenji.

The simple dwelling units of the Mani can be divided into categories: primitive megalithic buildings, provincial Medieval/Byzantine houses, and more recent (PostByzantine) traditional houses. The fixed oblong nucleus (small, medium or large, stone-built and usually with two storeys) serving the basic needs of survival – with an emphasis on security – evolved slowly, acquiring outbuildings in the courtyard and combining with neighbouring familial nuclei to shape the composite defensive installation of the patrilocal group. The variations in the size of the Post-Medieval houses and in their structural and morphological features resulted, on the one hand, from small-scale geographical differences and variations in technological resources and, on the other, from the differentiation in historical, socioeconomic and cultural factors by regional section.

Categories of buildings The settlement patterns and vernacular constructions of the peninsula were influenced by the conditions of the natural environment; above all, however, they reflect

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These may be graded into three size brackets: small (approximately the size of a biggish walled farmyard (300-400 m2), medium-sized (700-800 m2), and large (1,000-1,300 m2). Apart from these building types, the kapetans and the local people sometimes made use of the old castles and fortresses built at various times by the Byzantine, Frankish, Ottoman and Venetian overlords of the Mani (Fig. 5.4). Sometimes, too, under certain kapetans, the Maniats themselves built fortifications of unusual design, such as the so-called verga (‘rod’) of Almyros. Building complexes, wards, settlements and genealogical groups The gradual but extensive fragmentation of society into numerous patrilineal groups, especially in the South, gave rise to great pressure on living space, causing division of the land and the increasing densification and multiplication of settlements. It was a matter of considerable importance that the group should be settled and secure on a suitably advantageous site. There, a tower and fortified houses would be built and little by little further structures would be added to strengthen the settlement. The building of typical groups of houses and auxiliary structures would be repeated until the settlement had spread to form a collective shell corresponding to the households which were members of the patrilineal and patrilocal group.

Fig. 5 - Main types of fortified buildings in the Mani: 1. Dwelling houses, 2. War towers and manors, 3. Walled complexes of powerful families / kapetans, 4. Building complexes of genealogical groups

The main types of fortified buildings found in the various sections of the Mani (with drawings to scale) are illustrated in Fig. 5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3. These are as follows: 1. (a) Dwelling-houses, set out according to their size and functions, ranging from B, the largest, to E, the smallest. Houses B and C were the important dwellings and meeting-houses of the most powerful Maniats. A comparison is made with the later and more rectangular houses (b) built since Independence. 2. (a) Rectangular war towers and (b) rectangular tower dwellings, whose size and design features vary according to the locality and the date of construction, and (c) round war towers, which can be collective clan towers, outworks belonging to other fortifications, or watchtowers. (d) Combined war towers and dwellinghouses, built either as integral structures from the outset or joined together later, with the two parts aligned on the same longitudinal axis. The northern type differs from the southern. (e) L-shaped fortified dwellings, built either as integral structures from the outset or consisting of a dwelling-house and a tower joined together. Integral structures are found mainly in the North. (f) PostIndependence tower dwellings of the South Mani. 3. Buildings within walled enclosures, which are of two types: a) simple forts consisting of a tower and an enclosure wall, and b) more complex walled units, where several buildings are contained within the enclosure wall.

Fig. 5.1 - Simple rectangular nuclei of houses (main building). Megalithic, Byzantine and Post-Byzantine (up to the middle of the 19th century)

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These constantly growing settlements were the basic mode of building formation and organisation. Groups of continuous complexes created the wards (quarters) of the related branches, each arranged so that it had its own access route, church and cemetery. The medium-sized and larger villages consisted of several such wards. The wards of the most powerful branches had the bestbuilt and the tallest houses, including one or more ‘collective’ (maziki) or ‘partial’ (meriki) war-towers equipped with cannon. Next to these megalogenites, the weaker families or phamegi lived in humbler houses often ceded to them or built with the help of their patrons. The weakest families of all, the achamnomeri, lived in separate neighbourhoods and were not entitled to build towers unless they grew more powerful. However, many of the smaller settlements (the hamlets or xemonia and tiny villages) contained only one group of kin and buildings. In general, the members of the lineage or clan either lived together in a hamlet of their own, which would often take its name from them, or were distributed through two or more settlements as the result of movements in earlier times. Genealogical and geographical fragmentation of the groups was greatest in the southern and northeastern parts of the Mani. The rudimentary phamilia was the primary unit of production and property ownership, while the clan exercised collective control over the family property. The war tower, the cannon, the cemetery and the church were indisputably the collective property of the clan and the lineage.

Fig. 5.2 - War towers and tower dwellings: I. NW Mani, II. NE Mani, III. The northern parts of S Mani

Fig. 5.3 - Walled complexes of kapetans and beys (I. NW Mani, II. NE Mani, III+IV. SW+SE Mani)

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In the South Mani, the family property was inherited by the sons only, usually in equal shares, through a process known as adelphomoirasma (‘brother-sharing’). The family houses and the land surrounding them were considered to be, and were called, sernikiatika ('of the males'), and for reasons of security could never be passed on to outsiders. In the North Mani, on the other hand, women too might have a right to property.

the environs of the village so as to protect or extend the landed property. The construction of such installations frequently triggered armed conflict with rival groups: such civil wars or blood feuds (polemi, echthres) and vengeance killings (dikiomi) could last for many generations and were an endemic feature of the Maniot system. Aggressive customs of this kind were the form always taken by conflict among the various segments of a society, which lacked a political and judicial authority to resolve disputes at a higher level.

Much smaller installations (hamlets) were often built in

Fig. 5.4 - Castles - Fortresses (Tigani, Zarnata, Passava, Chielefa, Palia Karyoupoli, Lefktro (Beaufort), Porto Kayio

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the South, with only 5 % of arable land. On the tip of Cape Matapan was the district of Mianes, with 11 % arable land.

AN EXAMPLE OF SPATIAL AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION IN THE SOUTH MANI

The Demoi (former municipalities) of Messi and Layia (1840-1912)

During the period from the early 17th to the 20th centuries the population of the community of Vathia has been structured as follows: - In 1618, 20 fuochi (families); - In 1700, 54 families with 212 inhabitants; - In 1828-1829, 75 families with 333 inhabitants; - In 1851, 98 families with 318 inhabitants; - In 1850-1907, the population increased considerably, reaching 440, later (1907-1940) dropping back to 289. In the years after the Second World War, the population shrank dramatically, to a low point of only 10 % of what it had been in 1940.

The southernmost sections of the Mani are occupied by the ‘former municipalities’ of Messi and Layia, as they were styled between 1840 and 1912. Each of these municipalities consisted of three units: Messi included the areas of Niklianiko, Katopangi and Mesa Choria, which had once (from 1836 to 1840) been municipalities and later formed seven administrative communities (1912-1998), while Layia included the areas of Demaropachianika, Layia and Kritiri, subsequently two administrative communities. The region had been geographically important and densely populated since ancient times, as witnessed by more than 80 megalithic settlements identified by this field research (Fig. 6.1). In 1618, 23-25 settlements with 906-917 fuochi (families) were recorded; in 1700, there were 18 settlements with 650 families and 2,628 inhabitants; in 1829-1830 there were 35-38 settlements with 839 families. By the end of the century (1890-1910) the number of settlements had risen to 50-57 and the population to 6,970-7,300. This study has recognised as many as 87 Post-Medieval settlements of various sizes (Dc-Bb) within the same limits in the 19th and 20th centuries (Fig. 6.2).

There is evidence of blood feuds among the genealogical groups of Vathia as far back as 1571. In 1805, Leake reported that ‘this village has been divided into two parties for the last forty years (1765-1805), in which time they reckon that about 100 men have been killed’. The four sub-districts of the community of Vathia contain eight Post-Medieval settlements (Fig. 7), which can be further broken down into 23 inhabited locations with 192 buildings corresponding to eight genealogical groups. The maps drawn in 1829 by the French ‘Expédition Scientifique de Morée’ show six inhabited locations: the central village of Vathia with 50 families, the hamlet of Koula (Goulas) with 12 families, Petrovouni, an isolated homestead-tower with two families, the paleokastro of Kastri Kournophoula, the isolated tower of Agrila, and another tower whose name is not known. Two churches were mapped in the fields. Current field research recognises the central village of Vathia, with 70-80 houses and 185-250 inhabitants in the period from 1840 to 1940, six hamlets with between 20 and 50 inhabitants each, and 15 smaller locations with between one and five houses and 15 and 20 inhabitants each. Eight ancient and Medieval megalithic settlements consisting of between five and 20 houses have been identified. Five of them are located in the central part of the basin of Vathia (Fig. 8). There are also 27 family churches of varying antiquity and five old cemeteries apart from the more recent community burial-ground.

Within the limits of Niklianiko and Katopangi, more specifically, 36 megalithic settlements have been identified. In 1618, there were 14 settlements with 515 fuochi, in 1700 12 settlements with 373 families and 933 inhabitants, in 1829 21 settlements with 377 families (together with several isolated towers - xemonia - which formed the nucleus of more recent hamlets or villages), and in the late 19th century, 30 settlements with 3,700 inhabitants. This study has identified, in the 19th and 20th centuries, as many as 46 settlements of various sizes (DcBb) inhabited by 23 groups of megalogenites (powerful clans), consisting of a total of 1,800-2,700 persons, and 65 lineages of achamnomeroi (‘weak ones’) with a further 1,000-1,700 persons. In the more recent period, from 1912 to 1998, the Niklianiko-Katopangi area was subdivided into four communities (Kita, Boularii, Yerolimenas and Kounos).

During the last two centuries, the population of Vathia has consisted of four main genealogical groups (a-d) and four secondary branches (e-h), giving a total of 40 family names. The first three major groups (a-c) represented 7075 % of the total population and owned 80-85 % of the buildings in the community (Fig. 7). These groups were as follows:

THE COMMUNITY OF VATHIA

The community of Vathia (Figs 6.2, 7) is a section of the local unit of Mesa Choria and is close to the short promontory of Cape Taenaron (Matapan), most of the land of which formerly belonged to it. The community currently has an area of 7.1 square kilometres, of which 16 % is arable land and 9 % consists of olive groves. The most heavily cultivated land is located in the Vathia basin, where 33 % of the land is arable. There was also farmland on the slopes of Porachia-Viskina, with 13 % of arable land, and in the rocky district of Kastri further to

a. The old group of the Karabatiani, numbering 100-180 persons in the period from 1840 to 1940. The group consisted of 15 genealogical lines; some of its branches were considered to be ancient and powerful, while others had fused into the group in search of protection.

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Fig. 6.1 - The local entities of the Demoi (former municipalities) of Messi and Layia (1840-1912): The 87 settlements existing during the period between the 15th and the 20th centuries, in correlation with the more than 80 megalithic settlements

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Fig. 6.2 - The local entities of the Demoi (former municipalities) of Messi and Layia (1840-1912): Classification and arrangement of the 87 settlements into 9 communities (1912-1998) in accordance with the size of the 'built shell' in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

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Fig. 7 - Distribution of settlements, cultivations and genealogical groups within the four sub-districts of the Vathia community. V: the main village, G: the hamlet of Goulas

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Fig. 8 - The central part of the Vathia basin, with five megalithic settlements (M1-M5), the central village of Vathia (size category Ca), the hamlet of Goulas (Db) and seven inhabited locations (xemonia, Dc)

The development of the present-day main settlement on the hilltop took place largely after the eighteenth century, flourishing in the second half of the 19th century and starting to decline at the beginning of the 20th. The densely-constructed settlement (size C.a) consists of about 70 dwellings, two war-towers, four churches, five olive-presses and a café (kafenio), distributed through the four main wards (Fig. 9). On the NW side are approximately 20 houses and the olive press of 50-70 Karabatiani, divided into two separate groups. Next, moving towards the centre of the village, come approximately 15 houses of 40-70 Kalidoniani, with the half-finished church of ‘Ai-Lias’ (the Prophet Elijah) and a war-tower, now ruinous, which the Karabatiani and the Kalidoniani had held in common. In the north section is a neighbourhood with 6-7 houses and the church of St Nicholas which belonged to the Koutrigari group. In more recent times, an extension of the Kalidoniani neighbourhood was built next to this, with an olive-press,

b. The Michalakiani group, consisting of 100-140 persons also belonging to 15 genealogical lines. The basic lines were derived from the fragmentation and extension of the powerful Michalakiani of the districts of Kitta and Layia, while others were descended from older indigenous groups which had fused without forgetting their distinct origins. c. The Kalidoniani group has a single branch with 40-70 persons. This group had come from Layia to support the Karabatiani group against the Michalakiani in their attempt to expand. d. The Koutrigari group, a single small – but old – lineage with 20-35 persons. e-h. The Vathia region also contained four other branches with between five and 20 members each. Two of these (the Stavrokefali and Fidopiastes branches) were considered old and indigenous, while the others (the Michelogoniani and Athanassiani groups) were more recent and had come from surrounding areas.

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a shop, a café (kafenio) and two abutting houses. The 3334 houses, the 3 olive presses and the 2 churches of the 80-110 Michalakiani occupy the entire south side of the village, arranged into five adjoining groups: on the side facing the Karabatiani-Kalidoniani clans rises the collective war-tower of the Antoniani. The cadastre records covering the Vathia basin list 750 properties (meridia) corresponding to 120 owners. Each agricultural holding consisted of an average of 6.25 fields, and the average field size was 0.20-0.25 ha. This gives an average size of holding of 1.25-1.50 ha, a long way below the average (1.7 ha) for the Inner Mani (province of Oitylo) and less than half that for the Peloponnese as a whole (3.0 ha). Fig. 10 - The small hamlet of Goulas (G): 1: the hamlet with its eight houses and a war-tower, 2: the walled sympoda sygyra, 3: the rest of the sygyra, 4: the cemetery, 5: the beehives, 6: grazing and hunting-grounds. The old (megalithic) hamlet of Kalyvia (K) and the more recent xemoni of Petomoniastika (P) are further down the hill

Fig. 9 - The central village of Vathia, with the wards and genealogical groups (the numbers of persons forming these groups refer to the total population in the community of Vathia) THE HAMLET OF GOULAS

The hamlet of Goulas is a representative example of a South Mani xemoni of the 18th/19th century type. It stands at an altitude of 130 m, on a south-facing slope where the limestone rock formations give way to flatter and more fertile ground, running down to the sea.

Fig. 11 - The Goulas xemoni, seat of the Lagoudis lineage (Lagoudiani). Above, the SW side, facing the sea. Centre, the SE side, facing the main village of Vathia. Below, ground floor plans. T: tower, 1-8: houses, ol: small olive press, c: cistern, th: threshing-floors in the sympoda sygyra

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There, at a distance of 1 km from Goulas, are two small anchorages, which were formerly used as pirate bases, while in more recent times they served the boats and caiques, which brought in people or products or were engaged in fishing (Fig. 7). In 1840-1940, Goulas had 2050 inhabitants and was the main residence of the Lagoudiani, a lineage of the old Karabatiani clan from Vathia. The built nucleus consisted of eight houses (1)(8) and the war tower (T) (Fig. 11, 15). The old twostorey houses (1)-(5) and the 16 m, four-storey war tower (Fig. 13) were built before Independence, while houses (6) and (7) took their final form in the Post-Independence period and house (8) was built around 1900. The main buildings are supplemented with tiny stone-walled courtyards containing the auxiliary outbuildings for the animals, the fournospita (oven), the cisterns and a small olive-press of the old type where honey and beeswax were also prepared (Fig. 12). The average area of building plots (spitotopoi) (1) to (8) is approximately 150 square metres.

Fig. 13 - The four-storey war-tower at Goulas, and the adjoining house 4

This composite building complex was the centre of a tract of land of around 5 ha, representing the principal holding of the Lagoudiani lineage (Figs 10, 16 and 17.2). More specifically, the sympoda sygyra (adjacent property around an installation) of about 1.5 ha consisted of small stone-walled fields with a few fig, almond and olive trees, some frangoperivola (enclosures with prickly pear), two or three cisterns and six threshing-floors, while the other sygyra (3.5 ha), extending to the West, contained a number of lioperivola (olive enclosures), some meromata (arable land), grazing, and stone-built beehives (therides). There, 100 m from the hamlet, was the cemetery with the 14th century Byzantine church of Ai-Yannis (St John), the graves and the sikota kivouria (ossuaries) of the Lagoudiani lineage and some allied families (Fig. 14). Nearby was another old family chapel, of St Paraskeve, incorporating ancient architectural members as spolia. The rocky slope above Goulas (called the agrioma, or stous Lazous), with an area of about 20 ha, was the privileged grazing and hunting-ground of that specific group. The Lagoudiani also possessed the privilege of collecting salt from specific rocks along the shore. They were considered to be among the leading hunters and pirates of the entire region.

Fig. 12 - The Goulas houses 1, 2 and 3: Above: section of houses 2 and 3. Below: left, ground floor plans; right, upper floor plans. The stables, the residential areas, the fournospita (oven), the old olive press and the cistern. Houses 1 and 2 date from the late eighteenth century, House 3 is dated to 1803

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Fig. 14 - The cemetery of Goulas, with the church of Ai-Yannis (St John, fourteenth century) and the stone-built ossuaries (sikota kivouria)

giving a total surface area of 0.8-3.0 ha per holding.

The rest of the landed property of the Lagoudiani lineage consisted of agricultural holdings within the farmland owned by the larger Karabatiani group. The land of the lineage was located on the slopes of Goulas hill, on Vathia hill and on another adjoining hill, and at present amounts to 23 properties with a total area of around 7 ha (Fig. 17.2). The average size of the lots is 0.2-0.3 ha. Of the 23 lots, 14 were planted with crops only and nine bore both crops and olive trees (planted especially in the years from 1870 to 1930). On one of the upland properties were huts to shelter the livestock (sheep, goats and oxen). Each household owned between four and twelve of these plots,

The diagram in Fig. 17.1 illustrates the genealogy of the Lagoudiani lineage since the early 19th century. The partial genealogical lines correspond to simple or extended families numbering between two and 15 individuals each. The genealogy stretches back five generations and relates each family to one of the eight houses in the hamlet of Goulas. The line of property distribution among the family heads of the eight houses and the tower by means of adelphomoirasma (see above) during the 19th century is also marked.

Fig. 15 - The composite building complex of Goulas, with eight houses and a war-tower

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Fig. 16 - The hamlet of Goulas and its surroundings

CONCLUSION

The mechanisms by which the property was passed on and the families installed themselves, determined the way in which the hamlet developed and functioned. These mechanisms continued to operate until the population left and the hamlet was gradually deserted, a stage which in the case of Goulas was completed between 1900 and 1940. Two of the families from Goulas built themselves new houses in the coastal zone of Vathia, activating the bonds created by their marriages to women (xaklirospores) of allied branches in the Karabatiani clan, but most of the families moved to Athens and Piraeus.

The hamlet of Goulas and the manner in which its productive space is organised is typical of the organisation of the 62 hamlets with populations of up to 50 persons, which existed in the South Mani (sections III and IV) in the late 19th and early 20th century. These 62 hamlets represented 40 % of the total number of settlements in the area (144), and their population of 1,534 corresponded to 8 % of the population of South Mani in the late 19th century (18,800). It can be stated, in conclusion, that the density of the heritage of this man-made and monumental space and of the particular historical and ethnological features of the peninsula fully justifies the efforts now being undertaken to have it scheduled as a Cultural Landscape, a National Historical Area or an Open Air Museum.

Further down the hill, to the southeast of Goulas, are two other settlement nuclei (Fig. 10, K and P). One, Kostakianika Kalyvia, is much older and consists of 8-10 ruined megalithic buildings and one church (of St Andrew), while the other, Petomoniastika, came into being in the late 19th century and contains five houses belonging to the Xypolitiani family, a weaker branch of the Karabatiani clan. There are a number of isolated megalithic buildings in the sygyra of these settlements. These settlements (Kalyvia, Goulas and Petomoniastika), of approximately the same size and placed closely together, are indicative of the importance of the small and symbiotic group, which survived through time as the basic organisational unit of the social and spatial systems.

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Fig. 17.1 - Diagram of the transmission of houses (1) to (8) and the tower (T) in the hamlet of Goulas

Fig. 17.2 - Diagram of the landed property of the Lagoudis lineage (Lagoudiani) in the community of Vathia

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Bon, A., 1951, Le Péloponnèse byzantin jusqu’en 1204, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Didika, N., 1977, Vathia: village du Magne (Péloponnèse). Structures sociales archaiques, (unpublished study), Paris: EHESS. Dimitrakos-Mesisklis, D., 1949, Oi Niklianoi, Vol. I, Athens: D. Dimitrakos. Kalliga, Ch., 1974, ‘E exelixi ton oikismon sti Mani’, in O. Doumanis and P. Oliver (eds), Oikismoi stin Ellada, Athens: Architecture in Greece Press. Kassis, K., 1980, Laographia tis Mesa Manis, Athens. Katsikaros, N., 1933, E Vendetta en Mani, Athens. Komis, K., 1995, Plythismos kai oikismoi tis Manis, 15os-19os aionas, Ioannina: University of Ioannina. Koutsilieris, A., 1978, Maniatika meletimata, Athens. Leake, W.M., 1830, Travels in the Morea, Vol. I, London: John Murray, 232-239. Lineton, M., 1971, Mina, Present and Past: Depopulation in a Village in Mani, Ph.D dissertation, University of Kent, Great Britain. Lognon, J. and Topping, P., 1969, Le régime des terres dans la principauté de Morée au XIVe siècle, Paris and Den Hague: Mouton. Panayotopoulos, V., 1985, Plythismos kai oikismoi tis Peloponnisou, 13os-18os aionas, Athens: Historical Archives of the Commercial Bank of Greece. Saitas, Y., 1987-1988, ‘Ochyres egatastasis kapetaneon kai beydon Manis’, in Acts of the Third International Congress of Peloponnesian Studies, Vol. III, 519-541. Saitas, Y., 1990, Mani. Greek Traditional Architecture, Athens: Melissa. Saitas, Y., 1994, Oikismenos choros kai koinonia sti Mani, Vol. I-III, (unpublished study), Institute for Neohellenic Research, Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation. Saitas, Y., 1996, ‘The fortifications of Maniat Chiefs and Beys: Clans, kapetans and Beys’, in Mani. Témoignages sur l’espace et la société. Voyageurs et expéditions scientifiques (XVeXIXe siècle), Institute for Neohellenic Research, Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 118-139. Sakellariou, M., 1978 [1939], E Peloponnisos kata tin Tourkokratian (1715-1821), reprinted in Athens. Stahl, P.H., 1979, ‘Maison fortifiées et tours habitées balkaniques’, in Balgarskata Akademija na naukite, Sofia: Etnografski Institut s Muszei, 9199. Stahl, P.H., 1986, Household, Village and Village Confederation in Southeastern Europe, New York: Columbia University Press. Topping, P., 1976-1978, ‘The population of the Morea (1684-1715)’, in Acts of the First International Congress of Peloponnesian Studies, Vol. I, 119128. Topping, P., 1972, ‘The Post-Classical documents’, in W.A. McDonald and G.R. Rapp (eds), The Minnesota Messenia Expedition: Reconstructing

NOTES * This research project started in 1984 and was carried by Yanis Saitas and collaborators. It has been conducted within the framework of the programme: ‘Historical Study of Settlements in Greece, 15th-20th century’, at the Institute for Neohellenic Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation (INR/NHRF). It includes the research projects: ‘Man-made Environment and Society in the Mani’ and ‘Sources of the History of the Mani’, see the selected bibliography below. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, P., 1974, Social and Economic Change in a Depopulated Community in Southern Greece, Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, Ann Arbor, MI, University Microfilms. Allen, P., 1976, ‘Aspida: A depopulated Maniat community’, in M. Dimen and E. Friedl (eds), Regional Variation in Modern Greece and Cyprus: Towards a Perspective of Ethnography in Greece, New York: The New York Academy of Sciences, 168-198. Andromedas, J., 1962, The Inner Maniat Community Type: A Study of the Local Community’s Changing Articulation with Society, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York. Andromedas, J., 1963, ‘The enduring urban ties of a modern Greek subculture’, in J. Peristiany (ed.), Acts of the Mediterranean Sociological Conference, Athens, 260-278. Antoniades-Bibicou, H., 1965, ‘Villages désertés en Grèce. Un bilan provisoire’, in G. Duby (ed.), Villages désertés et histoire économique, XIeXVIIIe siècle, Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 343-417. Avramea, A., 1998, ‘Le Magne Byzantin: Problèmes d’histoire et de topographie’, Mélanges offerts à Hélène Ahrweiler, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 49-62. Alexakis, E., 1980, Ta yeni kai e oikoyenia stin paradosiaki koinonia tis Manis, Ph.D. dissertation, Athens. Argyriades, E., Kavaya, M., Korres, M., Saitas, Y., Skamnaki, S., Tzanaki, K., 1972, Oikismoi sti Mani. Oikistiki analysi, workshop paper and lecture, (unpublished study), Athens: National Technical University. Bintliff, J. L., 1977, ‘New approaches to Human Geography. Prehistoric Greece: A case study’, in F.W. Carter (ed.), An historical Geography of the Balkans, London: Academic Press, 59-114. Bintliff, J. L., 1982, ‘Settlement patterns, land tenure and social structure: a diachronic model’, in C. Renfrew and S. Shennan (eds), Ranking, Resource and Exchange, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 106-111. Bintliff, J. L., 1994, ‘The history of the Greek countryside: As the wave breaks, prospects for future research’, in P.N. Doukellis and L.G. Mendoni (eds), Structures Rurales et Societés Antiques, Besançon: Université de Besançon, 615.

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a Bronze Age Regional Environment, Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press, 64-80. Vayakakos, D., 1967, Mani (Mesa Mani), O topos, oi Vyzantinoi naoi, oi pyrgoi, to moirologi, Athens: Parnassos. Wagstaff, J.M., 1965, ‘House types as an index in settlement study: A case study from Greece’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37, 69-75. Wagstaff, J.M., 1966, ‘Anonymous settlement planning in the Mani peninsula’, Ekistics 22, no. 130, 196-198.

Wagstaff, J.M., 1975, ‘Vendetta, war and society in the morphogenesis of rural settlements in the Mani, Greece’, in “I Paesaggi Rurali Europei”, Atti del convegno internazionale, Perugia: Deputazione di Storia Patria per l'Umbria, 517529. Wagstaff, J.M., 1977, ‘Settlements in the South-Central Peleponnesos, c. 1618’, in F.W. Carter (ed.), An Historical Geography of the Balkans, London: Academic Press, 197-238. Yanis Saitas Institute for Neohellenic Research, National Hellenic Research Foundation [email protected]

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4.2 The Morea Vernacular Architecture Project Mary B. Coulton mortar construction, perhaps a keep, and Frankish roof tiles were found there. Kastro tis Orias, rising above the gorge of the upper Peneios river, on the south slopes of Erymanthos, lies near the modern village of Kakotari in Eleia. It is now uninhabited, but seems once to have been a thriving industrial settlement, as indicated by the remains of 240 houses, three churches, a cemetery and 11 water mills along the river. There was also iron slag lying on the surface and roof tile sherds. Other large settlements, all unfortified, were identified in Sandomeri, above the modern village of the same name in Achaia, Ano Salmeniko and Kastelli near Ano Kleitoria in Achaia.

The Morea project was a seven-year architectural survey conceived and directed by Frederick Cooper, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Minnesota, who, together with Helen Bradley Foster, contributed to the form and content of this paper. We worked under the auspices of that University, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the 6th Byzantine Ephoria at Patras. The Leventis Foundation contributed generous financial help. The project had two aims: first, to record the exterior dimensions, materials and features of older village buildings before they were destroyed by man or nature, and second to locate and record the remains of Medieval settlements. The region surveyed was the Northwest Peloponnese and included the nomoi (provinces) of Achaia, Eleia, Arcadia (western part) and Messenia (from Kyparissia north). Crews of between 12 and 20 scholars and students accomplished the fieldwork in seven seasons lasting from four to six weeks during the summers of 1991-1997. The total number of villages and sites surveyed was 158. Preliminary accounts of each season’s work were published in French 1993, 26-7; 1994, 25-6; Tomlinson 1995, 21-2; 1996, 16; and Blackman 1997, 45. For the Medieval sites we consulted census records from the 1400s till the 1700s, Antoine Bon’s study of Frankish architecture in the Morea and local informants. Obstacles such as hilly terrain, dense vegetation, and the inevitable destruction of built forms make it difficult to plan these sites with traditional engineering survey techniques. Therefore we used methods based on the image processing of Landsat satellite images for prospecting of sites, on the technology of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for mapping in the field and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for generating the final map (Brenningmeyer, Cooper, Downey 1998) (Fig.1).

Fig. 1 - Sketch plan of a village, marking the locations of individual houses

We recorded the remains of about 600 houses at fifteen Medieval sites. House walls at abandoned Medieval settlements survive to various heights, for instance up to one or two storeys in Kastro tis Orias and nearly to their full original height at Akovos in Arcadia. Examination of details and of their topographic setting allows for a clear reconstruction of one Medieval house type: the tower house. These houses were nearly square in plan, with an area of about 4 to 5 metres each way, and they rose to a height of three or four stories. The lowest floor served as a shelter for livestock or as a storeroom and had an outside door. The house proper was on the upper levels, and access to it was across a bridge from a separate landing formed by a built terrace opposite the facade wall of the house. A gangway of planking could be drawn up for increased security in time of danger. The floors within the house were connected by trap doors and ladders.

Methodologies developed in the field of phytoarchaeology were also integrated into our research to define relationships between particular types of vegetation and extant architectural remains. Histograms and scatterplots showing the density of specific spectral signatures of the near- and mid-infrared channels of the Landsat satellite scene were plotted, and these showed that prickly oak, for example, has a distinctive spectral signature. Prickly oak characteristically grows on ruined walls and obscures them from normal view, but the spectral signatures could be used to predict the presence of walls. Thus we tested in the field what we had identified as sites in the lab. This resulted in the identification of several previously unrecorded Medieval sites: for example, the citadel of Agia Triada and the settlement of Kastro tis Orias. Agia Triada, on the border of Achaia and Eleia, has a massive rubble and

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Our intentions were to investigate in architectural and urbanistic terms the relationship between the Medieval and later settlements. This relationship cannot be illustrated in any single site because of the phenomenon of metoikesis or relocation. In other words, not one of our settlements covers the full chronological spectrum from Medieval to Modern, since villages relocated, often retaining their original name. VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE IN ABANDONED AND INHABITED VILLAGES

Contemporary prosperity means that the older vernacular buildings built of mudbrick, wood and stone in many Northwestern Peloponnesian villages are undergoing significant change. In some cases they are completely destroyed; in other instances recent modifications transform their exterior appearance. The most usual modifications are: the resurfacing of stone and mudbrick exterior walls with stucco or concrete; the addition of rooms built in fired brick, cinder blocks or reinforced concrete; the replacement of wooden and hand-wrought stairways, balconies, door and window frames with ones of cast-metal and concrete; and changed rooflines caused by replacing stone slabs and hand-made rooftiles with mass-produced roofing made of metal, plastics and terracotta. Our purpose was to record these structures before their complete removal or irreversible change. We did not just pick out the most elaborate or evocative buildings in each village we visited. Rather, we recorded the exterior of every structure with original mud-brick or stone fabric. Our project depends on comprehensiveness, and our database includes information on about 3,400 vernacular houses.

Fig. 2 - Data capture sheet for detailed recording of vernacular buildings

Of the different types of built structure found, houses were our main focus; but we also recorded agricultural and industrial structures such as kalyvia (field huts), grist mills, olive oil factories, kafeneia, a cheese factory, a hani (inn), and the ubiquitous outdoor bake oven, a structure which, uniquely, was often built by women.

Given the number of houses recorded, it would obviously have been impossible to make full architectural drawings of each. But since our aim was to record the range and distribution of what was representative for the area, our record sheets set out a series of distinct forms that might be taken by each architectural feature such as quoining, arches and wall coursing. The recorders simply noted which form of each feature was present at each house.

Villages were selected for the survey on the basis of Early Ottoman and Venetian censuses and from field scouting. Once a village was chosen, the mapping team used Global Positioning System (GPS) to map it. They walked through the village marking a series of waypoints whose GPS locations were entered into a portable computer. This information was downloaded into AutoCAD software and a preliminary map was generated showing a series of waypoints. Some of these points were then joined to show the village roads, others were used to generate contours and topographical features. The recording team then used these maps to navigate through each village as they recorded the buildings on the prepared survey sheets. On these forms (Fig. 2) team members sketched the plan and (where possible) the four elevations of each house and its outbuildings. They also recorded the orientation of the house and its oven, the dimensions of the house, and noted its architectural features: the shape and material of roof, doors, windows and staircases, the width of the quoins, and the presence, location, and nature of any decorative elements, including date stones.

Dating the buildings was one of our primary concerns. A significant number of houses have inscribed dates, usually above the door or at a corner, and these span the period from the end of the War of Independence to the 1950s. We also relied on folk memory as another indication of dating, particularly when an informant’s family had occupied the building for several generations. A building said to be ‘from the Tourkokratia’ would thus be accepted as likely to be built before 1821, and might well be an 18th century structure. Specific material evidence supports this. For example, Fanari in Eleia still has its heavily restored Turkish administrative building, the remains of a mosque, and the tiles in situ at the site of its Turkish bath. All this information is now being entered into a Geographic Information System database, which will be used to relate the specific architectural features found in one building with the same features in any other building. We can thus chronicle the distribution of a particular architectural feature 154

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from one village to another. Using date-stones we expect to be able to establish a chronology of specific architectural features, to show how some architectural styles were transmitted from one geographical area to another, and perhaps also to trace the movements of bands of masons. We have knowledge of the general area from which the most gifted stone masons came. North of Mount Erymanthos oral tradition for stonemasons from Epeiros prevails, whereas villages to the South have a tradition of masons from Langadia in Northwestern Arcadia. In Eastern Achaia, evidence from local informants suggests that masons came from the village and district of Agia Varvara on the border with Corinthia. One goal of our project is to identify more specifically the work of individual masons or groups of masons by careful study of the characteristic forms of architectural details. Analysis of the data base should reveal common groupings of features. Decorative details form another area of interest in our survey. We have three compelling reasons for cataloguing architectural decoration. First, they attest to the popular, artistic creativity of the time. Second, regional patterns of preference may be discerned by the identification of specific forms of applied decoration in certain places. And third, the features may aid in establishing the territories within which particular stone masons or schools of masons worked.

Fig. 3 - House at Mavromandela, Achaia (dated 1894) showing consoles on windows and ‘breasts’ on quoins

Fig. 4 - House at Mikros Pondias, Achaia, (dated 1899) showing painted dog-tooth patterns on door lintel, terracotta tiles used as decoration and five dancing girls painted on quoin (next to window with terracotta tiles in zigzag pattern)

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Carved stone decorations form the most impressive of those applied to exteriors. The designs found include: date stones, which vary from a simple date to an elaborately carved composition which may include cypress trees, birds and crosses; various forms of crosses; rosettes within a compass-drawn circle; ‘breast’ shapes (Fig. 3); male heads (only a single female head); animals and mythological beasts; or a row of girls dancing. Another group of added stone features includes projecting stone ledges beside upper windows, stone niches built in the wall beside ground floor entrances and a few stone benches.

drawing of at least one building, with many villages represented by several drawings and photographs. Vernacular architecture, like all traditions, is dynamic and never static. Our aim in the Morea project was to record earlier building customs even as these presently undergo change. The recent fires in many areas of the Peloponnese show how important such records are. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blackman, D.J., 1997, ‘Archaeology in Greece 1996- 97’, Archaeological Reports 43, 1-125. Brenningmeyer, T., Cooper, F., Downey, C., 1998, ‘Satellites, silicon and stone: spatial information and Greek archaeology’, Geo Info Systems 8.1 (January), 20-28 Cooper, F.A. (ed.), 2002, Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnese (12051955), Athens: Melissa. French, E.B., 1993, ‘Archaeology in Greece 1992-93’, Archaeological Reports 39, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1-83. French, E.B., 1994, ‘Archaeology in Greece 1993-94’, Archaeological Reports 40, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1-84. Tomlinson, R.A., 1995, ‘Archaeology in Greece 199495’, Archaeological Reports 41, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1-74.

A few houses also display painted designs, for example dog-tooth patterns on door (Fig. 4) or window lintels, scenes of dancing, or decoration on a date stone. A more common category of added decorated detail is the patterns formed by inventively setting roof tiles into wall courses. The motifs include rosettes made out of eight roof tiles (usually in upper wall corners), dove nests under roofs, fragments of tile used to pick out the arch of a window, and zigzags filling in windows and door frames of upper storeys (Fig. 4). The Morea Project was the subject of an exhibition held at the Gennadeios Library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens in 2002 and at Chlemoutzi Castle in Eleia in 2004. The exhibition was accompanied by a site catalogue (Cooper 2002) which includes a brief description of each of the 158 villages covered by the survey, no matter how small, and a map showing the buildings surveyed there. The data recorded on the field sheets was used to make detailed, inked drawings of selected buildings, so that each village is represented by a

Mary B. Coulton Formerly University of Oxford [email protected]

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5.1 A Method for the Activity Analysis of Medieval Sites: From the Stratiké Surface Survey Project, Acarnania (Western Greece) Franziska Lang Ciriaco also mentioned that the inhabitants of ‘Gerovilia’ called the hill of the temple of Zeus ‘pyrgos Acheloos’. The name Acheloos itself is known for a diocesan town, but at which location is still disputed. Schwandner (1994, 459-465), for example, has suggested that Gerovigli was the diocesan town Acheloos. This suggestion is based on the excavation results, as well as the surface survey: Medieval finds were revealed by the excavations within Stratos, while the survey-teams collected Medieval material around the hill of the temple of Zeus (Fig. 2). If Schwandner’s interpretation is correct, an earlier source than that of Ciriaco referring to Acheloos is found in the records of the journey by Benjamin of Tudela (Asher 1840, 46). He visited the Jewish communities around the Mediterranean Sea in the 12th century and during his travels in Greece he also mentioned the location ‘Acheloos’, where ten Jewish families lived. In the 13th century the seat of the bishop moved from Acheloos to Angelokastro, which is situated to the South of Gerovigli (Stratos) on the other side of the river Acheloos.

Acarnania is situated in the westernmost region of mainland Greece. It is, like most parts of Greece, very mountainous and has a long coastline with many protected bays. In order to shed some light on the history of this neglected region an excavation project began at Stratos (Fig. 1) in 1990.1 Two years later, in 1992, the excavations were supplemented by a surface survey. The latter project, a Greek-German collaboration, started around the ancient city of Stratos and was completed in 1997.2 Stratos is situated on a hill in the easternmost part of Acarnania on the border with Aitolia and next to the biggest river in Greece, at the present time called Acheloos. In ancient times, Stratos was temporarily the capital of the Acarnanian league. About the history of the Medieval period of Acarnania and especially of Stratos there are some indications in written sources. An early record was provided by Ciriaco di Pizzicolli (from Ancona) in the 15th century AD (Bodnar 1960, 31). In his time Stratos was named Gerovigli (vigla means ‘watchstation’ and geró derived either from ‘γερός’ [strong] or ‘ιερός’ [sacred]).

Fig. 1 - Acarnania

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Fig. 2 - Stratos with areas inhabited during Medieval and Post-Medieval times

material from different deposits (Fig. 2). The historical written sources were confirmed by these finds, which up to then had been considered as no longer discernible for the Medieval period at Stratos (Soustal 1981, 157).

In the following years the name Acheloos no longer stood for a particular settlement, but rather for an entire region. At some point the location called Gerovigli became Sorovigli. From the 18th and 19th centuries there are some further mentions about Sorovigli by early travellers, such as Leake (1967, 140, 143), Heuzey (1860, 331) or Lolling (1989, 232).3 From 1700 on, the Aromunes, a nomadic tribe of Vlachs from the Balkan area, sporadically came to the region of Stratos (Weigand 1895, 183ff.). They settled there under the rule of Ali Pasha at Ioannina. Leake (1967, 140) in fact mentions that Sorovigli was burnt by the men of Ali Pasha at the beginning of the 19th century. After the struggle for independence Acarnania became Greek. In the second half of the 19th century, more Vlachs were settled on the site of the ancient town of Stratos and in some other villages in the area, in accordance with a law of Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis. After the Second World War, Sorovigli was renamed Stratos once again. In the 1960s the village was moved from the ancient and Medieval town Sorovigli/Stratos to the foot of the hill (Dekoulakou 1971, 324).

During the excavation in the agora (in collaboration with Barbara Papadopoulou of the Byzantine Ephorate of Ioannina) the basement of a house dating from the Middle Byzantine period was uncovered (the dating is based on an examination of the ceramic finds by Pamela Armstrong). Foundations of further Medieval houses could be identified in the excavated area, for example, in the east stoa and in the ancient bouleuterion. Behind the enclosure of the agora, evidence of a street from the Ottoman period was revealed. The church of Ag. Nikolaos, built in 1871, has some earlier Byzantine phases. Next to this church the apse of a chapel was found, covered by some graves. Unfortunately, the graves contained no grave goods. On the acropolis the ancient city walls were partially built over by mortared walls, these have been dated to Medieval or Ottoman times as well. Apart from the architectural remains, the excavations yielded glazed and unglazed sherds as well as tiles.

When the excavation started, the centre of interest focussed on antiquity. However, from the first days on, the excavation yielded Medieval and Post-Medieval 158

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As with other surface survey projects, the Stratiké Surface Survey Project (SSSP) was not only concerned with the recovery of unknown sites from the earliest period up to the present day, and with determining the chora of the city of Stratos. Above all, it focussed on a number of questions relating to a wider context: the interaction of ‘town and countryside’, demographic changes, the reconstruction of settlement patterns across time, and the continuity and discontinuity of sites in different political, socio-economic and cultural perspectives. The entire material culture of a landscape should offer the basis so as to achieve the aims just mentioned. In this, the ‘site’ plays an important role. The site was even a point at issue, since there is no standardised terminology and ‘the definition of site is an act of interpretation’ (Alcock, Cherry and Davis 1994, 138). In the end, the main debate circles around on how many sherds a findspot needs to be classified as a site and to indicate the size of a site. The discussion became more complicated, when it came to define the off-site ‘site’. The interpretation of off-site surface material as a result of manuring was also at issue (Wilkinson 1982, 323-33; Bintliff and Snodgrass 1988, 506-13; Cherry, Davis and Mantzourani 1991, 45-54; Alcock, Cherry and Davis 1994, 142-168; Wilkinson and Tucker 1995). These points of controversy will not be discussed here further, but rather our own method for interpreting ‘site function’ and on-site activities.

Next to the excavation in the city, a surface survey was carried out in the region around Stratos (Fig. 3). The whole area, from the river Acheloos to the mountains and Lake Ozeros to the West, and to the villages Lepenou and Matsouki to the North, was surveyed. The major part of the so-called Stratiké (given by the ancient author Polybios) is a plain, with hills leading into mountains at its edges. In the past 30 years the Stratiké has been drained and ploughed for intensive agriculture on a massive scale and the whole area has become arable land. A grid of collection fields, laid over the landscape, formed the basis for the intensive field-walking survey. No particular emphasis was placed on topographically significant spots, nor were sites with remains from ancient periods surveyed in a more intensive way than earlier or later sites. Instead, in accordance with the intentions of the project, all topographic features and periods were treated equally. During the field-walking survey, the distribution and density of surface material was documented, as well as unusual features of the topography and geomorphology were recorded. Any diagnostic material, comprising rims, handles, bases and decorated ceramics, was collected. Architectural remains were measured and drawn to scale. A specific method of collecting sherds permitted the identification of activity areas within the site in one period, as well as probably shifting uses through time, as these were indicated by different artefact types.

Fig. 3 - Stratiké (grey) and the survey grid (dotted lines) field-walked in 1992-97

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Fig. 4 - Stratiké - Distribution of Medieval and Post-Medieval finds

However it has been defined, the site is the starting-point for all further interpretation of the landscape use and its history. The more surprising it must seem that the function of that site is not really a matter of debate; apparently the definition is quite clear. The StratikéSurvey has revealed several find spots with Medieval and Post-Medieval material (Fig. 4). Because of the surviving evidence, the functions of certain sites are perceptible. The foundation walls of some chapels or churches could be identified. The façade of a fountain house was preserved, which had been constructed in 1741 as the inscription shows. Foundations of houses, dating to the Late Byzantine period, were found in the place called Palaiocharvati, where large houses with at least two rooms in the basement and with an enclosed court could be identified. Traces of a further settlement were revealed north of the acropolis of Stratos in a remote area. Here, the houses (one- and two-room houses) are smaller in size than those at Palaiocharvati. Also some traces of kalderimi, the Ottoman roads, were uncovered in some places. The wasters of tiles indicated a local tile production from the 19th century. These examples provided evidence which helps to clarify our understanding of a site’s use. In most cases, however, one cannot immediately understand the original use of a place in the Stratiké and a reconstruction of the former context remains elusive, since the most frequent finds in the survey are only ceramics.

A further criterion for determining the ‘site function’ lies in the size of sites (e.g. Cherry, Davis and Mantzourani 1991, 18-20; Mee and Forbes 1997, 37), but this is not necessary a solid criterion. One small site with few sherds – especially single-phase – might indicate a grave, but it could also be just the field shelter or hut of a family who lived there during the summer and went back to their village in autumn, as it is still common in the Stratiké. Sherds spread over a larger area might point to a settlement as well as a big cemetery, while the existence of pottery of higher quality does not automatically reflect a sanctuary or cemetery. In most cases, in the comprehensive analysis of a survey project the site would have been identified as a settlement (town, village, farmstead etc. depending on the site’s size) unless there were obvious indications (architectural remains,4 epigraphic evidence etc.) of a different function. If one takes a closer look, an interesting phenomenon can be noticed: In most cases when site distribution maps are included in publications, their symbols indicate only time periods and/or site sizes. It is difficult to find a map which shows the distribution of the sites within a period by functions, even when such functions are stated in the published report. A function may be described as far as it is known, but will often not appear in the complex analysis of all sites on distribution maps and as part of the general historical interpretation.

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Churches might serve as an example to illustrate this issue. As Bowden has shown, there are varying preconditions for the establishment of a church (see Bowden, this volume). In Greece some churches appear to have been built in the middle of nowhere. Some, as on Tinos, are distributed one per field, while on Medieval Aigina, each house had its own chapel. In the Stratiké, there are isolated churches as well as those within villages. These churches could have a history which is longer than that of the site in which they are currently found. If one used the same symbols to mark settlement and church distribution without noting a difference in function, however, one would create a map which would, at best, indicate single-phase, as well as multi-period sites and population changes over time. Village churches built in the Byzantine period, sometimes survive even when their founding villages do not. Thus, by indicating settlement and function over time on the map, one can show more accurately the history of an area.

A drop in site numbers within a particular period might be the result of migration to other regions or movement from village to town (e.g. families who follow their relatives who moved earlier from village to town). When using only a site-distribution map, one might interpret the decline in sites as a decline in population. Whereas including both, the distribution of sites, as well as size and function, can demonstrate the increase in size of one or two sites within a period, even as the total number of sites might be decreasing. Moreover, it would allow one to observe potential urbanisation (Greenwood 1985, 533534). Thus, discontinuity might be the result of an ‘evolutionary’ process (the break-up of the political/economical system) or a ‘revolutionary’ process, such as an occupation (Kunow 1994, 340). Hence, treating sites as equivalent to settlements is insufficient if one intends to give an analysis of cultural,5 as well as socio-economic implications to a landscape reflected in the surface material.6

In a broader context the site function provides an aid to the understanding of such phenomena as persistence, nucleation, migration, and more generally, continuity and discontinuity. These different behaviours of the population – stay in or leave from a settlement – influence the structure of a landscape (Fig. 5). Thus, continuity may refer not only to the permanency of a settlement, but even to the persistence of the name of that settlement, as demonstrated by the change from Stratos to Gerovigla to Sorovigli and back to Stratos once more. Continuity may also pertain to any section of the population, as well as to institutions, to functions (in relation to central places) or to religion and religious practices (Kunow 1994, 339-340). Then again, discontinuity may not necessarily signify depopulation.

As already mentioned, the most familiar determination of a site’s function is based on interpretable material (architectural remains, inscriptions, graves etc.) and size. This leaves most of the material, the thousands of sherds without any directly understandable shape or fabric, in danger of being neglected. To prevent the loss of this material and to demonstrate what sherds might tell us, particularly about the function and activities of a site, a method of analysis will be presented below. The examination of the surface material is aimed at establishing a chronology and determining the genuine use of the sites, as well as offering a diachronic interpretation of land-use in the area surveyed. As the majority of finds at the sites are potsherds, they yield good evidence for determining the date and function of a site.

Fig. 5 - The impact of continuity and discontinuity on landscape

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subgroups in each main group for further differentiation. The criteria are based on size and purpose (Rice 1987, 208-242).

Certainly, at first the material must be dated. This is not only important for establishing a site’s chronology, but also for constructing a framework for dating undated local sherds. For this matter the single-phase sites are most important for developing a regional chronology. At these places, the material is more or less homogenous and is datable to one period. Once the datable and the undated material are combined, one can deduce, by comparing the shape and fabric of the unknown sherds with the known sherds, whether the same chronological period pertains to the former undated pottery. A detailed examination of ceramics can provide essential information not only in the sense of chronology, but also for a site-function-analysis. For that purpose it might be worthwhile to recall briefly the different uses of locations. Human settings may be classified into three general categories: living areas (settlement, town, villages, farmstead, field shelter, industrial installation etc.), religious structures and cemeteries. Doubtless these categories are reflected in their material culture, which in turn mirrors different spheres of human behaviour. In a living area one finds different items for food preparation, cooking, serving, transport, storage of liquid and dry products, tiles, tools etc. In religious structures the votives are usually made of metal and often valuable. Ceramics are used for different purposes: basins and jugs are used for baptism, plates and cups could be set into the outer wall of the church for decoration, while amphorae could even be built into the pedentives of the churches (Sanders 1989, 188-190, 196). The roofs were often covered by clay tiles. Graves can provide goods, but there are also graves without any goods in Medieval times. The graves with goods often have some jewellery and/or vessels made of clay or glass. The variety of clay vessel types is not wide (Makropoulou 1985, 255-269; Vavylopulou-Charitonidou 1989, 210-226). Consequently, each category is represented by various items, or by different numbers and combination of items.

open shapes

closed shapes

special shapes

bowl

jug

e.g. candlestick

cup dish plate open big vessel

jar flask pot closed big vessel

chafing dish

Table 1 - Type categories

In the open-shape class the bowls are small and handleless. A cup is bigger and has often an offset rim. A dish is big and is used for food preparation and serving. The form of a plate seems obvious. A basin or mortar belongs to the subgroup of big open-shape vessels. The criteria for the closed-shape vessels are size as well as purpose. The differences between a jug and a jar are mainly in size. Apart from this, a jar is normally used for storage and transport. A pot has a relatively big diameter and is used for cooking. A big closed-shape vessel means a storage pot like a pithos. A candlestick or chafing dish for instance belongs to the special shapes. In addition, what may be said of the larger categories of vessels applies to sherds as well. For example, a handle that once belonged to a jug, can thus be placed in the subgroup ‘jugs’, even if it is no longer possible to identify the exact shape of that jug. By applying this classification, one then gains more sherds for the evaluation of a site. Another aspect to characterise ceramics is the fabric. The fabric of each fragment was described in detail. The SSSP used a special sheet on which every different fabric was outlined. On this sheet it was recorded whether the ceramic was hand- or wheel-made, the treatment of the surface, the hardness etc. This detailed analysis was conducted to create a model from which to date undated vessels. As discussed for the analysis of shapes, it is sufficient to group the single fabrics into five main classes (Table 2). The main criterion was the treatment of the surface which helped to sort out the huge amount of individual fabrics for the site-activity analysis, as had been done for the shapes. In this case a detailed examination is not necessary.

This knowledge forms the basis for further discussion. In ceramics there is a correlation between vessel use and its morphology and technology, and so the assemblages of vessels can be distinguished into each category just mentioned.7 Hence, a detailed analysis of the types, their numbers and the combination of sherds from each site constitutes the basic requirement for a functional interpretation of each site. This method of pottery analysis implies the hypothesis that each function is characterised by a similar combination of pots; comparable assemblages in different sites might point to a similar function of these sites. At first, the SSSP carried out a detailed analysis of the shape of each diagnostic sherd. This was important for dating the ceramics, however, to reconstruct the genuine context in the above sense, it was more helpful to produce a matrix. The latter placed the many individual forms into bigger and more manageable groups. All types of Medieval vessel shapes can be classified in the following groups (Table 1), with the main differentiations between open and closed-shape vessels. Then there are some

fabric class

surface treatment

decor

with sophisticated decoration, e.g. sgraffito simple glazed, incised, painted with slip without slip coarse like pithos

fine slip simple coarse

Table 2 - Fabric categories

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The decorated fabric is characterised by an elaborate pattern such as sgraffito, which needs several stages in the production. Fine fabric is decorated as well, but in a simpler way. It could be glazed in one colour, painted or decorated by comb patterns. Vessels which, after the first drying, are given a separate slip of clay are called slip ware. Fragments without any surface treatment belong to the simple fabric, and finally the coarse fabric has a rough surface on which the inclusions are visible (e.g. pithoi). These groups of types and fabrics are the basis of the functional analysis of each site. The sherds of each site assemblage were accounted for and, in accordance with our system of categories for shapes and fabrics, both the shape and fabric of the pottery were determined. The following examples might give an idea of how the model functions.

decor

decor

fine

slip

simple

shape

shape

op. big vessel

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

fabric

Fig. 7 - Distribution of type and fabric classes at site 999

The combination of the shape and the fabric groups in each site must be compared to find sites with more or less identical or non-identical pot sequences. The more similar the sequences at the sites, the more logical it is to suppose the same function for those places, as well as the opposite. In a comparison of both sites (078, 999) one can recognise that, apart from pithoi and bowls, the same forms, jugs and jars, are revealed at both sites, but differ in ratio and fabrics. It seems to be likely that the genuine context of each site can be characterised by its different functions. However, for comparative purposes, a set of references is require, before one can attempt to establish to which of the above-mentioned main categories (settlement, ecclesiastical structure or cemetery) a site might belong. Such data must be obtained from sites for which the context is known and must be based upon single-phase sites, since multi-period sites can change their function over time. The pottery of such a known context must be researched in the same way as the examples of 078 and 999. Only then one can compare the sequences of the sites from where the context is known, with those of the formerly analysed but as yet unknown assemblages, and finally identify their genuine function.

coarse

dish bowl 60%

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0%

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40%

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bowl

jar

20%

simple

dish

pot

0%

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At the Late Byzantine site 078 a lot of handles and undecorated fragments are visible, while at site 999 (also Late Byzantine), the sherds are mostly rims and are decorated. If one compares both collections of sherds, one can notice the different uses of types and fabrics at both sites. At site 078 one can determine that most vessels are closed-shapes (Fig. 6). One shape predominates: most fragments of ceramics are jars. There are only a few sherds of other types. Some sherds indicate pithoi. The open-shape vessels are only represented by a cup. The vessels of this collection can be related to three fabrics: the predominant one is simple ware, while the others are fine and coarse fabrics.

special shape

fine

special shape

The Stratiké area, for example, provided sherd assemblages of a Late Byzantine settlement, site 030. At this place, foundation walls of houses and a church were detected. Once again, after listing the ceramics of the site in a graph (Fig. 8), one can see that only two types and two fabrics are represented. The simple fabric predominates at 030 and many jars were found. In a comparative analysis (Fig. 9) of the shapes of all three sites, different combinations of the vessels are visible. Site 999 has the greatest variety. The amount of the types is roughly balanced except for the bowls, whereas at 078 the jars clearly predominate. The finds from 030 show mostly closed-shape vessels. An almost similar picture is gained by comparing the fabrics of these sites (Fig. 10). At 078 and 030 there are the same fabrics, whereas site 999 was dominated by fine fabric and there are also pots with decoration.

80% 100%

fabric

Fig. 6 - Distribution of type and fabric classes at site 078

At the other site, 999 (Fig. 7), the proportion of the open to the closed-shape vessels is roughly balanced. There is no predominance of one single form in the whole assemblage. Apart from some bowls, cups are the most frequent form of open-shape vessels, whereas fragments of jars and jugs represent the closed-shape group. This group also contains some pieces of simple fabric. Contrary to site 078, at site 999 there are decorated sherds found as well.

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decor

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decor fine slip simple coarse

coarse

special shape 999

jar s ite s

shape

pot

078

op. big vessel dish

030

bowl 0%

20%

40%

60%

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Fig. 8 - Distribution of type and fabric classes at site 030

20%

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Fig. 10 - Comparison of fabrics from 078, 999 and 030

78

From these data one might infer that the many jars at site 078, like those at site 030, were used for food storage. The sequences of pots in both places are roughly similar and therefore site 078 might have been a former rural settlement (likely a farmstead), while at 999 the greater variety of types and fabrics indicates a different function.

30

I hope to have provided an insight into how one might

bowl op. big vessel pot

cup jug cl. big vessel

dish jar special shape

plate flask

site s

999

gather further information about the use of the site by a more encompassing employment of ceramics based on a framework of a site-activity analysis. Combined with all other information, the interpretation and reconstruction of the political, socio-economic and cultural organization of a landscape and human behaviour are more accurate.

16 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Fig. 9 - Comparison of types from 078, 999 and 030 results of the site-function-analysis of one period are not necessarily transferable to other periods, but must be examined case by case. Nonetheless, within each time period every category of human setting has its specific combination of numbers and types of items.

NOTES 1

The project was directed by Lazaros Kolonas in collaboration with Ernst-Ludwig Schwandner. Lazaros Kolonas was then the Director of the Department of Antiquities of Patras, while Ernst-Ludwig Schwandner was the head of the Department of History of Ancient Architecture at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. 2 It was jointly directed by Lazaros Kolonas, the German historians Peter Funke and Hans Joachim Gehrke, the architect Ernst-Ludwig Schwandner and the geographer Friedrich Sauerwein. 3 These publications concern reprints of 19th century travelogues (Leake 1967; Lolling 1989). 4 Even architectural remains do not always give conspicuous indications (see Mee and Forbes 1997, 36). 5 Landscape is not only to be seen as an environment for living and economic exploitation, but there are also magical and religious perceptions (Müller 1992, 43-58). 6 A further issue is the equivalent treatment of site-sizes. I suppose we cannot start our research with one universal set of site-size valid for all periods. The size of a town, village etc. varies from period to period (probably also the definition and its significance too); therefore different size-categories must be considered in the settlement pattern analysis and they must be independently defined for each period (Gregory 1984, 273; Kennedy 1985, 4-6; Bintliff 1997, 72-88; Lang 1999). 7 Once again, one must consider that the variety of shapes and fabrics was not the same in different periods. In ancient times there was a larger variety of pot types than in later times. Therefore, the

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alcock, S., Cherry, J.F. and Davis, J.L., 1994, ‘Intensive survey, agricultural practice and the classical landscape of Greece’, in I. Morris (ed.), Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 135-169. Asher, A., 1840, The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, Vol I, London. Barker, G., Hodges, R. and Clark, G. (eds), 1995, A Mediterrranean Valley: Landscape Archaeology and Annales History in the Biferno Valley, London: Leicester University Press. Bintliff, J. and Snodgrass, A.M., 1988, ‘Off-site pottery distributions: a regional and interregional perspective’, Current Anthropology 29, 506-513.

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Bintliff, J. 1997, ‘Catastrophe, chaos and complexity: the death, decay and rebirth of towns from Antiquity to today’, Journal of European Archaeology 5, 67-90. Bodnar, E.W., 1960, Cyriacus of Ancona and Athens, Coll. Latomus XLIII, Bruxelles. Cherry, J.F., Davis, J.L. and Mantzourani, E., 1991, ‘Data evaluation and off-site distribution’, in J.F. Cherry, J.L. Davis and E. Mantzourani (eds), Landscape Archaeology as Long-term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands from Earliest Settlement until Modern Times, Los Angeles, CA: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, 37-54. Dekoulakou, I, 1971, ArchDelt 26 Chron: 324. Greenwood, M.J. 1985, ‘Human migration: theory, models, and empirical studies’, Journal of Regional Sciences 25 (4), 521-544. Gregory, T.E., 1984, ‘Cities and social evolution in Roman and Byzantine south east Europe’, in J. Bintliff (ed.), European Social Evolution: Archaeological Perspectives, Bradford: Bradford University, 267-276. Gregory, T.E., 1994, ‘Archaeology and theoretical considerations on the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Aegean area’, in P.N. Kardulias (ed.), Beyond the Site: Regional Studies in the Aegean Area, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 137-159. Heuzey, L.A., 1860, Le mont Olympe et l'Acarnanie, Paris: Firmin Didot. Kennedy, H., 1985, ‘From polis to Madina: urban change in Late Antiquity and Early Islamic Syria’, Past and Present 106, 3-27. Kunow, J., 1994, ‘Zur Theorie von kontinuierlichen und diskontinuierlichen Entwicklungen im Siedlungswesen’, in C. Dobiat (ed.), Festschrift für Otto-Hermann Frey zum 65. Geburtstag, Marburger Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte Bd. 16, Marburg, 338-352. Lang, F., 1999, ‘Stadt und Umland - ein komplementäres System’, in K. Rheidt and E.L. Schwandner (eds), Stadt und Umland, 6. Kolloquium zur Diskussion antiker Bauforschung des Architektur-Referates des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Berlin, Mainz, 1-18. Leake, W.M. 1967 [1835], Travels in Northern Greece, Vol. I, Reprinted Amsterdam. Lolling, H.G., 1989, Reisenotizen aus Griechenland 1876 und 1877, Reprinted Berlin. Makropoulou, D., 1985, ‛Απο το υστεροβυζαντινό νεκροταφείο τη ς Μονής Βλατάδων’, in Θεσσαλονίκη I, Saloniki, 255-269. Mee, C., and Forbes, H., 1997, Survey Methodology, in C. Mee and H. Forbes (eds), A Rough and

Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 33-41. Müller, K.E., 1992, ‘Prinzipien der Haus- und Siedlungstopographie’, Sociologus 42 (1), 43-58. Rice, P.M., 1987, Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Sanders, G.D.R., 1989, ‘Three Peloponnesian churches and their importance for the chronology of Late 13th and Early 14th century pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean’, in V. Déroche and J.M. Spieser (eds), Recherches sur la céramique byzantine, Actes du colloque organisé par l'école francaise d'Athènes et l'université de Strasbourg II (XVIII Suppl. BCH), ParisAthènes, 189-199. Schwandner, E.-L., 1993, Archäologischer Anzeiger, 677-679. Schwandner, E.-L., 1994, ‚‛ Stratos am Acheloos.óςάσ?’ in PHEGOS, Festschrift für S. Dakaris, Ioannina,: University of Ioannina. 459-465. Soustal, P., and Koder, J., 1981, Nikopolis und Kephallenia, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 3, Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou, A., 1989, ‘Céramique d'offrande trouvée dans des tombes byzantines tardives de l'Hippodrome de Thessalonique’, in V. Déroche and J.-M. Spieser (eds), Recherches sur la céramique byzantine, Actes du colloque organisé par l'école francaise d'Athènes et l'université de Strasbourg II (XVIII Suppl. BCH), Paris-Athènes, 209-226. Weigand, G., 1895, Die Aromunen: Ethnographischphilologisch-historische Untersuchungen über das Volk der sogenannten Makedo-Romanen oder Zinzaren, Vol. 1, Leipzig: Barth. Wilkinson, T.J., 1982, ‘The definition of ancient manuring zones by means of extensive sherd sampling techniques’, Journal of Field Archaeology 9, 323-333. Wilkinson, T.J., and Tucker, D.J., 1995, Settlement Development in the North Jazira, Iraq: A Study of the Archaeological Landscape, British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the Department of Antiquities & Heritage, Bagdad: Aris and Phillips. Franziska Lang Technische Universität Darmstadt Fachbereich Architektur Darmstadt – Germany Email: [email protected]

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5.2 Breaking Pots: Medieval and Post-Medieval Ceramics from Central Greece* Joanita Vroom INTRODUCTION

never completely interrupted. These circumstances offer at least some sort of foundation for the study of a continuous Post-Classical history of habitation. The starting point for my own research is the fact that some sites in Boeotia have apparently been inhabited continuously throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages until Modern times, whilst other sites were inhabited during short and clearly bounded periods of time.

For archaeologists a thing in pieces is a joy forever. That is precisely why most archaeologists love the Greeks. Their culture seems to have been built on the breaking of pots, plates and cups; in fact, on breaking anything made of ceramics, which is, as we all know quite breakable. In ancient Greece the after-dinner game called ‘cottabos’ always ended in heaps of pottery broken to pieces by drunken young men who tried to hit a little figure with the wine drops they spilt out of their drinking cup (Fig. 1). In Modern Greece, the breaking of plates is a standard ritual at weddings, or is an invented tradition for tourists in bouzouki-bars. The more broken pieces of pottery, often the merrier the crowd gets.1 From Medieval times onwards, the breaking of pots had also significance beyond making food for archaeologists. At least on the island of Paros it was customary to break a dish or bowl on a grave nine days after the deceased had been laid to rest. This bowl was filled with boiled wheat mixed with fruits and sugar so that the soul of the deceased had something to eat. The sherds were left on the grave, and only then was the burial slab put in place.2 And also on Cyprus, water and oil from large ceramic jugs were poured on the grave before burial, after which the pots were cracked and left on the grave with a candle burning inside.3 The thought behind all this is the conviction that pottery and people are made of the same matter, soil that is. So it was soil to soil, dust to dust and sherds to the archaeologist. In a way this makes clear that every piece of broken pottery could tell its story. Unfortunately, sherds do not speak for themselves, they must be spoken for - and this is what I will try to do in this paper.

Fig. 1 - Drinking party on a red-figured kylis (from Sparkes and Talcott 1951)

Such a starting point seems to be lacking in most other parts of Greece where surveys have been undertaken. I have also worked in Aetolia, and the contrast in the number and quality of the sampled Medieval sherds found in that enigmatic mountain region with those found on the low hills of Beotia could not be more striking.6 Compared to Aetolia, Boeotia seems like heaven for those who have to work on Medieval pottery sampled during surface surveys. The sheer quantity has opened up one of the more exciting prospects of my endeavours to combine the ceramic data from all the Medieval and Post-Medieval sites into a typo-chronological mosaic, which may provide for Boeotia a so-called ‘floating chronology’ reaching from the 7th to the 19th century AD.

THE BOEOTIA PROJECT

When the Boeotia Project started its field research in 1978, little was known about urban or rural developments during the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods in this part of Central Greece – or of any part of Greece for that matter (Fig. 2). After almost three decades of intensive archaeological survey this situation has now changed. Many unknown Post-Roman sites have been recorded and about eleven thousand Medieval and Post-Medieval sherds have been collected.4 A large part of this surface pottery is of fine quality and remarkably well-preserved. Noteworthy also is the fact that this inland region has seen a fair amount of imports from Italy and Turkey.5

With a ‘floating chronology’, or rather horizontal stratigraphy, I mean a string of overlapping date-ranges from the various sites in the research region. Such a string of cross-cutting dating sequences may in the end result in a chronological chain which connects, in ceramic terms, the Roman era to our age. Whereas archaeologists who excavate multi-period settlements use the different vertical levels of occupation to provide a chronology of the separate phases of habitation, the Boeotia Project suggests

From ancient times Boeotia has been a rich and densely populated agrarian region, in which human habitation was 167

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that it was this change which led to shifts in shapes. And of course here the question arises: what was happening and how can we explain these changes?

that it is a promising perspective to use the different scattered settlements in the same, but ‘horizontal’ way. The fact that the Boeotia survey has a number of recorded sites with well-defined chronological boundaries is of vital importance for the construction of this ‘floating chronology’. The analysis and seriation of this material may produce the identification of characteristic groups of material for the entire Post-Roman period with overlapping phases of perhaps 150-200 years. In this way, the chronological chain of the floating chronology could be linked together step by step.7

The answer which I would like to discuss here is the possibility that the shift in shapes and function of the Boeotian pottery could perhaps be explained by changes in dining habits. If we are to explore this possibility, the consequence would be that we approach broken pottery not only as a dating-tool, but that it is also worthwhile to undertake more research into the functional and cultural context of the Boeotian finds.9 In fact, in Medieval times pots were (and they still are) daily-life products, containers which people once used to eat from. The questions ‘at what date, where and how was a pot made?’ may be very relevant to most archaeologists, but they did of course not really matter to the Medieval inhabitants of Boeotia. It seems likely that the latter were much more interested in pragmatic issues such as: does the vessel look appealing enough to buy it, how much do I have to pay for it and, last but not least, will the pot do its job in the kitchen and on the table? What I am trying to argue here is that besides a ‘floating chronology’ one can also try to construct a long term floating line of dining habits in Medieval and PostMedieval Boeotia by looking at the relationship between the form and use of pottery and changes in drinking and eating habits.10 However, I will restrict myself to the glazed and colourful decorated table wares, used for serving food and drink, and will not discuss the no less interesting problems related to the crudely manufactured utilitarian wares, which are connected with transport, storing and cooking. THE MIDDLE BYZANTINE PERIOD

From the end of the 11th century onward, the practice of using pottery for table purposes became more widespread in Medieval Greece. The potters took much more trouble to ensure that vessels for the table such as bowls and dishes were pleasing to look at. This was achieved by covering their inside with an overall coating of white slip and a colourless lead glaze, and further enhancing the surfaces with a colourful variety of incised and painted designs. Consequently, the bulk of tableware found at Boeotian sites consists of Fine Sgraffito Ware (decorated with fine line incisions through the white slip with a sharp tool, often including a so-called ‘Kufic’ border), Green and Brown Painted Ware (with spiral designs painted with copper and iron oxides on a white slip) and Slip Painted Ware (where the white slip was used as a decoration-technique to paint the vessel surface).11

Fig. 2 - The Boeotia Project (●) in Central Greece

CHANGES IN POTTERY SHAPE

In this paper, however, I will not dwell too much on the dating and the provenance of surface finds. Instead, attention will be drawn to the fact that in the Boeotian ceramic samples there are striking differences in pottery shape and technology of the table wares for each chronological phase. For instance, for the Middle Byzantine period I have found much more open shapes of large plates with large diameters (sometimes up to 30 cm), while in the Late Byzantine/Frankish period much smaller bowls with smaller rim and base diameters form the major part of the diagnostic forms. In contrast, during the Turkish (or Ottoman) period, the rim diameters of most vessels become much larger again.8

However, no matter how delicate these broken pieces of pottery may appear from the outside, the façade is only to hide the soft and rather coarse fabric, made of the local terra rossa clays. The clay was not very well levigated and contains many calcium carbonate inclusions. These calcium carbonate inclusions caused a cracking of the clay during the firing process (when heated up) and must have

Since the Boeotia Survey is an intensive survey, one would expect that these changes are unrelated to sample strategies or other factors. The conclusion must be that the samples suggest a change in the use of pottery through time, and 168

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Green Sgraffito groups with two or more colours in the glaze (usually copper and iron). In addition to the vast improvement in the quality of the lead glaze, which became thicker and with a more vitreous appearance, and the departure from a monochrome glaze, a fine, thinlypotted ware replaced the previous thick, soft and coarse wares. Also a new range of designs was introduced and the Sgraffito-technique was employed in a more inventive and better controlled fashion.13

created big problems for the Medieval potters. What we have here are, in fact, not very sophisticated and rather porous vessels, which the potters tried to cover up with a white slip (without calcium carbonate) and a lead glaze as sealants. In addition, the shapes of these decorated wares are generally very simple (Fig. 3). We see thick-walled dishes and shallow bowls with a low ring foot, but jugs are unusual. The open wide dishes and bowls come in similar shapes, but a range of sizes. These wide dishes and bowls have, in general, large rim diameters, ranging from 24 to 30 cm.12 Looking from the perspective of dining habits, the function of these serving and eating vessels was probably intended for communal rather than for individual use at the table. Centrally placed on the table, these forms reflect activity at the table which involved sharing food together. However, because of their porosity they were probably not very suitable for watery or greasy dishes.

Fig. 4 - Sherds of the Late Byzantine/Frankish Period from Boeotia (author) Fig. 3 - Sherds of the Middle Byzantine Period from Boeotia (author)

Noteworthy was also a change in shape: from the 13th century onwards we see small, deep bowls with a high ring foot instead of wide, shallow plates with a low ring base (Fig. 4). The rim width of the bowls is, generally smaller than their Middle Byzantine predecessors, ranging from 17 to 20 cm.14 These bowls could have been used in connection with liquid mixtures, or perhaps were once drinking vessels. After all, the consumption of watery things clearly implies vessels with fairly high sides and thicker glazes.

THE LATE BYZANTINE / FRANKISH PERIOD

These fancy table wares with a colourless glaze seem to have gone out of use in the 13th century, being overtaken in the Late Byzantine/Frankish period by Sgraffito ware with a single colour added to the glaze and later by Brown and 169

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they were more interested in the representation of moral and theological problems.15

Jugs constitute another important class of domestic ware from the 13th century onwards. They occur in a very wide range of shapes, often glazed and sometimes highly decorated. Their increasing popularity in the high Middle Ages may in part reflect the fashions in tableware fostered by the growth in the wine trade at that time, or may simply be due to changes in social customs. A prime function of jugs was to contain beverages to be served at table, although they also had other uses, such as transporting or fetching water for the kitchen. It can be suggested that while jugs are potentially multi-functional, there is little in the variations in shape which could have affected their principal use: the serving of liquids.

The pottery depicted on Byzantine icons, miniatures or frescoes may thus have a purely symbolic meaning. Certain forms of vessels – real or imaginary – may have served for many decades as a standard example for a school of artists. Other pots may have been neglected by artists because the colour or form did not fit in their aesthetic traditions. In short, the problem whether Byzantine artists represented the reality of their own times, or repeated a standard repertoire (which may even have its origin in the Early Christian period), should be approached carefully.

One may wonder whether these technological and functional innovations of the Late Byzantine/Frankish era were influenced by actual changes in dining habits. And if so, how can we get a picture of these changing dining habits? Of course, textual sources could be explored, and the critical analysis of representations of pottery on Medieval icons, frescoes and miniatures could perhaps offer some sort of insight into the use and social context of the objects.

Still, I believe that the combination of information obtained by a functional approach to the ceramics, by scrutinizing the textual sources, and by looking - with a critical eye - at the socio-historical representation of Medieval pottery, may prove to be a fruitful way to come to relevant conjectures about the past. As Karl Popper told us many times, in the end all science (including archaeology) is based on conjectures, and preferably bold ones.16

However, we should keep in mind that written sources about this subject are very scarce indeed, and that an iconographical approach to the functional analysis of Greek Medieval pottery is also not without its handicaps. It is an illusion to hope that by carefully looking at Medieval frescoes one is able to have direct access to historical reality. One obvious problem is that the style of an artist may seem realistic to us, without necessarily having been so in the Middle Ages. The Byzantines, moreover, did not perceive the world around them in the same way as we do nowadays. Certainly Byzantine artists had no interest in depicting everyday reality as precisely as possible, because

CHANGES IN DINING HABITS

In the written sources of Medieval times, earthenware table wares were generally referred to as low-value items in the hierarchy of materials. Consequently, in wealthier households pottery was usually considered to be of a lower quality than a gold or silver vessel. Some Byzantine sources even stress this hierarchy of materials by exclaiming that the catastrophic impoverishment of the Imperial court at Constantinople required the replacement of gold and silver vessels by ceramic ones.17

Fig. 5 - ‘Last Supper’ fresco in the crypt of the Monastery of Hosios Loukas in Boeotia (11th century)

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Fig. 6 - ‘The Feast of Herod’ – miniature in an 11th century Byzantine manuscript (from Omont 1908)

Of course, we have to be very careful with these ‘Last Supper’ scenes, because the dishes depicted could have a liturgical or symbolic meaning rather than a representation of real table wares (with Jesus Christ being symbolized in the pair of fish on a plate).20 However, when we look at other dining scenes on miniatures of a 11th century Byzantine manuscript (which is kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris) such as ‘The Feast of Herod’ or ‘Jesus sitting in the House of Simon the Leper’ we see each time the same pattern of one large communal dish, flanked by two communal cups (Fig. 6).21

We just do not know the precise importance of precious metalwork or earthenware within a normal household economy. We may assume that vessels made of cheaper materials such as wood and leather almost certainly occupied a position at least as important as that of pottery. Where metal vessels were largely confined to aristocratic households, in humbler kitchens food could very well be prepared, cooked and served in vessels made from wood, basketry, leather or stone. Byzantine sources mention, for instance, domestic utensils made of clay, wood, glass, silver and gold.18 The Byzantinist N. Oikonomides studied lists of household goods of middle- and lower-class households, living in the provinces. He concluded that eating procedures must have been rather simple in the average Byzantine household: ‘People often, if not always, ate with their fingers from a large serving plate and drank from a common cup or jar (made of clay).19 Table and furniture for seating were also rare in these lists, as were spoons. An exception to the rule were monasteries (and hospitals), where deep, or flat individual plates of earthenware or wood appeared, together with drinking glasses and spoons. According to Oikonomides, this perhaps occurred because personal cleanliness and healthy habits were highly valued in these places. Comparing table habits on 11th century Byzantine frescoes and miniatures with those on 14th century representations, we seem to be looking at what very well could be changing dining practices – at least, for the well-to-do classes. If we look, for instance, at dinner-scenes in the Middle Byzantine period, such as the 11th century ‘Last Supper’- fresco in the crypt of the monastery of Hosios Loukas in Boeotia, we see just one large communal plate with a pair of fish on it, placed centrally on the table (Fig. 5). This open plate seems to be used by all diners around the table, who were sitting behind their square wooden or bread trenchers. There were no knives, spoons or forks on the table, which implies that all guests used only their fingers to eat from the shared plate directly or after transferring bits to their personal trenchers. Two cups, flanking the communal plate, were apparently also shared by all diners.

Fig. 7 - ‘Last Supper’ fresco at the Docheiariou Monastery on Mount Athos (14th century)

In contrast, on ‘Last Supper’- scenes of a later date, a shift towards a greater variety of vessels, jugs and beakers seems unmistakably to have taken place. A late 14th century ‘Last Supper’- fresco at the Docheiariou monastery on Mount Athos, for example, shows us the separation of food into several bowls, as well as the use of jugs and even glass beakers and wine jugs (Fig. 7). The knives on this fresco were probably intended to cut food into manageable pieces, which could then be picked up by hand, or they could serve as forks by lifting food to the mouth. The guests were expected to share the dishes and knives between three or four men, but it seems as if they had one bread roll each. These rolls were perhaps used as a 171

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supplementary spoon to soak up sauces and gravies. With the spread of affluence and some sort of new (and more complicated) table manners, a variety of vessels and cutlery seems to have come into fashion.22

more watery dishes cooked in their own juices, as in Northwestern Europe.26 This shift from an emphasis on roasting and grilling to stewing could perhaps explain the move to deeper containers. As we have seen, the bowls of the Late Byzantine/Frankish period are notably deeper in our Boeotian samples than the earlier dishes.

Another interesting feature on the same 14th century ‘Last Supper’- fresco from Mount Athos is the presence of three horseradish-like roots lying among the tableware. This vegetable makes its sudden appearance on many Late Medieval frescoes, icons and miniatures with all kinds of scenes from the 14th century onwards. If the roots are indeed horseradish, which originates from Southern and Eastern Russia, they may refer to the maròr (the bitter flavours), which the Jews normally consume as a side dish during their Seder (a ritual meal in which symbolic foods are tasted during the Jewish paschal meal or Pesach).23 They appear so frequently in a non-Pesach context that their presence may simply indicate a new ingredient on the dinner table in Byzantine iconography. Perhaps the radishlike roots were used against intoxication during excessive wine-drinking.24 It has also been suggested that these white roots were perhaps a stimulant for the appetite or refreshing for the mouth, and may have been used as a substitute for toothpaste or toothpicks in order to clean the teeth after and during meals.25

Another possible answer is that the Frankish Crusaders, as newcomers in the Byzantine kitchen, brought radical new eating customs with them to 13th century Greece. In Corinth, for example, a new type of deep-bodied ‘stewpot’ with a tall neck and slightly inward turned rim appeared around the middle of the 13th century, perhaps due to the influx of Latin refugees after the capture of Constantinople in AD 1261.27 In historical sources we also find clear references to the different eating styles and cooking habits between East and West. One Byzantine source even ridiculed the outright dirty and unclean cooking methods of the Frankish Crusaders, because they consumed chines of beef cooked in large pots, and ate smoked pork with ground peas, as well as spicy sauces with garlic (Nik. Chon. 594.1-5). Of course, we must keep in mind that these negative qualifications were written by chroniclers from Constantinople who gave voice to ethnic stereotypes.28

The change to a different dining style in Late Medieval Greece may have been influenced by a progressive trend to

Fig. 8 - Sherds of the Ottoman Period from Boeotia (author)

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the mouth etc.36 There was even an intricate etiquette of eating soup communally, whereby the right side of the spoon was only used to dish the broth up and the left to side to eat from.37

THE TURKISH PERIOD

Apart from a change of dining habits in the 13th century we can also see another change towards the end of the 15th century, when a range of new and more sophisticated ceramic products appeared in Boeotia. Besides some Sgraffito imports with North-Italian features, we can notice an increase of fine tin-glazed wares from Italy (Maiolica) and Turkey (Iznik ware).29 These high-quality imported wares were the result of improved technology and apparently designed for the table or for display purposes. Their glossy white surface, being painted with metallic oxides, gave a colourful decoration, which was easily adaptable to meet new design-trends in the most fashionable Renaissance and Islamic styles of the time.30 The huge popularity of similar painted tin-glazed wares in 16th and 17th century Europe is sometimes explained by the fact that it looked like porcelain but could be manufactured nearer at home for much lower prices. In Greece the influence of Italian imports also gave a new impetus to local ceramics (Greek imitations of Maiolica), and provided new shapes.31 A new phenomenon was, for instance, the trefoil-mouth jug.32 These jugs were popular both in plain glazed, painted and Sgraffito form, but their shapes were not very varied. New features on these trefoilmouth jugs were handles with a ‘tail’ and moulded horizontal neck rings. The shapes suggested metal prototypes and were perhaps ultimately inspired by Islamic examples.

Fig. 9 - Banquet scene on an 18th century Ottoman miniature (from Atasoy and Raby 1989)

European travellers generally found the Ottoman cuisine often too plain for their liking noticing in particular the lack of table decoration.38 To them the Ottomans ate without ceremony, seated on the floor around a sini (a low tray on a column) and eating with their hands from a single dish (Fig. 10).

Another new shape in the table wares of the 15th to 16th centuries was the large flanged dish with expanded flat rim, often with notches or pie-crust decoration in the lip (Fig. 8).33 The diameter of the rim varies from 18 to 24 cm. The increase of average rim width in comparison with fine wares from the Late Byzantine/Frankish period (17-20 cm.) is obvious.34 Perhaps these large dishes of the Turkish period were once used for substances containing a lot of liquid like soup or porridge (trachana), the most common dishes for people in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.35 These liquid mixtures were probably eaten from a communal plate in which everybody who was sitting around dipped his or her spoon. Ottoman miniatures offer some ideas of how these bowls were used. At a banquet depicted in the sûrnâme of Sultan Ahmed III, individual spoons are placed in front of each guest, while there is a large serving soup tureen at the centre of the table (Fig. 9). The food was usually brought to the table in large bowls, copper dishes, covered pans or lidded porcelain dishes, which were placed in the centre. Everyone used to eat with their spoons or fingers from the same dish.

Fig. 10 - Dinner at the Governor’s house in Athens (from Dupré 1825)

There were many rules of etiquette relating to food and eating in Ottoman times, often derived from Islamic doctrine. These included washing the hands before and after meals, sitting modestly at table, using three fingers to pass the food from dish to mouth, using tow hands to break bread, not smacking the lips, not looking at what your neighbour was eating, turning one’s head away from the table when coughing or sneezing, not talking with food in

Although in the 19th century the Ottoman court gradually switched over to more Western dining habits, serving each person a portion on a separate plate,39 the tradition of eating communally from one dish must have persisted much longer in the provinces. In Boeotia, for example, this custom perhaps lived on even into Early Modern times. In 173

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the Benaki Museum at Athens there is a lithograph by Gille based on the design of the Estonian baron Otto Magnus von Stackelberg (1786-1837), who travelled in Central Greece at the beginning of the 19th century (Fig. 11). On this picture we see dinner time in a village hut at Eleusis in Attica, where the people sit on the floor around a low round table and eat with their hands from a big communal plate.

the region, which may enable us to get some sort of grasp on the Medieval and Post-Medieval chronology of habitation in Greek lands. In the second place, I try to understand the shifts in function and technology of the broken pieces of pottery in Boeotia in conjunction with textual sources and with wider socio-economic developments. The combination of these three factors leads to a kind of pattern, which apparently indicates shifts in dining habits. I would suggest that in Boeotia there were rather clear changes from exclusively communal dining in Middle Byzantine times (more focussed on sharing food together) to a gradual transitional form of more Western non-communal, small group dining in the Late Byzantine/Frankish period (the possible beginning of personal consumerism), and back again to communal dining in the Turkish era. These changes could explain much of the changing forms in our pottery samples. These transitions took place at a different pace in different parts of the region.

The remarks of the American traveller Edward Dodwell, who was invited for dinner in a Greek house at Krissa (in Phocis) at the beginning of the 19th century, offers interesting insights. During this meal he dined at a low round table of tinned copper, the sini, and sat on cushions on the floor. Besides complaining about the bad wine, Dodwell also spoke with disgust about the communal large goblet, the ‘kiliks philotisia’, which served for the whole party. He mentioned with abhorrence the fact ‘that both Greeks and Turks use only one glass at meals’.40 CONCLUSION

However, work is still very much in progress. In the future it may prove worthwhile to undertake more research into the changes in the cultural values of food and drink among the elites and the poorer classes in Boeotia. In short: one could try to take a closer look at the person ‘behind’ the broken pieces of pottery.

My efforts to make a contribution to the Boeotia Project follow two lines of approach, two perspectives, from which I try to piece together the Medieval and PostMedieval past of this Central Greek region. In the first place, I try to construct a floating chronology of the sites in

Fig. 11 - Dining scene in the 19th century village of Eleusis in Attica (from Dimisantou-Kremezi 1984, fig. 49) 1 Also in Africa, the deliberate breaking of pots is often done as a special ‘ritual act’ during marriage or death ceremonies (Cf. Barley 1994, 92, 112). 2 I would like to thank A. Vionis for this comment. 3 More examples of the breaking of pots in the Aegean are to be found at burial and baptism ceremonies on Cyprus and on Samos (cf. London, Egoumenidou and Karageorghis 1990, 30, 34). They describe how on Cyprus jugs containing oil were poured over the grave and afterwards broken to create a noise intended to ward off evil intentions. See also

NOTES * My special thanks go to the Boeotia Project and its directors, John Bintliff and Anthony Snodgrass, for inviting me to study and publish all the Post-Roman pottery sampled during the survey. I am also indebted to the Leverhulme Foundation (UK) for financial support concerning my study of Byzantine, Medieval and Post-Medieval ceramics in Central Greece. The pottery drawings are my own, and were inked by Yvonne Beadnell of Durham University (UK).

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Psaropolou (1984, 50) for the Samos ritual, where a vessel containing the baptism water of a child (apoloutra) was taken to the cemetery. There the pot was emptied and then smashed to the ground, since it was forbidden to use it again. 4 See Bintliff 1995, 1996a, 1996b. 5 Cf. Vroom 1996, 1998a, 1998b; and especially 2003. 6 See also Vroom 1998b for the differences in survey results in Boeotia and Aetolia respectively. 7 See Vroom (2003, 188-191, tables 6.8A-B) for a more detailed discussion of this ‘floating chronology’ in Boeotia. 8 See Vroom on these changes in rim- and base diameters of pottery (1998a, 540-545; 2003, 229-239; 2003, table 7.3). 9 See also Vroom 1997, 2000, 2003. 10 Until now I have explored the relationship between changes in pottery shapes and changes in eating and drinking habits in Vroom 1996, 1997, 1998a, 540-545; 2000, and 2007; and especially Vroom 2003, 229-239, 303-357. 11 See in general for these wares Morgan 1942, 72-83, 95-103, and 117140; Vroom 2005, 80-87. 12 See Vroom 2003, table 7.3. 13 See Vroom 2005, 108-109, 116-123. 14 See Vroom 2003, table 7.3. 15 On problems in iconographical research see Mango 1981, 48-57, Dauterman Maguire and Maguire 1992, 1-20; see also Vroom 2003, 307309; 2007, 192. 16 Popper 1963. 17 See, for example, Nicephorus Gregoras in Schopen and Becker 182955, XV, 2, vol. iii, 788.15-8 and Overbeck 1865, 172, 14-18. 18 John Chrysostom in Migne 1857-66, 59, 763. 19 Oikonomides 1990, 212. 20 For this suggestion see also Coll i Rosell 1994. 21 Cf. Omont 1908, figs. 69/1, 82/1 and 123/1. See also Vroom 2003, 315-321 and 2007, 197-200. 22 Another ‘Last Supper’ scene on a 14th century icon in the Monastery of Vlatadon at Thessaloniki shows a greater variety in table equipment. Here one can discern three bowls of fish, three knives and some bread rolls and horseradishes on the table. Cf. ByzArt 1985-1986, 81, no. 85. See also Vroom 2003, 323; 2007, 200-202 and Lymberopolou 2007, 226-228 for this greater variety of table utensils in the Late Byzantine/Frankish period. 23 I would like to thank Professor Johanna Maria van Winter for this suggestion. See also Reinhardt (1911, 293), who mentions that horseradish (or cochlearia armoracea) originally came from Southern and Eastern Russia. 24 See Anagnostakis and Papamastorakis 2002. 25 See Koder 1993, 88, note 12; Vroom 2003, 323-327; 2007, 202-203 and Lymberopolou 2007, 225. 26 The change to more liquid food in Late Medieval and Early Tudor England was suggested by Peter Brears during his lecture ‘Tudor cookery at Hampton Court’ at a conference on the archaeology of food and drink, held at Durham on the 8th of June 1996 (J. Bintliff, pers. comm.). See also TudKitch 1991, 12: ‘Both boiled meat and meat stock were essential parts of the Tudor diet ...’ and Paston-Williams 1995, 4950, 111-112. 27 See Williams II and Zervos (1994, 36). 28 Cf. Lock (1995, 275). The references about the dirty or unclean cooking methods of the ‘Latins’ (Franks) are summarized in canons of the Fourth Latin Council of 1215. See Mansi [1776] 1903, vol. 22, cols. 990-1) related to Late Byzantine/Frankish Greece. There is also a reference in Pachymeres II, 31 (CSMBI, 161) to cooking fumes of the Latini. I would like to thank Peter Lock very much for these references. 29 See Vroom 2005, 146-147, 158-161. 30 See Vroom 2006, 153-158. 31 Vroom 2005, 148-149. 32 See for such a trefoil-jug in local Maiolica, for instance, KorreZographou 1995, p. 47, fig. 84 and Vroom 2005, 148, fig. Tur/Ven 5.4. 33 Vroom 2005, 150-151. 34 See Vroom 2003, table 7.3. 35 See Hans Derschwam’s diary in Babinger (1923, 123). 36 Cf. Arsel 1996, 61. 37 See Ursinus on the intricate etiquette of eating soup with a spoon (1985, 155-158). 38 See, for example, Augerius Gislenius Busbequius in Von Martels (1994, 92-95): see also Vroom (2003, 336-341). 39 See Vroom 2003, 351-352. 40 See Dodwell 1819, 157; the scene is portrayed in Dodwell’s account with a picture, reproduced in Tsigakou 1981, fig. 18 and 1995, 117.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anagnostakis, I. and Papamastorakis, T., 2002, ‘Byzantine radishes for the appetite’ (in Modern Greek), in Kathimerini (weekly supplement, 12.05.2002), 21-23. Arsel, S. (ed.), 1996, Timeless Tastes: Turkish Culinary Culture, Istanbul: Vehbi Koc Vakfi. Atasoy, N. and Raby, J., 1989, Iznik. The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, London: Alexandria Press. Babinger, F. (ed.), 1923, Hans Derschwam’s Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1533/55), Studien zur Fugger-Geschichte, Vol. XIV, München und Leipzig. Barley, N., 1994, Smashing Pots: Feats of Clay from Africa, London: British Museum Press. Bintliff, J.L., 1995, ‘The two transitions: Current research on the origins of the traditional village in Central Greece', in J.L. Bintliff and H. Hamerow (eds), Europe between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, BAR International Series 617, Oxford, 111-130. Bintliff, J.L., 1996a, ‘Frankish countryside in Central Greece: The evidence from archaeological field survey’, in P.L. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxford (1996), 1-18. Bintliff, J.L., 1996b, ‘The archaeological survey of the Valley of the Muses and its significance for Boeotian history’, in A. Hurst and A. Schachter (eds), La Montagne des Muses, Geneva: Libairie Droz, (1996), 193-210. ByzArt, 1985-1986, ‘Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art’, in Fifth Symposium of Byzantine and PostByzantine Archaeology and Art, Athens. Coll i Rosell, G., 1994, ‘Food and the kitchen in the Medieval art of Catalonia’ (published in Catalan with an English summary), in Del rebost a la taula: Cuina i menjar a la Barcelona gòtica, Barcelona, 169-171. Dauterman Maguire, E. and Maguire, H., 1992, ‘Byzantine pottery in the history of art’, in D. PapanikolaBakirtzis, E. Dauterman Maguire and H. Maguire (eds), Ceramic Art from Byzantine Serres, Illinois Byzantine Studies III, Urbana and Chicago, 1-20. Dimitsantou-Kremezi, A., 1984, Attiki. Elliniki Paradosiaki Architektoniki, Athens: Melissa. Dodwell, Ed., 1819, A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece during the Years 1801, 1805 and 1806, Vol. I, London. Dupré, L., 1825, Voyage a Athenes et a Constantinople, Paris. Koder, J., 1993, Gemüse in Byzans. Die Versorgung Konstantinopels mit Frischgemüse im Lichte der Geoponika, Byzantinische Geschichtsschreiber, Ergänzungsband 3, Vienna. Korre-Zographou, K., 1995, Ta kerameika tou Ellinikou chorou, Athens. Lock, P., 1995, The Franks in the Aegean 1204-1500, London and New York: Longman. London, G., Egoumenidou, F. and Karageorghis, V., (eds), 1990, Töpferei auf Zypern damals – heute / 175

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Traditional Pottery in Cyprus, Mainz: Philip von Zabern. Lymberopoulou, A., 2007, “Fish on a dish’ and its table companions in fourteenth-century wall-paintings on Venetian-dominated Crete’, in L. Brubaker and K. Linardou (eds), Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19) - Food and Wine in Byzantium, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Group, 223-232. Mango, C., 1981, ‘Discontinuity with the Classical past in Byzantium’, in M. Mullett and R. Scott (eds), Byzantium and the Classical Tradition, Thirteenth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham: Centre for Byzantine Studies, 48-57. Mansi, J.D. (ed.), [1767] 1903, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collection,Venice, reprinted Paris: Welter. Migne, J.-P. (ed.), 1857-66, John Chrysostom’s Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca, Paris. Morgan, C., 1942, Corinth, Vol. XI: The Byzantine Pottery, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Oikonomides, N., 1990, ‘The contents of the Byzantine house from the eleventh to the fifteenth century’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44, 205-214. Omont, H., 1908, Evangiles avec peintures byzantines du XIe siècle, Vol. I, Paris. Overbeck, J.J. (ed.), 1865, S. Ephraemi Syri, Rabulae Episcopi Edesseni, Balaei aliorumque opera selecta, Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Paston-Williams, S., 1995 (2nd edition), The Art of Dining: A History of Cooking and Eating, London: National Trust. Popper, K.R., 1963, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London: Routledge. Psaropolou, B., 1984, Last Potters of the East Aegean, Navplion: Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation. Reinhardt, L., 1911, Kulturgeschichte der Nutzpflanzen, IV,1, Die Erde und die Kultur, Munich: Reinhardt. Schopen, L., and Becker, I. (eds), 1829-55, Nicephorus Gregoras: Byzantina historia, Bonn. Simonopetritis, A., 1970, Holy Mountain: Bulwark of Orthodoxy and of the Greek Nation, Thessaloniki: Basil Regopoulos. Sparkes, B.A., and Talcott, L., 1951, Pots and Pans of Classical Athens, Athenian Agora Picture Books, Princeton NJ: American School of Classical Studies. Tsigakou, F.-M., 1981, The Rediscovery of Greece: Travellers and Painters of the Romantic Era, London: Thames and Hudson. Tsigakou, F.-M., 1995, British Images of Greece from the Benaki Museum Collections, Athens: Benaki Museum. TudKitch, 1991, The Tudor Kitchens: Hampton Court Palace, London: The Woodway Group.

Ursinus, M., 1985, ‘Die Ess- und Trinkgewohnheiten der Osmanen', in Türkische Kunst und Kultur aus osmanischer Zeit, Ausstellungskatalog, Recklinghausen, 155-158. Von Martels, Z. (ed.), 1994, Augerius Gislenius Busbequius’ Legationis Turcicae epistolae quator / Vier brieven over het gezantschap naar Turkije, Hilversum: Verlonen. Vroom, J., 1996, ‘Coffee and archaeology: A note on a Kütahya ware find in Boeotia, Greece’, Pharos. Journal of the Netherlands Institute at Athens 4, 5-19. Vroom, J., 1997, ‘Pots and Pans: New perspectives on the Medieval ceramics of Greece’, in G. De Boe and F. Verhaeghe (eds), Material Culture in Medieval Europe. Papers of the ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference Volume 7, Zellik: Archaeological Institute for the Heritage, 203-213. Vroom, J., 1998a, ‘Medieval and Post-Medieval pottery from a site in Boeotia: A case study example of Post-Classical archaeology in Greece’, Annual of the British School at Athens 98, 513-546. Vroom, J., 1998b, ‘Early Modern archaeology in Central Greece: The contrast of artefact-rich and sherdless sites’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 11, 3-36. Vroom, J., 2000, ‘Byzantine garlic and Turkish delight: Dining habits and cultural change in Central Greece from Byzantine to Ottoman times, Archaeological Dialogues 7, 199-216. Vroom, J., 2003, After Antiquity. Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to the 20th century A.C.: A Case Study from Boeotia, Central Greece, Leiden: Archaeological Studies Leiden University 10. Vroom, J., 2005, Byzantine to Modern Pottery in the Aegean: An Introduction and Field Guide, Utrecht: Parnassus Press. Vroom J. 2006, ‘Lunch at the Topkapi Palace: The archaeology of the table during Ottoman times’, in M. Carroll, D. Hadley and H. Willmott (eds), Consuming Passions: Dining from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus, 143-161. Vroom, J., 2007, ‘The changing dining habits at Christ’s table’, in L. Brubaker and K. Linardou (eds), Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19) - Food and Wine in Byzantium, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Group, 191-222. Williams II, Ch.K., and Zervos, O.H., 1994, ‘Frankish Corinth: 1993’, Hesperia 63, 1-40. Joanita Vroom University of Sheffield Department of Archaeology Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

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5.3 Material Culture Studies: The Case of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Cyclades, Greece (c. AD 1200-1800) Athanasios K. Vionis American School of Classical Studies in Athens had a profound effect on pottery chronology and the interpretation of material culture in its historical context (Lock 1995). The Ephorates of Byzantine and PostByzantine Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture primarily aim at the protection of Byzantine and PostByzantine monuments, undertaking restoration works of ecclesiastical art and a confined number of mainly rescue excavations. The study of the built environment as a unity, domestic architecture and domestic material culture, have been largely neglected, with the exception of research in glazed ceramics (Papanikola-Bakirtzi 1996, 1999). In contrast to approaches developed in Europe, Post-Medieval material culture in Greece has been the subject of the discipline of Laographia or Folk Life Studies. The closing years of the 1980s and the first years of the 1990s have seen a change in Greek archaeological thought with the introduction of the discipline of Social Anthropology. Meanwhile, the great potential in the study of Medieval (Byzantine/Frankish) and PostMedieval (Ottoman) Greece was only realised in the 1980s and 1990s with the growing number of field survey projects in the Aegean lands by foreign schools of archaeology (Renfrew and Wagstaff 1982; Bintliff and Snodgrass 1985; Bintliff 1991; Cherry et al. 1991; Jameson et al. 1994; Mee and Forbes 1997; Cavanagh et al. 2002). There followed a series of publications by Greek and foreign scholars on Medieval and PostMedieval settlement-formation (Bintliff 1995, 1996), architecture (Lock 1996; Aalen et al. 1997; Vionis 2001a; Sigalos 2004), material culture and ceramics (Lock and Sanders 1996; Bintliff 1997; Vroom 2003; Vionis 2001b, 2005a).

INTRODUCTION

The study of material remains from the distant or nearest past occupies the most central part of the archaeological discipline. The interpretation of material culture is the ultimate purpose of archaeologists, who normally seek to explain continuity and change in all aspects of material remains of past societies. The meaning, however, of material culture is a rather complex one and its study includes a broad variety of objects, borrowing methodologies from a wide range of disciplines. Material culture includes many aspects, such as settled landscapes and settlements, religious and secular buildings of all types as well as domestic furnishings. Domestic material culture refers more specifically to aspects of daily life, such as ceramics, aspects connected with diet and economic trends, dress and costume fashions, and items connected with furniture and domestic comfort. This paper forms a contribution to the archaeological study of the Post-Roman periods in Greece within the framework of the Cyclades Research Project (CY.RE.P.),1 by examining aspects of the built environment and the domestic material culture of the Venetian- and Ottoman-dominated Cyclades (c. AD 13th 19th ). Moreover, this paper aims to provide a studymodel for the reconstruction of everyday domestic life in towns and villages, and the identification of sociocultural identities that shaped, or were reflected in, PreModern material remains through the study of certain aspects of material culture. The term ‘material culture’ here refers to island settlement layout (fortified settlements-kastra and undefended nucleated villages), domestic buildings (housing of urban character and peasant housing), ceramics (locally produced and imported glazed tableware versus coarse-wares), internal fittings/furniture (built-fixed structures and mobile fittings) and island-costumes (male and female dress codes).

The specific terms Byzantine and Middle Ages historically refer to the period following the foundation of Constantinople as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. The period, however, between the 4th and early 7th centuries is archaeologically known as Late Roman due to continuity in material culture and the Roman tradition. It has now been widely accepted by archaeologists and Byzantinists that the term Byzantine refers to the era between the mid 7th and mid 15th centuries. The High Middle Ages (or Late Byzantine period) in Greece lasted for approximately two-and-a-half centuries, in the years between the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Although the political-chronological boundaries for this period are not applicable to different parts of Greece, the term Frankish is used to refer to the period of Crusader or Latin (Frankish, Genoese and Venetian) domination in the Aegean (between the early 13th and

MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN GREECE

Unlike most European countries, Medieval and PostMedieval archaeology are sadly non-existent disciplines in Greece, with the exception of studies on ecclesiastical architecture and Byzantine fresco- and icon-painting. Official interest in the material remains of the Greek Middle Ages had to wait until the foundation of the Byzantine Museum in Athens in 1914 (Kotsakis 1991, 67). The systematic excavations in the Athenian and Corinthian agoras in the 1930s and 1940s by the 177

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middle 15th centuries), without attributing a cultural meaning to the term.

Seven Cycladic islands were selected as case-studies, i.e. Paros, Naxos, Ios, Tinos, Andros, Siphnos and Melos (Fig. 1). Four deserted settlements with their habitations of the Venetian and Ottoman periods were topographically recorded and surface pottery was systematically collected. Other pottery and traditional costume collections were studied in order to examine everyday household utensils of Cycladic Late-Medieval and Post-Medieval societies. Previous studies about dining manners and costume fashions are also included and reviewed to build up a complete database of information.

The Post-Medieval period in Greece chronologically coincides with the period of Ottoman rule, between 1453 and 1821 (when the Greek War of Independence was declared). Different parts of the previous Byzantine Empire and the Crusader Duchies officially entered the Ottoman Empire at variable times; the Cyclades became fully incorporated into the Empire in 1579. Various obstacles certainly did not facilitate the way towards the establishment of Ottoman archaeology as a discipline in Greece; the dominant views of the Ottoman-Turks as violent and corrupted and the Classical ideals as the highest form of culture are some of those reasons. Then again, the availability and accessibility of textual sources is mostly confined and not always feasible in contrast to the rich written records in Northwest Europe; moreover published studies (mainly by historians) in Greece usually fail to relate narrative texts to material data.

Surviving textual records and pictorial evidence, e.g. travellers’ accounts and drawings of Cycladic settlements and house interiors, 19th century photographs and dowry documents have been used in this study as complementary evidence to the primary archaeological data. In addition, translated Venetian texts and Ottoman censuses related to the Cyclades, as well as contemporary historical works have been consulted in order to provide the historical and socio-economic framework for the understanding of island identities and the interpretation of continuity and changes in material culture and domestic behaviour.

CYCLADES RESEARCH PROJECT: AIMS AND APPROACHES

The aim of the Cyclades Research Project is the study of the Cyclades Islands as a single unity, giving emphasis to this rather long period and its material culture. It is an inter-disciplinary study, which, apart from Archaeology, involves other disciplines as well, such as History, Social Anthropology, Ethnography and Art-History. Primary/original data collected during archaeological survey, as well as secondary/published data and studies from a variety of disciplines and methodological backgrounds are analysed and given their socio-economic and cultural interpretation with the aid of historical and textual evidence.

The basic contribution of this study is to provide a fine example of how varying aspects of Medieval and PostMedieval material culture represented in different sources throw light on changing human behaviour. It is also an attempt to set the basis for the establishment of Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology and Material Culture Studies in Greece, in parallel to on-going developments in Northwest Europe and the United States.

Fig. 1 - The Cyclades with sites surveyed by CY.RE.P. (A. Vionis)

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Settlements of the orthogonal plan are roughly rectangular in shape and in most cases built on flat terrain in a plain or very close to the coast. Such settlement plans generally lead us to assume that these were unified complexes, based on a high degree of organisation. They are identified on a number of Cycladic and other Aegean islands; the best-preserved ones are the settlements of Kimolos (Fig. 2) and Antiparos in the Cyclades, and Olympoi and Kalamoti on the island of Chios. Thus, these are settlements whose walls were constructed in order to defend the town developing at the same time within them. It is clear that in cases such as the defended settlements of Kimolos and Antiparos, there were building specifications which determined the plan of the village, and subsequently the plan and orientation of individual domestic structures (Hoepfner and Schmidt 1978; Philippa-Apostolou 1978). Settlements and housing within them are dated either to the first phase of Venetian establishment in the Aegean during the 13th - 14th centuries, or to the phase of resettlement during the 15th and 16th centuries.

SETTLEMENT LAYOUT AND HOUSING

The Late Medieval era The distinction between settlements of different ground plan (built mainly during the period of Venetian occupation in the Cyclades) is an important aspect of the built environment, since settlement form affected individual house-plans of littoral areas colonised after the Fourth Crusade. Venetian rule was established in the Cyclades by Marco Sanudo, who occupied seventeen islands and founded a Dukedom known as the ‘Duchy of Naxos’ or ‘Duchy of the Archipelago’. Sanudo made Naxos or Chora the capital of his newly founded Duchy, and a number of other neighbouring islands were accordingly distributed between his comrades. Thus, a large number of small and simple fortified villages and towns were established in the Cyclades to re-house the population of these islands, which came under a new regime and a new social and governing system, that of the feudal lords. On the basis of previous studies (Tzakou 1988; Sanders 1996) on Cycladic settlement types, we can distinguish two forms of Late Medieval settlements: those of the ‘orthogonal’ and those of the ‘irregular’ plan, both of them fortified.

Settlements of the irregular plan were also built during the same period as those of the orthogonal plan. The difference is that those of the irregular plan are built on the top of higher hills and their plan is circular or oval and less regular, where hill-slope determined their shape. Because of this irregularity in plan, it is difficult to argue with certainty whether these settlements were built according to a plan. It is certain, however, that the towns of this plan were built to house large numbers of people during the period of Venetian rule. In some cases the defensive walls of these towns pre-existed and they were used to house the feudal lord or the population only in case of an attack, while the settlement was built within them at a later stage, such as Kastro on Siphnos (Fig. 3). In other cases the settlement pre-existed and the defensive wall was built around it at a later stage to protect the town. Keplalos on the island of Paros (a defended settlement/kastro of the irregular plan) is one of the sites surveyed by CY.RE.P. (Fig. 4). It is located on the top of Mt. Kephalos or Agios Antonios (named after the late 16th century monastery dedicated to St. Anthony, built on the highest point of the mountain), dominating the eastern

Fig. 2 - Plan of Kastro on Kimolos (redrawn by A. Vionis)

Fig. 3 - Plan of Kastro on Siphnos (redrawn by A. Vionis)

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existed, but was probably restored around 1500 by the ruler Nicolo I Sommaripa. House remains are located along the whole extent of the wall, similarly built against it (Fig. 4). Their condition varies as well as their sizes. Their average size is 32 square metres and they tend to be almost square in shape (and most possibly with two storeys). The survival of structures only against the fortification walls and the nature of the site suggest that the areas within the fortifications must have been fully exploited for housing a large number of people. Since the size of the houses is comparable to other sites, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that the site was possibly occupied by 1,000 to 1,500 people at its full extent, before it was besieged by Barbarossa. There are nine barrel-vaulted chapels on Kephalos, basically dividing this defended settlement into six neighbourhoods (Fig. 4). A relatively large water reservoir is located on the top of the hill to the North of the monastery-church and next to the ruins of a stone-built structure, identified as part of the lord’s palace-complex or as a tower. Another cistern is located near the south gate/entrance (there was probably another gate on the west side) and next to the ruins of a chapel (Vionis 2006b).

plain of Paros. Kephalos already existed as a fortified site when Buondelmonti (Legrand 1897) visited Paros around 1415-1420. It is not easy to suggest a definite date of construction for the castle, but one could securely claim that it is a pre 15th century structure. There is an inner and an outer fortification wall on Kephalos. The outer one was possibly rebuilt or restored around 1500 by the ruler of Paros, Nicolo I Sommaripa (1462-1505), who even moved the administrative seat from the castle of Paroikia to Kephalos. The castle, though, was not destined to survive and after political turbulence Barbarossa (admiral-in-chief of the Ottoman navy) assaulted Kephalos in 1537. The site was never re-occupied. Only a monastery was built in the late 16th century on the peak of the mountain. Two building phases can be securely identified at Kephalos, apart from the later construction of the monastery. The first phase includes the area within the inner fortification wall. The top of the mountain, the area now occupied by the monastery of Agios Antonios, seems to have contained the residence of the lord and the Catholic cathedral. A number of house foundations were visible on the east side of the castle, built against the defensive wall (Fig. 4). They seem to have had one or two rooms with doorways attached directly to the sidewalls. The average size of the houses is 20 sq. metres. Taking into account contemporary examples elsewhere in the Cyclades, these must have been two-storey houses. If that was the case then there would have been small external staircases that would lead to the upper storey, the ground floor being used for storage. In the case of two storey buildings one family would occupy the first floor (Sanders 1996). The outer defensive wall seems to have

It has been suggested that types of settlement are the spatial manifestation of social structures, and one cannot fix boundaries between social structure and its spatial elements; similarly one cannot ignore the social and cultural background which the Latins brought with them from their countries of origin (Ellenblum 1998, 13). In the plan of Kephalos, the Catholic cathedral and the main tower, the so-called Lord’s residence, are located at the notional centre of the settlement, and all the roads lead to these two basic poles of attraction.

Fig. 4 - Plan of the Kastro of Kephalos, CY.RE.P. (A. Vionis)

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within these defended towns, as well as the need to protect the population from outside enemies (e.g. pirate raids) gave the preference for the vertical rather than linear development of built structures. An upper storey not only provides space for the family, but also a higher outer defensive wall to protect the town from any external threat.

The domestic structures themselves within the town are facing towards the symbols of ecclesiastical and secular authority (Kouroupaki et al. 1988; Vionis 2003). The prominent setting of the Lord’s central tower (originally very tall) must have created an identifiable skyline, as can be seen on a 16th century engraving of Kephalos (Fig. 5). One can clearly notice the symbolic reflection of social order. Ellenblum (1998, 32) has similarly concluded that a fortress or a defended town was designed to be more of a power-symbol and a nucleus for a new settlement rather than an answer to acute security requirements. It is generally accepted that Italian knights settling on the Aegean islands brought with them various institutions. The plan of island kastra is the material reflection of the Venetians’ foundation of a political, social and ecclesiastical hierarchy in a foreign land, as well as the introduction of values common in the 13th century feudal West (Jacoby 1989, 5).

Fig. 5 - The kastro of Kephalos, engraving detail; André Thevet, 1502-1599 (after Legrand 1897, 209)

There are two main house types that one can identify within the Cycladic Late Medieval and early PostMedieval defended settlements. These are the narrowfronted and the broad-fronted houses. However, it is essential to note that these two types belong to the singleunit house. That is, a single room is a house in itself. In Late Medieval Cycladic towns, most possibly because of lack of space (within the defended centres), houses were initially built on a ‘vertical’ rather than ‘linear’ fashion. Normally, the domestic structures consisted of two storeys: the ground floor was reserved for storage or animal shelter, while the upper storey was reserved for the family and its domestic activities.

Fig. 6 - Narrow-fronted single-roomed house from Kastro in Paroikia, Paros (A. Vionis)

Domestic activity areas are linear and located within a single long room, with a notional division between the prosthion or front portion and the opisthion or back portion (Kizis 1995). The outer part was used as a hall for receiving guests and in some cases as a kitchen for cooking and dining, while the inner and more ‘private’ part was used for storing valuable goods and sleeping (Vionis 2001a). There is a concept of privacy regarding these narrow-fronted and long single-roomed houses. A raised sleeping platform (constructed at the back end of the room), with storage space beneath, provided privacy, to some degree, as it could not be seen directly from the entrance of the house, while curtains were also used to ‘isolate’ that part of the room from the rest. There are also cases where more privacy (especially on the first floor) in this elongated area of the narrow-fronted houses,

The narrow-fronted single-roomed house is common in many regions within and outside Greece. This house-type is almost always associated with the presence of both humans and animals under the same roof. In the case of the Cyclades, though, the arrangement of space reserved for animals and humans has always been different. There, the ground floor usually accommodates animals and provides extra storage space, while the upper storey provides housing for the family and its daily domestic activities (Fig. 6). The practical need for extra space 181

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was accomplished through the division into two sections by means of placing a false wall/frame, made of reeds covered by plaster.

case of the broad-fronted houses one notes the linear arrangement of household activities. Although there is a tendency to separate different activities in different areas/corners of the house, there is a lesser degree of privacy compared to narrow-fronted housing.

Broad-fronted houses represent a variation of the narrowfronted ones. Though they are also found within the Late Medieval and early Post-Medieval defended centres (less often than the narrow fronted ones), they seem to pre-date the narrow-fronted houses. In the case of Antiparos (founded in the middle of the 15th century) the originally rectangular portion of the town contains only broadfronted houses (Fig. 7).

The separation of humans and storage or stabling space is a notable element to consider. It is quite common that access to the ground floor was always provided through a separate door from the street level and almost never from the upper floor. This indicates a separation between ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ activities, i.e. separation of humans from animals. This division between humans and animals in littoral Greece contrasts with the picture from the Greek mainland, where in agricultural communities a single-roomed long-house provided shelter to both families and livestock (cf. Sigalos 2004). The importance of space outside the doorstep in littoral Greece is also stressed. These settlements and houses provided shelter for a peasant society, the male members of which spent most of the day in the fields, while female members used the stairs of their houses or the limited space outside their doorstep for socialising with the neighbours in the early evening.

Fig. 8 - Plan of the town of Paroikia, Paros (redrawn by A. Vionis)

The Post-Medieval era There are two main settlement forms that developed during the Post-Medieval era. Inevitably, settlements that were established during the Late Medieval period were still in use throughout Post-Medieval and Early Modern times. New houses were being built following traditions and methods already set in the past. Thus, new houses developing in the immediate neighbourhood outside Medieval defended centres were built side by side, forming a second ring of houses and an exterior line of defence (Fig. 8). In other cases, houses are usually built on and around a low hilltop, imitating in a way the typical layout of fortified settlements of the irregular plan characterised by its compact and circular layout. In both cases however, there was a greater degree of freedom and more space became available, but repetition was kept to a certain extent; these forms of Post-Medieval settlement are referred to as ‘evolved fortified’. Another settlement form that dominated the Cycladic landscape during the

Fig. 7 - Example of a broad-fronted house from Kastro on Antiparos (after Philippa-Apostolou 1988, 125, fig. 20)

In most cases, the roof of the broad-fronted houses is supported by a stone-built arch. This arch basically functions as a means of dividing the room into four units, organising spatial use. Each unit serves a different function. The hearth occupies the corner on the left or right side of the entrance and this is the area where food preparation took place. The opposite corner on the same side is reserved for dining or other daily social-use. The other two corners serve for sleeping and storing valuable commodities (dowry, valuable imported objects). In the 182

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language, and different socio-cultural backgrounds (Vionis 2003, 200-201).

Post-Medieval and Early Modern periods is the ‘linear/traditional’ settlement. The basic characteristic of the linear settlements is that they are formed by a continuous network of houses and have a largely linear layout, established on an inland plateau, a hillside or along a single central path/street. Different house-types can be identified in settlements of the linear form, such as single- and two-storey narrow-fronted and broad-fronted houses, as well as arched houses with a central living room and two bedrooms at the rear (Fig. 9).

and

ethnic

Fig. 10 - Plan of Chora in Naxos with its different districts (redrawn by A. Vionis)

A first attempt to divide domestic space seems to have taken place in the early Post-Medieval period, in the 16th century. Evidence from settlements that were developed or established around that time in the Cyclades, indicate that there was a tendency to separate private and public space or front and back areas of a house by the construction of a false wall made of plastered-over reeds. The area formed at the back served as a second room, retained its function and strengthened its private character. It is very possible that interior division in peasant housing of the early Post-Medieval period was simply the result of emulation, moving down from late Medieval upper class housing examples. This was the time when the so-called single-storey ‘arched’ house made its appearance in towns and villages (Fig. 11). This was another ‘peasant’ house-type with a more pronounced idea of separation of household activities in different zones of the same room, first established and developed in the littoral areas of Greece. It appeared in the Cyclades in the early Post-Medieval period spreading further during the later Post-Medieval period. It became particularly popular in rural areas of the northern and central Cyclades during the Post-Medieval and Early Modern periods, while Crete still preserves the largest number of arched houses in the Aegean. This was a later version of the single-roomed broad-fronted house, with a central stone arch supporting the flat roof and dividing internal space into four activity areas. Here the organisation of space is linear again, although there is also a degree of centrality, as the arch creates four cubicles (one at each corner of the house) and leaves the centre of the room as a unifying centre, usually used as sala or reception room. Every corner within the arched house has a separate function; the hearth is located in a corner of the front portion (with possibly a loom at the other corner of the same side). The back cubicles were always used as sleeping areas, with stone-built beds, the underneath space of which was reserved for storing grain or other valuables. This house-type reflects a peasant lifestyle that continued until the Early Modern period, although it is clear that there was an intention to provide a

Fig. 9 - House-plans in the domestic area of the deserted village of Ismaili, CY.RE.P. (A. Vionis)

The settlement pattern on the islands during the period of Venetian domination could be termed ‘nucleated’, with a high concentration of population in the fortified centres. In contrast, that of the Post-Medieval and early modern periods could be characterised as ‘dispersed’, with a considerable number of farming communities permanently living in the countryside, outside the old towns (Vionis 2003: 200). All this was the result of local political, social and economic changes marked throughout those periods in question. Indeed, the picture was changing slightly around the middle of the 16th century in the Cyclades. Around this time, notions of national identity were born, probably as a reaction to the then current economic and social situation. The Late Medieval defended settlements did not die out after the subsequent incorporation of the Cyclades into the Ottoman Empire. The built environment was accordingly shaped; the settlement plan of the town of Naxos provides a standard example (Fig. 10). The town was expanding through time, while newcomers and older inhabitants, different ethnic groups, formed different neighbourhoods. The Catholic Latins still occupied the defended Medieval Kastro (c. 1207). The Orthodox Greeks formed the district of Bourgo and Agora (c. 1344). A number of Jews (and Armenians?) settled in Chora and created the district of Evriaki (c. 1566). Refugees from other Ottomandominated areas (c. 1734) and refugees from Asia Minor and Crete (c. 1860) formed the district of Nio Chorio (Kouroupaki et al. 1988). It seems that each group (ethnic or social) had by that time formed its own identity and sense of otherness. Different populations are grouping themselves according to religious beliefs and common 183

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quality pottery produced in Anatolia and initially thought to have reached only wealthy Ottoman households. Archaeological research in Greece has similarly produced locally made glazed and unglazed wares, while recent study of Post-Roman ceramics and dining habits in Greece (cf. Vroom 2003) has proved innovative for the archeological study of Medieval and Post-Medieval societies in the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires.

more fixed separation of household activities and evidently more privacy secured at the back portion of the room. A narrow auxiliary room (a stable, a store-room or a kitchen) was in some cases constructed against the front long wall of the arched house during the later PostMedieval and Early Modern periods, giving a Γ-shaped appearance to the structure (Fig. 11).

Deserted settlements/kastra and villages in the Cyclades have produced a wide variety of glazed and unglazed pottery (collected during the course of surface survey by CY.RE.P.). The aim is to contribute to the study of PostClassical Greece not only through the dating of potsherds and sites in the Cyclades, but also through ceramic functional analysis as well as historical and ethnographic research in food and dining in this part of the Aegean. My methodological approaches to the study and interpretation of ceramic finds from the Cyclades rely greatly on recent developments in historical archaeology and (Medieval and Post-Medieval) ceramic research in Britain. This study also examines dietary preferences and dining fashions during the Late Medieval and Post-Medieval periods in the Cyclades, through the examination of pottery function and shapes, local economic and cultural trends, and historical and ethnographic research (cf. Vionis 2005a).

Fig. 11 - Broad-fronted arched house from Sangri on Naxos, CY.RE.P. (A. Vionis) DOMESTIC MATERIAL CULTURE

Ceramics and socio-cultural aspects

This paper, however, is confined to a summary of the basic points regarding the change of pottery shapes through time and how this is related to changing dietary habits with the aid of archaeological data, textual and pictorial evidence. Recent archaeological work has shown that there was a sharp change to a greater variety of vessel shapes and decorative motifs and techniques from the 11th century onwards (Sanders 2000; Vroom 1998, 2003; Vionis 2001b, 2005a). Major changes in Medieval and Post-Medieval ceramic forms are to be traced chronologically in the middle 13th and 15th-16th centuries though, periods of general political, economic and cultural shifts throughout the Aegean.

In Greece and most of Southern and Central Europe, the study of Medieval and Post-Medieval ceramics was the main aspect of domestic material culture that attracted the scientific interest of archaeologists since the 1930s. Although primary concern and attention was given to glazed decorated pottery, as opposed to the bulk of unglazed coarse earthenwares of daily use, the study of Medieval ceramics has seen a growing development up to the present time. Recent excavations at Corinth seem to have provided answers to most problems of fine-ware pottery chronology and classification due to the collection of stratified ceramics in association with coins. The main challenge of the excavations at Corinth has been the establishment of an accurate chronology for most decorated pottery styles found, not only in Corinth itself, but also in other parts of present-day Greece (Sanders 1987, 2000). Similar attempts for pottery chronology, pottery function and social change have also been attempted by ceramic specialists working for survey projects in many parts of Greece since the 1980s (Armstrong 1996; Vroom 1998, 2003; Vionis 2001b, 2006a). A number of Greek archaeologists have also contributed to the study of Medieval ceramics over the past twenty-five years (Bakirtzis 1980, 1989; KorreZographou 1995; Papanikola-Bakirtzi 1999; Dori et al. 2003). The study, however, of food and food-ways in Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece began only very recently with the growing interest and research into PostMedieval/Ottoman ceramics imported from the Iznik and Kütahya workshops in Turkey. Excavations in the district of Saraçhane in Istanbul (Hayes 1992) and elsewhere have produced large quantities of this fine and high

During the later period of the Middle Byzantine era (in the 11th and 12th centuries), chafing dishes (Fig. 12), large open dishes, large hemispherical bowls and jugs are the commonest pottery types. The two last centuries of the Middle Byzantine period in general are characterised by large open pottery-forms. The large (open) shallow dish with low ring-base possibly reflects an imitation of contemporary chafing dishes. Plates are more numerous in the archaeological context while bowls are less common. Studies on the history of food and cooking in Medieval Northwest Europe and the British Isles have been related to archaeological finds and contemporary depictions of domestic life and have concluded that large, deep bowls for meat and fish were used communally by all diners sitting around the table. Each diner used a knife and probably a spoon, together with hard bread, instead of individual plates. Similar conclusions have been drawn for the typical strong survival of glazed ring-base fragments discovered during the course of field-walking surface collection at Medieval sites in Boeotia, Central 184

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Greece (Bintliff pers. comm.; Vionis 2001b, 2005a; Vroom 2003). Large communal bowls and dishes of open forms on the table probably encouraged the need for interior and highly visible ornament.

while more colourful fine-ware with new decorationtechniques took their place (Fig. 14). This is also noted in the case of the Cyclades, where there was a higher percentage of deep bowls and a variety of decorative styles not only in the Frankish, but also during the Ottoman period (Figs 15 and 16). We could argue that this fashion of deep bowls and goblets with high ring-foot bases implies that food preparation in Greece during the Frankish period showed a trend towards more watery dishes cooked in their own juices, as in Northwest Europe (Vroom 1998; Vionis 2001b). However, it could also be the reflection of increased use of metal utensils, but in either case this is still an unresolved issue that needs more research in both the textual and archaeological records.

Fig. 12 - Middle Byzantine chafing-dish, Athens Byzantine and Christian Museum (after Papanikola-Bakirtzi 2002, 329, item no. 363

Late Medieval ceramic typology of the 13th-14th centuries differs from that of the Middle Byzantine era. Although decorated open forms (bowls are far greater in numbers than dishes) remained the commonest pottery types of the period of Frankish/Venetian domination, their shapes changed towards higher ring-bases and deeper forms (Vroom 1998, 2003, 233-238; Vionis 2005a, 296-299). The 13th-14th century bowl (also referred to as ‘cup’ in archaeological reports) with upright rims and mediumsized or high ring-base became particularly common all over the Greek mainland, the Aegean islands and Cyprus. The hemispherical appearance of bowls of all sizes and forms was one of their most distinctive features. Ringbases in particular, became higher towards the final years of the late Medieval period, with a more stylistic and elegant appearance on their exterior, which leads most scholars to believe this to be a Frankish attempt at copying metal prototypes. The so-called ‘pedestal’ bowls and dishes might indeed have copied more expensive metalware (Papanikola-Bakirtzi 1996). Thus, changes during the 13th-14th (-15th) centuries are identified in terms of height and depth; late Medieval tableware became smaller in dimensions, getting at the same time higher and deeper. Dishes continued to exist but in far reduced quantities. Notably, the average diameter of 13th -14th century vessels is approximately 16 cm, while 11th 12th century dishes reached an average diameter of 24 cm.

Fig. 13 - Champlevé wares with hares, early 13th century (courtesy of Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project)

It has already been suggested that changes in pottery decorative styles and forms at the beginning of the 13th century could also imply that eating habits must have changed after the arrival of the Latins in the lands of the Byzantine Empire (see also Vroom this volume). The monochrome incised-champlevé shallow bowls and plates went out of use in the early/mid 13th century (Fig. 13),

Fig. 14 - Bowl with brown and green Sgraffito decoration, 14th century, unpublished. Paros Historical-Folklore Museum: Othon Kaparis Collection (photo by A. Vionis)

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Fig. 15 - Percentages of different pottery shapes at the site of Kephalos, CY.RE.P. (A. Vionis)

Fig. 16 - Percentages of ceramic decorative types from sites in the Cyclades, CY.RE.P. (A. Vionis)

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Research on food and eating habits in Medieval Britain (Brears et al. 1993) has shown that group eating from a central bowl by diners sitting around the table was a common practice until the 15th-16th century. By the end of the 15th century bowls became deeper, while contemporary depictions suggest a shift towards individual plates. Changes in cooking habits (food cooked in its own juice rather than over the fire or on spits etc.) resulted in the creation of deeper bowls and dishes in 16th century Britain, prompted by the rise of more liquid dishes, such as stews (Coutts 1996; Vionis 2001b). Presumably, the Franks introduced a different diet and cooking tradition to the Levant and the Byzantine world. The Byzantines considered the Franks as unclean, polluters, and their cooking dirty, ‘mixing their suet and lard with oil’ (Lock 1995, 194).

noteworthy (at least for the pictorial evidence they preserve). Pictorial evidence suggests that the fashion of individual dishes and cutlery started to develop in Greece only in the 18th century among wealthier households (Fig. 18), although much of Europe and neighbouring Italy saw a steady shift to individual plates in the 15th-16th centuries with the rise of capitalism (Johnson 1996).

One of the central streets in Jerusalem was the venue for the purchase of ready-cooked food; in the 12th century the large number of pilgrims visiting the city purchased food in this street (Boas 1999, 25), probably food of a dirty and oily kind. In contrast to Western eating habits, the Byzantines preferred more fruits, vegetables, salads and fish (Motsias 1998), so they were using more shallow and open pottery forms. It goes without saying, that as in much of Europe in the Late Middle Ages, food containing vegetables, salads, fruits and pulses was seen as a ‘lowerclass’ element, while the Latin feudal lords in the Aegean must have consumed more meat and fried food (Coutts 1996; Motsias 1998). The poor must have simply used their fingers while dining, as well as round wood trenchers or bread-slices; this is actually a very common theme in pictorial evidence of the period in the Aegean, such as church icons and frescoes (Fig. 17). Fig. 18 - The Last Supper, icon detail, early/middle 18th century. Ag. Ioannis Monastery, Paros (photo by A. Vionis)

Fig. 17 - ‘The Hospitality of Abraham’, fresco, late 12th century. Ag. Ioannis Theologos Monastery, Patmos (after AcheimastouPotamianou 1997, 185, fig. 99)

It is also essential to note that new and different trends in material culture of the Ottoman period introduced alterations in eating and drinking habits. The highly expensive Iznik tiles served their function as decorative fittings not only on walls of palaces and mosques but also on church interiors and facades (Fig. 19) (cf. Carswell 1998). The introduction of the Kütahya coffee cup and its social meaning for the elite on the one hand, and the lower classes trying to imitate the elite’s manners on the other, can be considered together with the introduction of the new beverage into the Ottoman Empire (Vroom 1996). The introduction of the Kütahya lemon-squeezer (Carswell 1976) and its association with the Ottoman elite’s drinking habits is another example, together with the clay tobacco pipes and the introduction of tobacco in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 17th century.

There is not sufficient evidence to suggest the rise of ‘individualism’ in the Aegean provinces during the Late Medieval period. The exception of Crete and the Ionian Islands, spheres of very strong Italian influence is

Past and on-going excavations at urban centres, such as Corinth in the Peloponnese and Saraçhane in Istanbul have confirmed the growing occurrence of glazed ceramics after the wider adoption of glazing in the 11th 187

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century throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. It is worth re-citing that glazed pottery in the Corinth assemblage (by weight) accounts for 0.7% in the 10th and 11th centuries, 2% in the early 12th, 6% in mid-12th and 20% in mid-13th (Sanders 1999, 2000). Similarly, the proportion (by sherd count) of transport amphorae (accounting 85% until at least the 8th century) in Saraçhane dropped to some 50% of total finds in the latest deposits of the Middle Byzantine period (Hayes 1992). The same growing pattern continues in Late Byzantine levels, reaching its peak during the Ottoman period, when glaze is also commonly found on kitchen and storage vessels, such as the interior of cooking pots and storage jars (Vionis 2006a).

Kephalos is glazed tableware, used for food and beverage consumption (Fig. 21).

Fig. 20 - Bowl from Italy with polychrome sgraffito decoration, early 16th century, unpublished. Paros Historical-Folklore Museum: Othon Kaparis Collection (photo by A. Vionis)

Pictorial evidence from the Cyclades or other places in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, where Western or Venetian influence was longer-lived and more direct, presents a rather interesting picture. Icons and frescoes depicting the Last Supper, the Marriage at Cana or the Hospitality of Abraham always show diners around an elaborately laid high table, with an embroidered white tablecloth, cutlery, elegant metal and glass vessels, and seated on plain or carved wooden stools (Fig. 22). It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that such pictures depict the local aristocracy, which (Latin or Greek in origin) preferred to follow Western dining fashions. Pottery, however, is always a good indicator of changing technologies and life-styles; the locally produced colourful lead-glazed painted wares, so common in the Cycladic Post-Medieval assemblages, probably indicate the greater availability of decorated ceramics for the lower classes (Vionis 2001b, 2005a).

Fig. 19 - Iznik ceramic tiles, church wall. Ag. Konstantinos, Paros (photo by A. Vionis)

Furniture and domestic comfort

The ceramic assemblages from Kephalos in Paros have produced similar results, with a relatively rich variety of highly decorated glazed wares, including Anatolian and Italian fine-ware imports, such as Iznik wares from Anatolia, and Maiolica and polychrome Sgraffito wares from Italy (Fig. 20). According to the Ottoman tax registers for most of the Cyclades in the late 17th century, island communities seem to have been well off, producing agricultural commodities beyond subsistence (Davis 1991). This probably testifies to the fact that almost 80% of Post-Medieval potsherds collected from

Greek archaeology has never attempted to study furniture and the use of internal space in Medieval and PostMedieval households. Studies of domestic furniture in the past have been the subject of folk-life studies and were mainly descriptive in character. It was only very recently that archaeologists became more interested in furniture as functional and status symbol artefacts within the domestic sphere outside Europe, with particular reference to ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East (Herrmann 1996). 188

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Fig. 21 - Functional analysis of late Medieval and Post-Medieval pottery from the site of Kephalos, CY.RE.P. (A. Vionis)

My aim is to incorporate research on furniture and comfort in Cycladic households into the broader study of the use of internal space and change in domestic material culture during the Post-Roman era. Archaeological and architectural data were collected during the course of the CY.RE.P., and supplemented by foreign travellers’ accounts, dowry documents and ethnographic research. In the case of the Post-Medieval Cyclades, for example, fixed-built structures, such as a hearth, a built-in bed (serving for sleeping as well as for storage beneath it), or a niche (serving as a cupboard instead of a wooden structure), can be considered as furniture (Vionis 2005b). The same practice is also noted in the Islamic world and in traditional Turkish and Persian houses in particular (Braudel 1985; Rogers 1996). Previous ethnographic studies on various Aegean islands have shown that indeed mobile furniture was not a common item within the houses. On the island of Crete, for instance, for most of the single-roomed houses there was no need for the use of much furniture, due to lack of space within the house and the particular life-style of Cretan people, with most everyday activities taking place outdoors (Imellos 1987/89, 105).

however, does not allow us have a detailed and realistic picture of daily life in an average Byzantine household. The second volume of the monumental work of the Greek Byzantinist Koukoules (1948) still remains the only textual guide to the domestic furnishings of the imperial palace at Constantinople or other wealthy households in Byzantine urban centres.

Our knowledge of furniture and internal fittings during the Middle Ages in the Aegean, with particular reference to the Byzantine era is very confined indeed. Archaeological evidence is almost non-existent, with the exception of excavated built structures/fittings, such as stone benches (used as beds and couches), buried pithoi (used for storage), or niches on the walls (used as cupboards) etc. Sometimes pictorial evidence in the form of Byzantine manuscripts, church frescoes and religious icons, depicting tables, chairs, couches, and thrones adds to the blurred picture of domestic life. Data-shortage,

Fig. 22 - ‘The Last Supper’, icon detail, early/middle 18th century. Ag. Antonios Monastery, Paros (photo by A. Vionis)

The compact nature of late Medieval kastra in the Cyclades and the small dimensions of Post-Medieval single-roomed peasant housing did not allow much choice or enough interior space for investing in large pieces of expensive mobile furniture. The arrangement of domestic space, especially in Late Medieval housing, relied entirely on built, fixed structures that functioned as 189

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the 19th and early 20th century Aegean provide hints for the probable appearance of similar late Medieval forms. There is almost no evidence to suggest that Late Medieval peasant housing had any additional functional or decorative wooden furniture. The house must have had virtually no furniture except a few wooden chests ranged along the walls on either side. Tables were uncommon in the peasant single-roomed housing till the 19th century, while chairs and couches must have existed only in the archontika or upper class mansions.

furniture and defined domestic use. Ground floors (in two-storey houses) were reserved for stabling and/or storage in large clay containers or even in built structures, also used as cisterns. In the living quarters of the upper floor the hearth seems to have been a part of the built domestic space (where cooking and eating took place) since the beginning of the 15th century, as is evidenced in the case of the kastra-settlements on Kimolos and Antiparos (Fig. 23) (Vionis 2005a, 305, 2005b, 178).

Better economic conditions during the late 17th and 18th, and especially in the 19th century, introduced the need for specialised space within households and mobile furniture that would serve both privacy and comfort. Women in middle class and wealthier houses were in most cases restricted to the home during daytime, taking care of household tasks, such as cooking, making embroideries, weaving etc. There are three main types of domestic furniture that made their appearance, serving three different human needs: sleeping, eating and storage. The term for table (trapeza or tavla) was known even since the Byzantine period (Koukoules 1948, 77). However, there were rural regions in later periods, where the use of tables remained unknown. In the village of Apeiranthos, in the interior of Naxos, as well as on other Aegean islands (e.g. Samos) during the Post-Medieval and Early Modern periods, people of lesser status used the arodela, a small low round table used for dining (Fig. 24). It has been suggested that this type of table served practical needs, since people living in rural areas used to dine on these, placing a big communal bowl at the centre of the table, used by all diners around it (Koukoules 1952, 141; Imellos 1987/89, 115; Vionis 2005b, 179). One would argue that this habit echoes ‘Eastern’ or ‘Oriental’ fashions, which spread after the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. It is noteworthy, though, that slouching, sprawling and crossing legs are generally wellregarded in Islam; the Orthodox Church, however, regards them as disrespectful. Small wooden stools must have probably served as seats while dining off those low round tables (Fig. 24). This habit of family members dining on the floor imposed the use of the low round table, while its widespread use is apparent throughout regions under strong Ottoman-Muslim influence.

Fig. 23 - Hearth and niche in a Late Medieval house in the kastro of Antiparos (photo by A. Vionis)

Wall-niches found in nearly every Late Medieval house within kastra were used as wardrobes and cupboards (Fig. 23). Niches continued in use throughout the PostMedieval and Early Modern period in rural houses, while a wooden opening created a built-in space for foodstuffs and precious belongings. The existence of built fittings is also confirmed by textual sources cited by Koukoules (1951: 295) in Middle and Late Byzantine houses, often referred to as toicharmaria (wall niches) and pezoulia (stone-built benches). Comparative archaeological research on housing in Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece has pointed out that similar internal fittings were identified in the excavated houses at Geraki (in the Peloponnese), where niches were also possibly used as cupboards, wardrobes, little shrines and hearths (Simatou and Christodoulopoulou 1989/90; Sigalos 2004). Bedding in Late Medieval housing was in most cases located towards the back narrow wall of the house, formed by a wooden raised platform, on which was laid the mattresses, sheets and rugs. Ethnographic research carried out by Wace and Dawkins (1914) on Crete, Karpathos and the Cyclades, has provided parallel evidence of domestic interiors and bedding platforms from the Early Modern era. Such structures in housing of

Fig. 24 - Small round table or arodela and wooden stools. Folklore Museum, Naxos (photo by A. Vionis)

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Costumes and fashion

Dowry documents from the Cyclades survive only from the late 16th century; unfortunately, there is no reference to dowries of the Late Medieval period. Dowry documents very often mention the place of origin for most of the items listed; the male population of the Cyclades got involved in maritime commerce and trade and very often travelled to Italy (Venice in particular), where most of them acquired domestic items and furniture for their houses. A personal diary of 1670 mentions that a merchant from Andros travelled to Venice in order to sell his silk and bought many household furnishings in return, mainly Venetian gilded mirrors and beds, listed as letiera from the French for lit (Darzenta-Gorgia 2000, 60).

The ‘traditional dress’ in Greece has been rather overstudied (typology and materials), although not much attention has been given to its social meaning. The main source of information regarding Aegean island-costumes is the accounts of foreign travellers who visited the Cyclades during the Post-Medieval/Ottoman and Early Modern periods. They often accompany their descriptions of (mainly female) local island costumes with drawings in remarkable detail. The Cycladic islands are fortunate in preserving a sufficient number of travellers’ accounts and drawings of costumes, especially of the late 16th to late 19th centuries. Another contribution of this paper is to present an overview of continuity and change in dress and fashion through time, based on the availability of sources such as Western travellers’ accounts and drawings, comparative examples from museums and documentary descriptions in dowries. My intention is to give costumes an equal share in the study of domestic material culture and interpret its elements and meaning in socioeconomic, cultural and symbolic terms. After all, more than any other element of material culture, costumes and outward appearance played a key role as a characteristic of one’s status and social standing, religious direction and ethnic indication within traditional societies, becoming the main indicator of one’s self-identity (Vionis 2003, 204).

The most common furniture item to be listed in dowries of the Cycladic aristocracy and the rising middle class of merchants, was a cypress or walnut chest for storing clothes and valuable items, together with gilded mirrors, Venetian picture frames and small cabinets (Chatzidakis 1994; Aliprantis 2001, 2003). Quantitative analysis of fifty-seven dowry documents from Crete dating from 1597 to 1613, listing a variety of household items, has shown that the majority of those, as well as their value belongs to garments (Markaki 2000, 90). Furniture is not very frequently listed in those dowry documents, but this is probably an indication of their high monetary value as most of those were directly imported from Venice. The same is noted for the case of the Cyclades, where I have compared a selection of thirty published dowrydocuments of the 18th century (mainly from Paros and Melos) that shows a similar pattern; household furniture is rarely mentioned, but always luxurious and imported when listed. Wooden mobile furniture appears more often in travellers’ drawings showing house interiors and scenes of everyday life in the final years of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, and it seems that these images depict the trends and fashions of the emerging middle class of the islands. Not before the later 19th century do most houses in town and countryside get provided with Western mobile furniture, with a delay of about two hundred years in comparison to the PostMedieval West. The 19th century in the Cyclades can be seen as a transitional period from a traditional to a more modern way of life, a period of social and economic changes within the newly founded Greek State. The Greek bourgeoisie was then beginning to form its identity and was showing off its acquired items that would testify to its status and social position (Vionis 2005b, 180). That was a period of intense trading activities between Aegean communities and Western Europe; fast communications (e.g. steam-boats), the active involvement of the Cycladic majority in international commerce, and the growth of the port-town of Hermoupolis in Syros as a major trading centre, contributed to the rapid access of the middle class (and the lower social strata) to Western housing, ceramic and dining trends.

Fig. 25 - Female donor with a western-style attire, fresco, 13th century. Ag. Georgios Marathou, Naxos (photo by A. Vionis)

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societies from the 16th century onwards. The female attire of Crete, as depicted in church frescoes dated to the early 16th century (Mylopotamitaki 2002, figs. 4 and 5), comprised a long dress (either of a single or two combined colours) with very narrow high waist and narrow sleeves on their end point above the hands. Similarly, the male costume of Venetian Crete followed Western fashions from the late 15th century onwards, when the overcoat was shortened to above knee height and it became tighter on the upper part and broader below the waist, while thick red stockings and boots replaced the long 13th century overcoat.

What is also characteristic in the case of the Cyclades is that fashion in formal clothes did not change very much during the past five hundred years or so. Although some modifications are detectable, it seems that in most cases costumes remained unchanged from one generation to another, as is also the case with other insular places in the Mediterranean (Vionis 2003). Clothes and clothing items were handed down from parent to children, forming an important part of the dowry (Cassar 1998). Particular attention is paid to the meaning of costumes and their ‘socio-cultural’ symbolism in everyday life, signifying wealth, social status, prestige and the social rise of individuals (Bada 1992). Special attention is also given to the meaning of dress and changing dress-fashions as an expression of ethnic identity, especially during the 19th century. There is only scanty textual and pictorial information for the male and female attire of the Cyclades during the period of Venetian domination, while surviving evidence only refers to the upper social strata of noble background. The first pictorial evidence of costume in the late Medieval or Latin-dominated Cyclades is in a church fresco in Paros (male costume) and another one in Naxos (female dress); both are dated to the 13th century (Mitsani 1999; Mastoropoulos 2006). The Paros fresco depicts the donor of the church, probably of Venetian origin, wearing a ‘Western-style’ trapezoidal cap and a red garb with a wide raised collar, although the whole dress of the donor would best refer to the male attire of the 15th rather than the 13th century (Vionis 2005b, fig. 10). A similar attire (of white colour) is worn by the female figure of the Naxos fresco (Fig. 25). There is only very limited additional evidence about dress fashions in the Cyclades during the Late Medieval period. Contemporary pictorial evidence from other Venetian-dominated Aegean regions (such as Crete and Rhodes) seems to confirm the wide adoption of Western-looking dress-fashions at least by the nobility (Georgopoulou 2001, 259; Bitha 2002, 50). There is no indication of what the male or female dress of the less affluent groups and peasant classes looked like or what it was made of. Textual references cited by Koukoules (1948, 11-12, 29) give particular emphasis to the differences between social groups and their dress codes, as it seems that clothing was always a compulsory indicator of one’s social and economic standing. Even slaves were made to provide visual evidence of their status through their personal appearance. As this is the case with impoverished social groups of any culture, peasant garments would have remained unchanged for a long time, determined by economic, social and functional factors. The male or female attire of the Cycladic populations must have resembled those of other contemporary Venetian-dominated areas, made of cheap local materials.

Fig. 26 - Female dress from the island of Paros, engraving. Nicolas de Nicolay, 1568. Anthemion Museum, Paros (photo by A. Vionis)

One of the earliest surviving engravings of Cycladic costumes is that made by the French Nicolas de Nicolay in the middle 16th century, depicting the female costume of the island of Paros (Fig. 26). The Paros costume bears great resemblance to 15th century dresses of the ‘Western style’ from Crete, being comprised of a short chemise with narrow sleeves, a long chemise with voluminous sleeves, a small bodice, a dickey, and an apron worn over a pleated white skirt (Delivorrias 1997: 285). Very similar dresses are encountered on other Cycladic islands, such as Mykonos, Santorini, Melos, Kimolos, Kythnos, Keos and Ios, and they should be regarded as surviving

A final reference to the Late Medieval attire will be made through a comparison of male and female costumes from the islands of Crete and Paros in the Cyclades. As pictorial evidence also testifies to, Western trends in clothing became very intensely felt within Aegean 192

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examples of Late Medieval costumes from the islands. An early representation of the male costume in an icon from Paros is of particular interest in that it dates to the late 15th or early 16th century (Fig. 27). It depicts the donor in vraka or baggy trousers, a white shirt and a yileko or waistcoat. This representation of 15th/16th century male attire is of particular importance in that the so-called vraka was widely worn by many Mediterranean seafarers, but is argued to have been of Muslim influence. The evidence I have presented here dates from well before the Ottoman domination on the Aegean islands, stressing the functional meaning of the vraka amongst island-populations, rather than a dress-fashion introduced by the Ottomans to the Aegean island-communities.

with special reference to the Cyclades, that the male and, much more often, the female dress or accessories of female attire comprised a very important property of a new household. As already mentioned above, a comparative analysis of thirty published dowry documents from the Cyclades has shown that items connected to the island-costume account for some 60% of the average total of listed property in every document (Vionis 2005a: 314). This high amount of listed costumes signified the importance of personal attire, probably a form of investment passed down from generation to generation. More wealthy groups also list precious jewellery quite often; all these expensive items were a compulsory component of the female attire, while their quantity and quality signified the socio-economic status of the person wearing them, the possession of which acquired a symbolic meaning amongst the affluent classes of the 18th century.

Fig. 27- Young donor wearing baggy trousers and waistcoat, icon detail, late 15th - early 16th century. Ag. Panteleimon, Paros (photo by A. Vionis)

Fig. 28 - Lucretia Coronello, icon detail, 17th century. Catholic Cathedral, Naxos (photo by E. Karystinaios)

There is not much pictorial evidence of the elite’s dress fashions in the Post-Medieval period; most of the travellers’ drawings depict the local ‘best’ costume (worn on special days) of island communities living in towns and ports. The French traveller and botanist Pitton de Tournefort (1718) mentions that the local aristocracy on the islands of Naxos and Tinos was dressed after the ‘Venetian manner’. Most of the information travellers provide is about Greek female dress, which they found particularly ridiculous and ugly since it combined unsuccessfully ‘old’ Western fashions with ‘new’ Ottoman elements, which gradually penetrated male and female attire from the mid 18th to the mid 19th centuries.

The 17th century icon of ‘Our Lady of the Rosary’ from the Catholic Cathedral of Naxos depicts Lucretia Coronello, a descendent of one of the Venetian noble families ruling in the Cyclades, kneeling before the altar (Fig. 28). She is dressed in an elegant and rich costume that resembles very much the contemporary ‘local’ dress of the island, which itself was very much influenced by Western fashion. Tournefort (1718), who visited Naxos in the early years of the 18th century, provides an example of female attire, depicting it in one of his engravings. This similarity between the dress of Lucretia Coronello (a member of the Latin nobility) and the ‘local’ dress of Naxos is noteworthy (different versions of the local costume worn by different social classes depended mainly on the quality of the fabric; otherwise, stylistically

It is evident through the study of dowry documents and marriage contracts of island communities in the Aegean, 193

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The rich variety and quality of evidence of all periods from the Greek islands, offer a unique opportunity for studying the remains of the ‘days’ which prepared the following capitalist practices and the rise of the individual, just before and a little after the Industrial Revolution in Northwestern Europe. This is a period of particular interest, as notions of identity and privacy, fashions and influences from East and West found ground for a blending of cultural and social elements.

they were very similar). It represents the general trends of the period in two ways; it seems that the Latin nobility was more or less assimilated to indigenous Greek culture by the 17th century, while, on the other hand, influences from Western fashion were very easily absorbed by Cycladic communities long before. It seems that the male and female Cycladic costume did not change much until the middle/late 18th century. More intense contacts of the island commercial class with Venice and urban centres of the Ottoman Empire introduced new elements into Cycladic attire, sometimes from the European West and some others from the Ottoman East. The male costume, for example, remained unchanged into the 19th century, being composed of vraka and yileko, while sometimes an Ottoman overcoat lined with fur completed men’s attire. It should be noted again that the vraka (baggy trousers), although ‘Muslim’ in appearance, must have been widely adopted and worn by merchants and seafarers throughout the Mediterranean world, from Anatolia and the Aegean islands, to Italy, Sicily, Malta and Spain at least since the late 15th century. Pictorial and textual evidence suggest that the local Latin aristocracy in the later Post-Medieval period followed Western fashions, while the local Greek aristocracy or archontes was dressed according to Ottoman trends (Vionis 2003, 2005a, 315).

This paper has attempted to bring together many aspects of everyday rural life on settled Aegean-island landscapes and comprises an introduction to the study of PostRoman material life in general. None of the aspects presented above has been examined thoroughly or in exhaustion. Individual, more detailed studies may follow in order to examine particular issues of the settled landscape, and the use of domestic space, the changing fashions of ceramics, furniture and costumes. NOTES 1 The Cyclades Research Project is an extensive survey project undertaken by the author on seven Cycladic islands for the collection of archaeological data, which formed a substantial part of his Ph.D. thesis (1999-2005) submitted at Leiden University (Netherlands) under the supervision of John Bintliff. A field-survey and study permit was granted through the British School of Archaeology at Athens (David Blackman, former director). The permit was issued by the 21st Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities (M. Marthari, director) and the 2nd Ephorate of Byzantine and PostByzantine Antiquities (Ch. Pennas, director). The project was carried out during 1998, 1999 and 2000 with the assistance of Eleftherios Sigalos (Leiden University) and Velissaria Vanna (University College London).

Thus, just before and after the period of the Greek Revolution in the 19th century, changes in dress note the clear intentions for the building up of a national identity. The final result was the foustanella or short kilt for the male, and the female dress of Queen Amalia, which influenced to a great extent the dress fashions of the traditional local societies. This dress fashion, nearly traditional but very much influenced by Western culture, is later declared as the national Greek costume and functioned as a sign of national identity, omitting all previous Ottoman-looking elements in everyday costume fashions (Vionis 2003: 204).

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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The main goal of this paper has been the presentation and interpretation of the built space and domestic material culture of the Post-Roman Aegean, with greater emphasis on the late Medieval and Post-Medieval Cyclades. Developing settlement- and housing-forms, changing trends in ceramic styles and uses, and fashions of domestic interiors (i.e. furniture) and personal appearance (i.e. costumes) have been considered as reflections and material expressions of culture, socio-cultural identity, privacy, functional needs, domestic behaviour and nationbuilding. The ultimate result is the creation of a ‘PostRoman’ or ‘Pre-Modern Archaeology’ of the Aegean islands, which have mainly attracted the attention of Prehistorians and Classical archaeologists in Greece and abroad. This study is designed to provide an example for a case-study and the basis for the development of Medieval and Post-Medieval archaeology in Southern Europe, moving away from our over-concern with the glory of the Classical Greek past. 194

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Archaeological Theory in Europe, London and New York: Routledge, 65-90. Koukoules, Ph., 1948, Byzantinon Bios kai Politismos, Vol. 2, Athens: Papazisis. Koukoules, Ph., 1951, Byzantinon Bios kai Politismos, Vol. 4, Athens: Papazisis. Koukoules, Ph., 1952, Byzantinon Bios kai Politismos, Vol. 5, Athens: Papazisis. Kouroupaki, K., Savvari, E., Stathaki-Spiliopoulou and M., Tsamtsouri, V., 1988, ‘Naxos’ in D. Philippides (ed.), Elliniki Paradosiaki Architektoniki: Kyklades, Vol. 2, Athens: Melissa, 79-110. Legrand, E., 1897, Description des Iles de l’Archipel par Christophe Buondelmonti: version Greque par un anonyme, Paris. Lock, P., 1995, The Franks in the Aegean, 1204-1500, London and New York: Longman. Lock, P., 1996, ‘The towers of Euboea: Lombard or Venetian, agrarian or strategic’ in P. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 106-126. Lock, P. and Sanders, G.D.R. (eds), 1996, The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford. Markaki, T., 2000, ‘To endyma stis ektimiseis proikas tou M. Varoucha, 1597-1613’ in Proceedings of the 8th International Conference of Cretan Studies, Herakleion: Etaireia Kritikon Istorikon Meleton, 81-93. Mastoropoulos, G.S., 2006, Naxos: Byzantine Monuments, Athens: Ellinikes Omoiographikes Ekdoseis. Mee, C. and Forbes, H. (eds), 1997, A Rough and Rocky Place: the Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Mitsani, A., 1999, The Collection of Byzantine and PostByzantine Works of Art in Naousa, Paros, Athens: 2nd Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities. Motsias, Ch., 1998, Ti Etrogan oi Byzantinoi, Athens: Kaktos. Mylopotamitaki, A.K., 2002, ‘I endymasia ton Kritikon stin periodo tis Venetokratias, 1211-1669’, Archaiologia 84.3, 21-26. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, D., 1996, Mesaioniki Efyalomeni Keramiki tis Kyprou: ta ergastiria Paphou kai Lapithou, Thessaloniki: Leventis Foundation. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, D. (ed.), 1999, Byzantine Glazed Ceramics: the art of sgraffito, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Funds. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, D. (ed.), 2002, Kathimerini Zoi sto Byzantio, Thessaloniki: Ekdoseis Kapon. Philippa-Apostolou, M., 1978, To Kastro tis Antiparou: symvoli sti meleti ton ochyromenon mesaionikon oikismon tou Aigaiou, Athens: Ethniko Metsovio Polytechneio. Philippa-Apostolou, M., 1988, ‘Paros’, in D. Philippides (ed.), Elliniki Paradosiaki Architektoniki: Kyklades, Vol. 2, Athens: Melissa, 113-144.

Renfrew, C. and Wagstaff, M. (eds), 1982, An Island Polity: the Archaeology of Exploitation in Melos, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rogers, J.M., 1996, ‘Furniture in Islam’ in G. Herrmann (ed.), The Furniture of Western Asia, Ancient and Traditional, papers of the conference held at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, June 28 to 30, 1993, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 245-251. Sanders, G.D.R., 1987, ‘An assemblage of Frankish pottery at Corinth’, Hesperia 56, 159-195. Sanders, G.D.R., 1996, ‘Two kastra on Melos and their relations in the Archipelago’ in P. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 147-175. Sanders, G.D.R., 1999, ‘Corinth: workshop production’ in D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi (ed.), Byzantine Glazed Ceramics: the art of sgraffito, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Funds, 159-164. Sanders, G.D.R., 2000, ‘New relative and absolute chronologies for 9th to 13th century glazed wares at Corinth: methodology and social conclusions’ in K. Belke, F. Hild, J. Koder and P. Soustal (eds), Byzanz als Raum, Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 153-173. Sigalos, E., 2004, Housing in Medieval and PostMedieval Greece, BAR S1291, Oxford. Simatou, A.M. and Cristodoulopoulou, R., 1989/90, ‘Observations on the Medieval settlement of Geraki’, Deltion tis Christianikis Archaiologikis Etaireias 15, 67-88. Tournefort, J.P. de, 1718, A Voyage into the Levant Performed by Command of the Late French King, Vol. 1, London. Tzakou, A., 1988, ‘Siphnos’ in D. Philippides (ed.), Elliniki Paradosiaki Architektoniki: Kyklades, Vol. 2, Athens: Melissa, 181-212. Vionis, A.K., 2001a, ‘The meaning of domestic cubic forms: interpreting Cycladic housing and settlements of the period of foreign domination (ca.1207-1821 AD)’, Pharos. Journal of the Netherlands Institute in Athens, 9, 111-131. Vionis, A.K., 2001b, ‘Post-Roman pottery unearthed: Medieval ceramics and pottery research in Greece’, Medieval Ceramics 25, 84-98. Vionis, A.K., 2003, ‘Much ado about... a red cap and a cap of velvet: in search of social and cultural identity in medieval and post-medieval insular Greece’ in H. Hokwerda (ed.), Constructions of Greek Past: Identity and Historical Consciousness from Antiquity to the Present, Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 193-216. Vionis, A.K., 2005a, Crusader and Ottoman Material Life: the Archaeology of the Built Environment and Domestic Material Culture in the Medieval and Post-Medieval Cyclades, Greece (c.13th 20th AD), PhD Thesis, Leiden University. Vionis, A.K., 2005b, ‘Domestic material culture and post-medieval archaeology in Greece: a case

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study of the Cyclades Islands’, Journal of the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology 39:1, 172-185. Vionis, A.K., 2006a, ‘The archaeology of Ottoman villages in central Greece: ceramics, housing and everyday life in post-medieval Boeotia’ in A. Erkanal-Öktü, E. Özgen, S. Günel et al. (eds), Studies in Honor of Hayat Erkanal: Cultural Reflections, Istanbul: Homer Kitabevi, 784-800. Vionis, A.K., 2006b, ‘The Thirteenth – SixteenthCentury Kastro of Kephalos: a contribution to the archaeological study of Medieval Paros and the Cyclades’, Annual of the British School at Athens 101, 459-492. Vroom, J., 1996, ‘Coffee and archaeology: a note on a Kütahya ware find in Boeotia, Greece’, Pharos. Journal of the Netherlands Institute in Athens, 4, 5-19.

Vroom, J., 1998, ‘Medieval and post-medieval pottery from a site in Boeotia: a case study example of post-classical archaeology in Greece’, Annual of the British School at Athens 93, 513-546. Vroom, J., 2003, After Antiquity. Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to the 20th Century A.C.: a Case Study from Boeotia, Central Greece, Leiden: Archaeological Studies, Leiden University 10. Wace, A.J.B. and Dawkins, R.M., 1914, ‘The towns and houses of the Archipelago’, The Burlington Magazine of Connoisseurs 26, 99-107. Athanasios K. Vionis Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Faculteit Letteren Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project [email protected]

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6.1 Population and Settlement in Post-Medieval Doris, Central Greece Peter Doorn mountain areas, while the fertile plains and coastal areas became populated by the Turks.3 A closer examination of the sources, especially the study of detailed Ottoman registers and censuses in various Turkish archives, has brought to light that these notions are too crude and that they do not hold for the whole period of Ottoman rule and for the whole territory of the Empire, though they may have some validity in some periods and selected regions.4

INTRODUCTION

The earliest detailed demographic and settlement information on Doris, a province or eparchy in the nomos of Fokis, central Greece, dates from Turkish tax registers of the second half of the 15th century.* From then on, with intervals, the development of the population and the settlements in which they lived can be followed until the second half of the 16th century. After 1570 until the last years of the Ottoman domination (around 1800) such detailed information is very scarce.1 After the War of Independence, statistics become available from Greek surveys and censuses at more or less regular intervals.

THE OTTOMAN ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM IN THE 15TH AND 16TH CENTURY

Large parts of Greece and the rest of the Balkans have been under Turkish domination for over four hundred years since the 15th century. A solid and strictly hierarchical organisation of the state, with a strong central authority and based on a thorough bureaucratic system formed the backbone of the Empire.5 The largest administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire was the beylerbeylik (or eyalet), which was headed by a beylerbey (‘lord of lords’). It consisted of a number of sançaks, joined together by a common political and military subordination. The sançak, presided over by a sançak bey, was the most basic unit of administrative control, and was often a continuation of an existing political-administrative unit. In turn, the sançaks were divided into smaller districts called nahiyes. The kaza or kadilik was originally a territory covered by the judicial authority of a kadi. Since the kadis often were also entrusted with administrative power, the kazas became administrative units of their own, ranking between the sançak and the nahiye. The nahiyes, with a Naib as a responsible official, finally consisted of feudal fiefs (ziamets and timars), which usually had different usufructs.

The wealth and quality of data on the socio-economic and demographic conditions at the local and regional level that these archives have to offer is unsurpassed until the 19th and 20th century, when modern census material becomes available. Despite considerable difficulties of interpretation, it is now possible to form a notional understanding of the development of the population of Doris since the second half of the 15th century. The population development in Doris in the Turkish and Early Modern period has not been studied in detail before, except for the work by Machiel Kiel, who made available his transliterations for our studies on Aetolia.2 In the following paragraphs the development of the population and settlement structure in the early phases of the Ottoman domination will be described, mainly based on the analysis of registers from the 15th and 16th centuries. On the later developments in ‘Turkish Doris’ the information is scarcer and only few documents have been discovered. Only by the end of the Ottoman period, from the last part of the 17th century onward, we are better informed about the conditions in the province. We will continue our analysis of the demographic development of the 19th and 20th centuries on the basis of population censuses.

The district of Vitrinitsa (in the south of the present-day eparchy of Doris) formed a nahiye of the sançak of Egriboz (Negroponte or Khalkis). Lidoriki and its villages first belonged to the sançak of Tirhala (Trikala), set up around 1395, but were later included in the sançak of Inebahti (Lepanto, Navpaktos), split off from Tirhala and turned into an independent sançak between 1521 and 1540.

There is no agreement in the literature on the demographic and socio-economic effects of the Turkish occupation of Greece. Especially not much is known on the regional and local effects of the Turkish domination, because of the relative scarcity of concrete information on the conditions in more peripheral areas. The harsh oppression in the late years of the domination and the consequent struggle for freedom particularly influence many studies. For this reason it is often assumed in the literature that the Ottoman conquest of the Balkan had a rather destructive effect on the development of the population and the economy. According to these views, the local population in the conquered lands was either exterminated or enslaved, or withdrew to inaccessible

Depending on the point in time and the extent of the Empire, the Balkan Peninsula was divided into some 30 sançaks. The beylerbeylik of which most of Northern and Central Greece constituted part was called Rumelia. This was the first beylerbeylik in the Empire, founded after the conquest of Edirne (1362 or 1371), which was then proclaimed capital. In 1533 a new eyalet was created, named Geza’ir-i Bahr-i Sefid (in Greek: ton Nison tis Aspris Thalassis = of the Islands of the White – or

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district as a whole as it is mentioned in the sources for several years. We should also not forget that the registers were compiled for taxation purposes, which usually affects the reliability of the data. In the registers, a distinction was made between families, bachelors and widows. From these numbers we attempted to estimate the population numbers, but these were not given in the sources.

Mediterranean – sea), with Gelibolu (Gallipoli) as its capital. Among other sançaks, Inebahti and Egriboz came to belong to the new eyalet, whereas Trikala remained a part of Rumelia. The Ottoman authorities started to register the population for the purpose of taxation and control as early as the end of the 14th century. The registrations took place at intervals from ten to thirty years, and shortly after the ascendance of every new Sultan. It could take a whole year to complete the registration of a sançak.

DORIS IN THE EARLY OTTOMAN PERIOD

The district of Lidoriki THE OTTOMAN TAX REGISTERS

The nahiye of Lidoriki constituted part of the sançak Trikala since 1393. This is confirmed in 1466. After the conquest of Navpaktos by Bayezid II in 1499, the new sançak Navpaktos was created between 1521 and 1540. Lidoriki became a district of the new sançak, where it remained until at least 1570. The district was divided into two ziamets and one timar (feudal fief holdings) in 1466. The first ziamet consisted of the town of Lidoriki, three villages (Kakouri, Pirgoro and Mirsi or Mires) and 21 katuns (semi-permanent communities),7 together inhabited by 626 households. One katun was uninhabited in 1466 and four others were newly founded. The second ziamet, ‘the accessories of Lidoriki’, consisted of one village (Stilia) and 11 katuns, of which two were newly founded, with 327 households. It consisted of six katuns, inhabited by 253 households.

The Ottomans kept two types of census and tax registers. One of these was a detailed register (Mufassal Defter), which was made during an extensive enumeration in the provinces by a commission of the central administration in Istanbul. The other one was a synoptic register (icmal defter), which was made in the capital on the basis of the mufassal. The information in this synoptic register is limited to the name of each village and its number of inhabitants, divided into households, bachelors (boys in the age group from c. 13-14 years to c. 22-25 years old), and widows (who may have been heads of households as well).6 Each household or hearth paid a fixed tax sum (ispence) in akçe (a small silver coin related to the gold ducat). The ispence was 25 akçe for a complete household, but only 6 akçe for a widow. The bachelors sometimes paid low sum as ispence, and sometimes they were exempted from this tax. Apart from the hearth tax, there were also taxes levied on goods and production paid in kind or cash.

It is noteworthy that the ziamets and the timar did not form contiguous regions, as far as we are able to assess on the basis of the identified villages. The village of Strouza was even divided over both ziamets. This situation, of a village divided in two or more parts (often each with a separate usufruct), is not unusual in the registers of 1466 and 1506. Also elsewhere we can detect the tendency of the Ottoman bureaucracy not to concentrate too much homogeneous property in one hand. This is characteristic of the early phase of the Ottoman rule. In the course of the 16th century the fears of an accumulation of local power ceased and villages were no longer split into parts belonging to several timars.

Documents of the nahiyes of Olendirek or Olunduruk (Lidoriki) and Vitrinitsa have been preserved at the Başbakanlık Arşivi in Istanbul and at the Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlugü in Ankara for five years in the 15th and 16th centuries: 1466, 1506, 1521, 1540 and 1570. Material found for other districts of the sançak Egriboz indicates that another registration took place around 1490, but the registers for Vitrinitsa and Lidoriki seem to be lost. Without detracting from the enormous administrative achievement and the great accuracy displayed by the Ottoman bureaucrats, a number of difficulties and imperfections must be reckoned with when interpreting the data. First, there are considerable palaeographic transcription and translation problems, for instance of place names. This hinders the identification of villages. Next, the data have not always been preserved in their entirety. For instance in 1540 the data on five villages in the Vitrinitsa district are lacking altogether because some pages at the end of the register are lost. In other cases the problem of missing data is restricted to some individual villages or specific data on one village. In the third place several internal inconsistencies (due to copying mistakes or errors in calculation) turned up after the data were computerized. The sum of the number of families at the village level in the Vitrinitsa district, for instance, appears to deviate somewhat from the aggregate number for the

Like in Vitrinitsa, most of the settlements in Lidoriki had the status of katun in 1466. Lidoriki was the only town and there were two villages, Kakouri and Stilia. After that year all settlements were upgraded to villages. Several names of settlements are Albanian, although it is not mentioned that all katuns were inhabited by Albanians. In 1506, it is explicitly stated that six villages were Albanian, notably Kakouri, Koniakos, Stilia, Megali Mousounitsa, Palaiokatouna, and Kharmena. In later years only Koniakos and Stilia are called Albanian. Moreover, mention must be made of another special status that some villages possessed: the privileged position of derbend. This status of ‘pass guardian’ was granted to villages protecting vital routes. This was the case with Palaioxari (in 1521 and 1570), Sykea (in 1521), and Lidoriki (in 1570), that protected the road from Navpaktos to Neopatras (= Ypati). Apparently, the 200

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derbend status went over from Sykea to Lidoriki between 1521 and 1570. The derbend status included a considerable reduction of taxes and, in the case of Lidoriki, the dispensation of the devshirme (recruitment of Christian janissaries for service in the army and corvées in the palace).

The occurrence of piracy in the area is worthy of note. The area around Lepanto was reputedly a pirates’ nest, from which it got its nickname ‘Little Algiers’ in the 17th century.9 Apparently, pirates made the coastal region unsafe already in the mid 16th century. The villages in the district of Lidoriki were not in the same order in the various registers, and because of spelling variations, their identification was problematic. With the help of the computer, the records of the registers were linked in a semi-automatic fashion, based on the population numbers and on the transcription of the toponyms.

The register on Megali Lambino is accompanied by a long note stating that this village was situated in a dangerous area infested with bandits, who had killed several people. Therefore the village population had started to disperse and the village dwindled. It was judged necessary to grant the village the status of derbend, to exempt it from paying extraordinary taxes and corvées, and from the recruitment of boys for janissaries. They had to pay half the normal tithes on wheat and barley. In this way it was attempted to reassemble the inhabitants and to revive the village. The status was already granted in the previous register (c. 1550) and was renewed.

Of a total of 57 different village names (not including double names for one village), we came across 33 in all five registers. Seven villages were mentioned in four of the registers. Of the 16 remaining villages that were found three times or less, 13 were only mentioned once. It is possible that a few settlements could not be correctly linked because of the palaeographic problems. Newly founded settlements were explicitly indicated as such in the sources. In 1466 the register mentions six new settlements, in 1506 and 1521 two, and in 1570 one.

In 1540 and 1570, moreover, there are additional notes on the taxation of two monasteries, counted with Megali Lambino. A lump sum of 200 akçe per year was included in the proceeds of the village for the market-dues of the monastery of Varnakova in 1540. In 1570 this amount had doubled. Further, the monastery of Agios Ioannis paid 50 akçe of taxes in 1540 and in 1570 the monks had to pay 150 akçe. In addition to the market-dues, the Varnakova monastery paid the revenues of a ciftlik, consisting of a piece of land, five gardens, three mills, one felt press, and olive trees, situated in the villages of Megali Lambino and Vlakhokatounon (= Trikorfon). The ciftlik was in usufruct by the monks and the lump sum for the tithes and taxes amounted to 3700 akçe. The ciftlik of the monastery of Agios Ioannis consisted of two cifts (pieces of land).

It must be noted that most of the infrequently registered villages were very small. It is self-evident that especially the hamlets with only a handful of families are problematic. They may be satellites of larger settlements, that are counted separately only in certain years. They are also more likely to originate or disappear according to relatively small demographic and economic fluctuations. It is possible, then, that villages which are one or more times missing in the registers were uninhabited at the time of the enumeration, but we must also reckon with the possibility that they either belonged to another administrative district or that there are imperfections in the registers.

Although the identification of Megali Lambino is not certain, the location of both monasteries offers an important clue. The monastery of Agios Ioannis, nowadays in ruins, was situated about 2 km east of the present-day village of Evpalion. Some 7 km to the Northeast of this village lies the monastery of Varnakova. Evpalion was an important regional centre in the Early Modern period. Megali Lambino can therefore possibly be identified as Evpalion (or as a predecessor of Evpalion). Some further evidence for this tentative identification is offered by maps dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, showing the village of Lambino (also spelt as Lubina or Lambina) near the mouth of the Mornos river to the east of Navpaktos. The village is moreover mentioned by Sathas as a place belonging to Navpaktos at the end of the 15th century.8 It is only after the conquest of Navpaktos in 1499 that the village appears in the Turkish registers of Lidoriki.

Despite these changes, the total number of inhabited settlements in Lidoriki remained fairly stable throughout the whole period from 1466 to 1570, i.e. around 41. Only between 1540 and 1570 a certain increase in the number of villages can be observed, but most of the settlements mentioned for the first time in 1570 were very small. At the same time there was probably an expansion of the settled area in northerly and westerly directions, if we consider the location of some of the identified new settlements. Depending on the year of registration, we have been able to identify between 29 and 32 settlements in Lidoriki (about three quarters of the total number of settlements) in each year of registration. Between six and eleven settlements remain unidentified, and a doubtful identification is suggested for between three and six settlements in each census year. Combining the Lidoriki and the Vitrinitsa data, two thirds of all settlements were identified, about one quarter is unidentified, and the identification of the remaining fraction is uncertain.

The identification of Megali Lambino is further complicated by the existence of villages with rather similar names in the districts of Vitrinitsa (Lambino, not identified) and Kravari, the mountainous region to the North of Navpaktos (Megali Lombotina, present-day Ano Khora). 201

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Fig.1 - Settlement pattern in the districts of Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa (modern Doris), 1466-1570

The district of Vitrinitsa

The identified settlements were plotted on maps in order to study their spatial distribution and to assess the approximate boundaries of the district (see Fig. 1). Inspecting the distribution, it is striking that no villages are identified in the area around Steno, the strategic node in the network of communication northwest of Lidoriki. The castle of Lidoriki almost certainly crowned the ancient ruins of the kastro of Veloukhovo above Steno, but it is unknown whether the defences were still in use by the Ottomans. There were also several mills and felt-presses at Veloukhovo10. Moreover, the village of Kakouri must have been situated near Lidoriki, but its exact location is unknown. It is possible that the village of Kalimaki in the defters is to be associated with Klima, northwest of Veloukhovo.

The district of Vitrinitsa consisted of fourteen villages and formed a separate nahiye within the kaza of Salona, which in its turn formed part of the sançak Egriboz. At the enumeration of 1466 there were 16 villages, but two of these were deserted. The district was a grand-fief (ziamet) with a special status. According to Koder and Hild (1976), Vitrinitsa (or Bitrinitsa) was the centre of a more or less independent unit within the county of Salona in the Byzantine period.11 It is probable that the Ottomans respected this status quo, according to their general policy in most parts of the empire. The actual control was appointed to an administrator, mostly called voyvode. In the light of the special status of the area there were no feudal tenants (sipahis). It was purely a royal estate without military obligations.

In the Post-Ottoman period about six villages were situated around Steno. Most of the names of these villages are of Slavonic origin, which might indicate that the area was inhabited before the arrival of the Turks. It is unlikely that this region was only sparsely inhabited in the early Ottoman period. As a number of settlements of that time were not identified, it is probable that at least some of them correspond with locations in the Steno area.

The register of 1466 stipulates that the district of Vitrinitsa counted one village (the capital of the same name as the district, nowadays Tolofon) and 15 katuns of Arnavudan (pl. of Arnavud = Albanian). Because this ethnic group was rather turbulent and mobile (i.e. only 202

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Turkish period, for which we have no 15th and 16th century predecessors, disregarding the recently developed coastal locations. It is probable that several of the unidentified villages correspond with these modern successors or that they were located elsewhere within the modern village territories.

partly sedentary), the Ottoman bureaucrats recorded the ethnicity of the villages, in order to know whether they were dealing with Albanians or with the much more quiet Greeks. The Albanians also paid less tax than the settled Greeks. The registers of 1466 and 1570 point out that about three-quarters of the settlements and inhabitants of the Vitrinitsa district were of Albanian descent.

POPULATION AND SETTLEMENT STRUCTURE 1466-1570

It is noteworthy that after 1466 the status of the katuns appears to be upgraded to that of regular villages or karye. Only in some isolated cases the terms ‘Albanian’ and ‘katun’ remained in use. This is most probably an indication for a stabilisation of the settlement pattern. Thirteen villages can be followed from 1466 until 1570. Two villages are deserted after 1466. One village was newly founded between 1466 and 1506: the village of Veleniko (nowadays: Elaia).

Population growth and decline It was noted earlier, that apart from some fluctuations in the Lidoriki district, the total number of settlements in the area was fairly stable. Between 1466 and 1540, the total number of settlements in both districts was c. 55. In 1570 the number of settlements increased to 63, due to a number of new settlements in Lidoriki (see Fig. 2).

Two places were deserted throughout the whole period under consideration: Vidavi and Kisseli. They were recorded as mesra of Vitrinitsa, meaning that their fields were cultivated by this village. Both villages were later re-founded and are nowadays known as Agioi Pandes and Panormos. Their desertion during the Early Ottoman period was probably related to their location on the coast, which was repeatedly plundered by pirates.

The development of the total population was not as smooth as the settlement numbers suggest (see Fig. 3). In the Lidoriki district, the population diminished by one third between 1466 and 1506. The population declined in all but six villages, and in the villages where the population grew the growth was minimal. In the same period, the number of families in the Vitrinitsa district remained virtually stable. As we saw earlier, two villages disappeared from the stage. Here the population declined in four out of sixteen settlements. In the other villages of the district a modest growth was recorded.

We have been able to identify and locate nine of the villages in the Vitrinitsa district mentioned in the censuses on the basis of a toponymical research. After plotting these settlements on maps the approximate boundaries of the district could be assessed. Between five and seven villages could not be traced. It is interesting to note that also about six villages are found after the

The interpretation of this initial decline or stagnation has to be prudent. It is characteristic for the 1506 register that parts of villages are counted with other districts. The inhabitants of five settlements in the Lidoriki district

100

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50 200 40 150

30 Settlement size

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Fig. 2 - Number of settlements and settlement size in Doris, 1466-1981

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Balkan Wars WW I

WW II Civil War

Smyrna crisis

Pax Ottomanica

Decline of Ottoman Empire

Campaign of Bayezid against Lepanto (1499)

War of Independence (1821-1830)

Fig. 3 - Development of population in Doris, 1466-1981

In the last thirty years of the period under study, the roles are once again reversed. Between 1540 and 1570 Lidoriki grew apace (40 %), while the growth of Vitrinitsa stagnated completely. There was an absolute decrease in two villages here (notably the major Ottoman centres of Malandrino and the village of Vitrinitsa itself) and the other settlements remained practically stable. In Lidoriki, although there was a population decrease in seven villages, the majority of settlements grew considerably.

appear to be partially included in another district, amounting to at least 110 families. Nevertheless, the demographic decline may also be related to the campaign of Bayezid II against Lepanto (Navpaktos) in 1499. The Turkish army marched by way of Levadia, Salona and Vitrinitsa to Lepanto, and on the way back Bayezid camped at Stiris (Osios Loukas). Still, a comparable decline of population was not found in other areas. On the whole, the population of Central Greece displayed a considerable growth in this early phase of the Turkish domination. The possibility of a local catastrophe, accompanied by out-migration, should therefore not be disregarded. After 1506 the demographic situation began to recover, especially in the Lidoriki district, where the total number of families was back at the level of 1466 in 1520. The fast growth indicates a reaction to the decline of the earlier period. In all but three villages the population increased, annual growth rates of over two percent being quite normal. Also in Vitrinitsa the population grew, though not as fast as in Lidoriki. Whereas in only two villages did the number of families decrease.

As mentioned before, not only the numbers of families, but also numbers of bachelors and widows are recorded. In most years about one bachelor for every five households is found in both Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa. This proportion can be regarded as the average or normal situation, which was also found elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. In 1506 and 1521, however, the number of bachelors in Lidoriki was strongly reduced to only three or four percent. The decline was less dramatic in Vitrinitsa, where the rate in 1506 amounted to about ten percent. Later the situation returned to normal in both districts. The extremely low proportion of unmarried men was most probably related to the devshirme.

In the next twenty years until 1540 the situation was just the reverse and Vitrinitsa grew faster than Lidoriki. In Vitrinitsa the number of families doubled, whereas the growth of the Lidoriki district was less than ten percent over the whole period from 1520 till 1540. In the Vitrinitsa district all villages grew. In Lidoriki eight villages declined and the others witnessed only a modest growth.

Passing through Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa on his campaign against Navpaktos in 1499, Bayezid must have recruited many boys for the army. Also in the neighbouring districts of Thebes and Levadia practically no bachelor was left according to the registration of 1506. It has been observed in these parts that the devshirme was especially radical in villages where Albanians lived, whereas in the Greek villages the proportion of the bachelors was

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The development of the number of widows and its proportion to the number of families does not show a clear pattern. Expressed as a percentage of the number of households, the rate fluctuates between five percent (in Lidoriki in 1540) and eighteen percent (in Vitrinitsa in 1521). The fluctuations may be an indication of varying death rates among men, possibly because of acts of war. At present there is however not enough detailed knowledge to connect the observed trend to the demographic development.

normal. From this it could be inferred that the Ottomans especially recruited boys of Albanian origin. In the Lidoriki district, there were only a few villages where boys were left in 1506. The town itself must have been privileged already, because the situation was quite normal there. In six other villages there were between one and three boys. All other villages were completely deprived of bachelors. The situation in the district was only slightly better in 1521, although there were still twenty villages without any boys, and no village (excluding the capital) counted more than five bachelors. It is noteworthy that the devshirme had a rather uniform effect on all villages. In Vitrinitsa the devshirme also pressed comparably hard on all villages, although the situation was not as bad as in Lidoriki. Everywhere else at least a few boys were allowed to stay behind.

The Muslim population was inconsiderable in these districts. There were only a few Muslim households in the study area, most of which lived in the town of Lidoriki. The maximum was 24 families in 1466, all living in the capital. In later years, in only a couple of other villages can be found between one and five Muslim households.

Two important conclusions can be drawn about the devshirme. In the first place, it is undeniable that the profoundness of the child tribute must have temporarily had some severe drawbacks on the development of the region. It is nonetheless remarkable that despite the forced recruitment of productive young men, who would otherwise have formed new households, a population growth could be realised in the Lidoriki district. Secondly, the registers point out that the devshirme took place only once in this district over a time period of at least seventy years, which is in contrast to suggestions of a regular ‘blood tax’ every few years.12 Thus, the often heard hypothesis that the devshirme had a long-term devastating effect on the Greek demographic and economic development is not supported by the evidence for this district and period.

To sum up, the population development in Lidoriki is characterised by a period of decline from 1466 till 1506, which is followed by growth, though with varying pace, until 1570. In the Vitrinitsa district the population growth over more than a century, between 1466 and 1570, is concentrated in the twenty-year period between 1520 and 1540. Before 1520 and after 1540 the number of families remains almost stable. Adding the two districts together the general trend is one of initial population decline followed by a substantial population growth. The minimum number of inhabitants recorded was about 6.5 thousand people in 1506; the maximum was about 15.5 thousand people in 1570. It can be inferred that the early phase of the Ottoman domination in these parts of Greece brought about some severe demographic drawbacks, but

30

Number of settlements

25

20 1466 1506 1521 1540 1570

15

10

5 1570 1540 1521 Year 1506

0 1-10

11-20

21-50

51-100

101-150

Settlement size (households)

1466 151-200

201-500

Fig. 4 - Settlement size distribution of Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa (Modern Doris), 1466-1570\

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then this situation improved enormously in the 16th century. The more than redoubling of the population in a period of barely 65 years can be seen as a remarkable fact, especially in the light of the thesis posed by Braudel and others that a population growth of 100% in a pre-industrial society within one century is already a great achievement.13

Only in 1570 can an increase in the smallest size group be observed due to the enumeration of a number of tiny settlements in Lidoriki not recorded earlier. In 1540 and 1570 less than 30 percent of the villages count 20 families or less; in Vitrinitsa there are only two villages with 30 families or less in 1540 and not one in 1570. At the other extreme of the scale, the number of large settlements with over 100 families increases. The growth of these settlements is far from steady. There are also important shifts in the ranking of settlements according to their size. Lidoriki is the largest settlement in 1466, 1506 and in 1570. In this last year Lidoriki reaches the largest size recorded for any single village in the district in the 15th and 16th century: 262 families, i.e. about 1300 inhabitants. In 1520, however, the primacy of Lidoriki is taken over by Megali Lambino, and in 1540 Plessa (Amygdalea) is the largest settlement while Lidoriki takes a modest fourth position.

On the basis of the numbers of settlements and families the average village size was calculated (see Fig. 2). This amounted to about 30 families in both districts in 1466, but in later years the situation diverged. In Lidoriki the mean village size dropped to 20 families due to the general population decline. Later it recovered and reached a maximum of about 40 families in 1570. In Vitrinitsa the mean village size initially increased due to the disappearance of two settlements. Later, because of the rapid population growth between 1521 and 1540, it rose to about 85 families per village.

Sudden growth and dramatic decline are characteristic for the pattern of development of many individual villages. It is highly unlikely that the fluctuations in growth rates are caused by natural factors, even though nothing definite is known about natality and mortality in the early Ottoman period. Since no mention is made in the sources about disasters such as contagious diseases, hostilities or catastrophes, and because the booms and falls are strongly local in nature, it can be assumed that inter-local and inter-regional migration played an important role. Also the differentiation in the development between the districts of Lidoriki and Vitrinitsa can be explained only by migratory flows, both mutually and with other regions. It can be concluded that the population was much more mobile than is generally assumed and illustrates that the peasants were not tied to the land as serfs.

The size distribution of settlements is reflected in Fig. 4. In 1466 more than half of the villages in Vitrinitsa and Lidoriki counted 20 families or less (c. 100 inhabitants). The initial demographic stagnation or decline is reflected in 1506 by a marked increase of the group hamlets with ten families or less and a decline of the number of villages with more than 20 families (now comprising only one third of all settlements). The demographic recovery of 1521 is reflected by an increasing settlement size, especially in the group with between 21 and 30 families. In 1540 and 1570 the process of settlement growth is illustrated by a steady increase in the number of larger settlements at the cost of the smaller hamlets.

Fig. 5 - Settlement pattern in Doris, c. 1800-1981

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Settlement pattern

centre in the south, thanks to its convenient location near the coast.

The geographic distribution of the identified settlements is represented in Fig. 5. It attempts to delimit the territory of the districts as exactly as possible, using natural barriers and current boundaries as an aid. The borders of the Vitrinitsa district largely match those of the early modern dimos of Tolofon. The Lidoriki district corresponds fairly well with the other demes in Post-Ottoman Doris, perhaps excepting the later dimos of Oineon in the Southwest and the village of Karoutai in the East. Before 1499 the Southwestern area probably belonged to Lepanto and Karoutai constituted part of Salona (Amfissa). In the North, Megali or Ano Mousounitsa (presently called Athanasios Diakos) and Mikri or Kato Mousounitsa are nowadays administratively reckoned to the eparkhia of Parnassos, but in the first half of the 19th century they still belonged to Doris.

DORIS FROM THE END OF THE OTTOMAN TO THE MODERN PERIOD

Only towards the end of the Ottoman period, when Ali Pasha of Ioannina, governor of Epirus and proconsul of Rumeli for the Sultan, effectively controlled much of Central Greece, is detailed information at the village level again available. At that time Greece consisted of six pashaliks. Many feudal fiefs developed into or were replaced by hereditary ciftliks (estates).15 The memoirs of the French diplomat Pouqueville, who was ambassador to Ali’s court, included a number of land registrations (cadastres). These were published in the second edition of his Voyage de la Grèce in 1826, without further commentary or mention of source and date. It is however clear that the registers are based on one of the last Turkish censuses, held between 1780 and 1815. Two cantons are distinguished in what is now Doris: Lidoriki or Doride and Malandrino.16 The registers mention the number of families per settlement: in Lidoriki 1156 families in 27 settlements and in Malandrino 535 in 16 settlements. Three villages with 65 families in the plain of the Mornos near Navpaktos, that now form part of Doris, then belonged to the district of Navpaktos.

Throughout the Early Ottoman period the town of Lidoriki was clearly the most important inland centre for many mountain villages, located to the North and West of the capital. The eastern location of the capital is clearly favoured by the communication network and its nodal point at Steno. Also the relative proximity of the sea via the valley of the Belesitsa can be regarded as important location factors.

From the foundation of the independent state in 1829 onward, Greece started to develop into a modern nation, which became increasingly integrated in the international system. In the 19th and in the first half of the 20th century, however, the modernisation process was fragmentary in character and affected a small proportion of the territory. Many parts of Greece, including the inaccessible and isolated province of Doris, remained virtually unaffected by developments in the few cities and in the agricultural plains, where a modest industrialisation and commercialisation took place.

It is more difficult to indicate the sub-centres in the hierarchy of settlements, because of the demographic disturbances at the end of the 15th and the early 16th centuries. Still, all settlements that are found as second order centres like dimos-capitals in the Post-Ottoman period appear to belong to the class of more prominent villages with respect to their size: Artotina, Pendagiou, Paliokatouna/Krokyleion, Granitsa/Diakopi, and Palaioxari/ Potidania. Also Megali Lambino belongs to this group. In general, the villages on the slopes of the Vardousia mountain range were relatively large, a phenomenon that is also found in the Early Modern period.

Throughout the early 19th century until 1940, Greece was the least densely populated of the Balkan countries, except for Albania. Over this period the national territory was enlarged several times with the repulsion of the Turks, but at the same time the population increased even faster by both a natural growth and by an influx of migrants from the occupied to the liberated areas. In consequence, the population density generally increased until the Second World War, when the average density was about 55 people per square kilometre.

Vitrinitsa occupied the highest position in the hierarchy of settlements in the district of the same name until 1540, when it was surpassed in size by Plessa (Amygdalea). There were even four villages larger than Vitrinitsa in 1570. In the Early-Modern period Vitrinitsa was the capital of the dimos, but Plessa also took a prominent position, favourably situated as it was in the South of the Belesitsa valley on the axis Vitrinitsa-Lidoriki. It is however unlikely that Plessa possessed many specialised central functions. Nor is it likely that the other large villages (two of which are not identified) performed substantial central functions, though they may have taken advantage of the temporary and relative decline of Vitrinitsa. There are indications that the centre of the district shifted to Malandrino in the middle of the 17th century.14 Malandrino may have had primarily a military function to protect the rich Belesitsa valley and to control the road connecting the valley with the sea. Until that time we suggest that Vitrinitsa remained the major trade

The low population density is related to the fact that the lion’s share of the work force was engaged in agriculture and stockbreeding. The population density was moreover far from uniform. It was dependent on the proximity of urban centres, the case of communications, the incidence of malaria, and, most important of all, the type of agriculture practised. In the plains of Greece, which cover less than one-third of the mainland, but which supported more than half of the population, the population density was much higher than in the mountainous parts.

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course of time they developed into permanent villages.22 Moreover, not all Greek settlements are nuclear villages. Dispersed habitation occurs frequently. It also happens that settlements consist of two or more quarters or makhalades, of which the high/low (ano/kato) variety is most usual.

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION AND POPULATION CENSUSES

After the Greek independence in 1830, the country was divided into administrative units at various levels. The nomos (comparable to the French département) formed the highest level. Next came the eparkhia (province). These consisted of dimoi (demes, municipalities). A deme consisted of one or more (usually a dozen or so) settlements (oikismoi), one of which was the deme’s capital. In 1912 most demes were abolished and replaced by koinotites (municipalities, communities), which were smaller in size and consisted typically of a few settlements. These new communities usually took the name of the most important settlement within its borders. Only demes with 5,000 inhabitants or more retain the same status of township.17

It is mainly in the 1920s, that many village names that did not sound Greek, were Hellenised. Sometimes the change was minor, when by changing one or two letters a toponym could become a Greek word, but in the majority of cases the new name bears no resemblance to the old one at all. The first administrative division of the eparchy of Doris after the Turkish period was one in eleven districts or dimoi (demes): Aigition, Yaia, Korax, Krokyleion, Vomea, Ofionia, Potidaneia, Oineon, Tolofon, Olison, and Oianthi. The delimitations of the demes are not known, nor are their capitals, but each deme must have consisted of several villages and hamlets.

Greece did not have a land registry for most of its territory.18 Censuses were kept every ten years or so. The first published census at the local level was that of 1879. Before that year, there were land descriptions and irregular publications of registers and enumerations.19 The Elliniki khorografia (lit.: Greek place description) gives a statistical description of Greece in the 19th century. Every town and village is listed individually, together with its number of inhabitants and the distance to neighbouring capitals. One problem of this source is that the population numbers refer to different areas for different periods between 1830 and 1889.20 Ta Ellinika also contains a description of Greek settlements. The sources give geographic and historical notes for every town and village, and the number of inhabitants in 1851.21

In 1836 this division was revised and the eleven districts were regrouped into four new demes: Aigition in the Northeast (also comprising Yaia and Korax), Krokyleion in the Northwest (including Vomea and Ofionia), Potidaneia in the Southwest (including Oineon) and Tolofon in the Southeast (including Olison and Oianthi). Their respective capitals were Lidoriki, Pendagiou, Ano Palaioxari, and Vitrinitsa. In 1845 a minor revision was made: the villages of Vraila and Malandrino shifted from dimos Tolofon to dimos Aigition. Two villages in the North, Ano and Kato Mousounitsa, which up to then belonged to the eparchy of Doris (dimos of Korax and later Aigition), were transferred to the dimos of Kytinion in the eparchy of Parnassis.

Population censuses published for the years 1879, 1896, 1907, 1921, 1928, 1940, 1951, 1961, 1971 and 1981 are used in this study. From these censuses, the population numbers per settlement are taken. These can be aggregated to dimos (until 1911), koinotis (after 1912), eparchy and nomos. Usually the census mentions the old name of a village or municipality when it has been changed.

The division in demes was again revised in 1869, when the number of districts was enlarged to seven. The deme of Krokyleion was split into a part (Vomea) oriented on the village of Artotina and a part, keeping the same name, of which Pendagiou was the capital in summer and Palaiokatounon in winter. A number of villages on the slopes of the Vardousi range, formerly belonging to Krokyleion and Lidoriki, became the new deme of Yaia, with Granitsa (Diakopi) as its capital. The district of Potidania was also subdivided into a part keeping the old name, centred around Ano Palaioxari, and a part called Oineon with Kato Klima as its capital.

In some census years the number of registered settlements is much larger than in other years, mainly because of a shift in definition. Of course, also new villages have been founded and other ones have been deserted. Some censuses also report deserted or uninhabited settlements and hamlets with a mere handful of families. Monasteries are usually registered also as inhabited places. Sometimes several settlements are counted together as one village. It is often so that the situation is fuzzy, and that it is not clear what the criteria are for counting small settlements as separate entities or not. Another typical phenomenon is the occurrence of transhumance (seasonal nomadism), in which (part of) the population migrates between a summer and a winter settlement. The summer settlements in the mountains are usually regarded as the villages of origin, whereas the winter settlements in the plains had a more temporary character. Initially these often consisted of huts, but in the

This administrative division would remain intact until the abolishment of the demes in 1912, apart from the shift of the capital of the district of Oineon from Kato Klima to Evpalion. After that year, the eparchy was divided into koinotites or communities, which were much smaller and more numerous than the demes. They mostly consisted of one village, and sometimes one or a few hamlets were belonging to it. There were about 55 communities in Doris.

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Turkish rule, and consisted of refugees who settled in the liberated parts. It is not improbable that this inflow was preceded by a reverse flow during or before the hostilities of the Great Uprising, and that we are dealing with re-settlers here, because the migrants settled mainly in the mountain villages. On the other hand, (part of) the settlers may have been newcomers as well, as is witnessed by at least one newly found village (which is nowadays deserted again) by Epirotes.

The old demes were however more than just administrative areas. The former deme-capitals continued to be (and in some cases still are) little centres for the surrounding villages. They were usually of considerable size, counting over 500-800 inhabitants. The commercial functions of these second order centres were generally rather restricted. There often were several shops, but these mainly supplied the village population itself and were rarely visited by people from other villages of the deme. The reason for this was that the shops had not enough to offer for customers who had to make a trip of a few hours. If they went to make a journey anyway, it was more rewarding to visit a larger trade centre or one of the small ports at the sea.

In the 20th century data are more reliable and display a clear trend. In accordance with the national trend, a substantial out-migration, especially to Athens and abroad, can be observed between 1896 and 1920. In this period the population growth was virtually zero. All of the natural growth that occurred was drained away. This may have amounted to several thousands of people, many of whom were young men. On the national scale, the emigration to the United States was concentrated in a number of waves between 1900 and 1922. From then on, overseas migration has been negligible and has not seriously affected the growth of population of Greece as a whole.

More important were the administrative and service facilities that were concentrated in the old deme-capitals. The political and administrative offices were here, and they usually possessed a notary’s office and a court of justice where various kinds of legal matters could be settled. Moreover, whenever a secondary school was present in the deme, it could be found in the capital. This was often an imi-gymnasion or ‘semi-high school’, with three classes for secondary education. The only proper high school with six classes was in Lidoriki, but only few parents could afford the secondary education of their children.

The labour migration consisted largely of men in the productive age-groups. Also with regard to occupation the out-migration was highly selective. Originally most of the emigrants were agricultural labourers, later the majority were workers in the industrial and services sector. This indicates that the emigration process was stepwise. In the first step people migrated from the countryside to the cities of Greece, moving from agricultural to industrial and service occupations, while in the second step, the workers in the secondary and tertiary sector emigrated.

POPULATION GROWTH AND DECLINE

The development of the total population in the eparchy is represented in Fig. 3. In the course of the 19th century the population more than tripled. The growth continued, though irregularly and at a much slower pace, until 1940. Since the Second World War the population rapidly declined. Only after the 1970s the rural exodus seems to have stopped. This is partly a phenomenon caused by the increased mobility of the population. Many Athenians of Dorian descent reconstructed their ancestral house to spend the summer months there; they also seem to arrive in the province the night before the census was taken. In 1981 the number of inhabitants, after reaching a peak of thirty thousand inhabitants in 1940, was back at the level of half-way the last century.

While the emigration from Greece as a whole diminished after 1920, the population growth of Doris remained so low (c. 0.6% per year) that this can only be explained by a continued migration out of the province. This regional emigration was primarily oriented towards the large cities and the developing industrial and mining centres in other parts of Greece. The money sent home by migrants, either from abroad or from the Greek urban-industrial centres, was an important source of income for the mountain villages of Doris. Considerable numbers of emigrants later returned to the villages where they were born.

About seven thousand inhabitants lived in the region at the end of the Turkish time. As the exact year of the register from which this data is derived is unknown, it is not possible to calculate the growth rate over the early years of the liberation. From 1839 to 1856 yearly data are given and from 1856 to 1870 five-yearly data are available. From 1879 onward censuses were held at intervals of eight to thirteen years.

The Second World War meant a total break with the development that the eparchy had seen thus far. The effect of external factors on population growth before 1940, however considerable, was only slight in comparison to the post-war developments. Already during the Second World War and the subsequent Civil War many villages were destroyed. The polarised structure of post-war economic development in Greece further disrupted the demographic developments in Greece. In peripheral mountain provinces like Doris the regional economy totally collapsed and a massive rural exodus began. Within only thirty years, the population was halved and whole districts are nowadays virtually deserted.

The highest growth-rate achieved in Doris in the Early Modern period was that in the years before 1850. In the average growth rate of nearly 3% per year, migration must have played an important role. It can be estimated that at least half of the total population growth in this period was brought about by in-migration. The flow of migrants probably descended from Northern and Northwestern Greece, from the areas that were still under 209

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DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION

SETTLEMENT PATTERN

During the last years of the Turkish domination, average population density in Doris was extremely low, namely about ten inhabitants per square kilometre. During the uprising a number of villages was evacuated or destructed, but after the Turks were driven out of the region, the population began to return. Many resettled in the mountain villages. Accordingly, in the middle of the 19th century the highest population densities are found in the highland areas, and not in the valleys or coastal plains. Moreover, the wetter western half of the eparchy was denser populated than the drier East.

Villages The nucleated village is generally regarded as the typical form of settlement in rural Greece.23 The eparchy of Doris is a province without cities. Its capital, Lidoriki, never had more than about 1600 inhabitants, but calling it a village would be an underestimation of its central functions. Before the Second World War, Lidoriki was a modest though industrious market town. Nowadays many of its large town houses, shops and workshops make a desolate impression, but it must have been once the sparkling commercial centre of the mountain economy. According to local informants, Lidoriki supplied over thirty villages up to a distance of about eight hours away (on foot), high up in the mountains.

This trend continued throughout the second half of the 19th century. Densities of over forty inhabitants per km2 were found in several mountain villages, especially in the North and West, whereas at the coast and in the valleys in the South and East densities of less than thirty inhabitants per km2 were usual. With the growth of population there was a general increase of population density in the 19th century. After 1900 a gradual change in this pattern emerges. Slowly the lower lying districts began to take advantage of their position with respect to communication lines and agricultural potential. The growth of population in the least accessible mountain parts was slower than in the Belesitsa valley in the Southeast and at the coast, in particular in the Mornos plain in the Southwest, where population densities of far over 50 inhabitants were recorded.

Most of the goods that were traded in Lidoriki did not originate from the capital itself, but were imported from a small port on the Gulf of Corinth, Erateini. Originally, Erateini consisted of only a few warehouses and fisherman’s huts belonging to Tolofon, but since 1907 it is mentioned as an independent community. Most of the imports of Doris were shipped via Erateini to Lidoriki, from where they were further distributed. The other way round, many provincial exports left Doris through Erateini. Lidoriki thus was in the first place a redistributive centre, but it also possessed a large number of workshops that lined the twisting main street. Notably, there was not a regular market in Lidoriki. The capital was clearly the highest ranking centre in the hierarchy of settlements.

The dramatic effects of the wars in the 1940s left a clear imprint on the distribution of population. The destruction of several villages is reflected locally in extremely low population densities of less than five inhabitants per km2. The process of desertion of most of the inland-villages occasions a spectacular drop in population densities in the North, while the southern part of Doris deteriorates less. Almost no mountain community can nowadays be found with a population density of more than ten inhabitants per km2.

The total number of settlements in Doris increased from about sixty in 1850 to eighty in 1940. Among the new settlements we find primarily a number of villages on the coast. Moreover, a number of relatively small satellites of larger villages originated. The majority of settlements was rather small (with less than about 500 inhabitants), and there were only very few large villages (more than c. 800 inhabitants) throughout the Early Modern period. Between 1850 and 1879 the average village size increased from about 275 to 375 inhabitants, while the number of settlements remained stable. Since 1879, the average village size remained largely stable (between 375 and 400 inhabitants), and population growth was realised by a growth in the number of settlements. Size distributions of settlements for various selected years illustrate this trend. Between 1850 and 1879 we observe a reduction in the number of settlements with less than 150 inhabitants and an increase in the number of larger settlements. After that year this trend is less clear, because in the smaller size categories new villages emerge (see Fig. 5).

The coastal settlements that we find today are a relatively recent phenomenon. The villages which had land bordering on the sea practically without exception had an inland location at a considerable (though varying) height. They were all hidden from the sea, which suggests that external threat had an important impact on their situation. The village of Dafnokhori, for instance, at a distance of 4.5 km from the sea, was located at a height of c. 900 metres. It is therefore not surprising that most of these high villages or ano khoria were accompanied by a small satellite at the beach. These low villages or kato khoria originally consisted of a few huts for fishermen, shepherds and agriculturists, and were often only seasonally inhabited. In the course of the 20th century these settlements became permanent and nowadays they even surpass the mother village. In recent years the higher villages have dwindled, whereas the kato villages have blossomed. Most of them either became independent communities (koinotites) or became community capitals instead of the founding ano villages.

Of the total of 94 settlements mentioned in the censuses after 1821, three villages disappeared from the stage in the course of time during the Early Modern period. These are Karya, Kerasea, and Avoriti. Karya, in fact a twin-settlement consisting of an ano and a kato part, was 210

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have to travel a long way from their home in order to make use of the land. One often finds, therefore, dispersed houses or huts called kalyvia, in the fields that are farther away from the village. These huts are mostly in use for short periods during the year. Kalyvia are not only constructed for agricultural ends, but also for herding and fishing. Huts may be found apart or in clusters together, and there are several intermediate forms from temporary to permanent habitation.

a refugee-village from the Turks, 5 km north of Evpalion. After the liberation, the inhabitants returned to lower lying Evpalion, and Karya became deserted after 1920. Kerasea was a small satellite hamlet 2.5 km south of Sourousti. After 1907, the inhabitants of Kerasea merged with those of Sourousti, which was then renamed after old Kerasea. Avoriti was a hamlet 2.5 km south of Krokyleion, not mentioned anymore after 1850.24 The sites of these deserted hamlets are still recorded on topographic maps (scale 1:50,000). Shepherds’ huts or kalyvia, which are seasonally in use, indicate the existence of former villages in the field.

On the basis of topographical maps (scale 1:50,000) an inventory was made of this (seasonal) type of dispersed settlement in the eparchy of Doris. The inventory points out that dispersed settlement was a much more common phenomenon in Doris than one would infer from the literature. Although scattered habitation is found in all parts of the eparchy, several concentrations can be indicated. The largest concentration is found in the mid-west of the eparchy, on both borders of the Mornos River, an area that is relatively rich in water. A second area with a lot of dispersed settlement is the coastal area in the Southwest. Furthermore, the Steno-area is characterised by dispersed dwellings. Finally, dispersed settlement appears to be abundantly present along the coast and in the river valleys of the Belesitsa, the Megas, and the Kokkinos. Dispersed settlement appeared to be largely absent, however, in the highland areas. The occurrence of dispersed settlement is thus closely connected to height and the presence of water.

After 1940, the list of deserted settlements can be enlarged with Strouza (Aigition), Steno, and Palaiokhori (near Sergoula). Additionally, a considerable number of settlements was on the verge of extinction: fifteen hamlets had less than 50 inhabitants in 1981. Many isolated mountain villages are now inhabited only during the summer months. In the wintertime, only a few old men and a village policeman stay behind. Kallion, the village that was submerged in the artificial Mornos Lake, now consists of a mere handful of shabby houses on the waterside, hastily constructed by people who refused to leave their land. The once proud Varnakova monastery was still inhabited by one monk, stricken in years and ill when we last visited the place in 1985. The villages of Doris in the Early Modern period can be divided into four groups according to the central functions performed. At the lowest level, we discern small hamlets with a population of less than about 200 (size indications cannot be exact because of fluctuations over time). They were not full-grown or independent settlements, but often satellites of a central village: ano or kato divisions, seasonal fishermen’s or shepherds’ villages, small colonies consisting of just a few families who founded a new settlement at some distance from the parent village. The most striking example of this form of settlement is the municipality of Klima Evpaliou, where the central village was surrounded by six dependent hamlets. The rationale of this settlement type was that small and dispersed patches of agricultural land could be exploited effectively under a certain measure of decentralised habitation. The small hamlets usually had no central functions whatsoever: there were no shops or workplaces and the administrative office of the community was located in the central village; even a school, church and cafe (kafeneion) were often lacking.

Before the Second World War villages were hardly found on the Corinthian coast, this fact can be attributed to the danger from piracy in the past. The insecurity of existence is also held responsible for the predominance of the nucleated type of settlement inland. Safety factors have played an important role in the selection of village sites. Especially along the coast, many villages are situated in hidden locations where they are invisible from sea. Additionally, natural factors such as the water supply and the incidence of malaria in the low lying areas have influenced the pattern of settlements. CONCLUSION

Scattered habitation

Despite the flaws in the data, we can construct an image of the population growth and decline in the eparchy of Doris over the past 500 years, in combination with the developing settlement structure and its changing composition. It seems that the early phase of the Ottoman occupation was a period of rapid expansion in various respects, while the end of the 18th and the early 19th century were a dark period indeed. The 19th century was again a period of growth, which continued until the 1940s. The Second World War and the Civil War represented a watershed. Since 1950 the modernisation of the regional economy went hand in hand with a decline of the population and the destruction of the mountain economy of Doris, except for the coastal area.

The dispersion of population in scattered dwellings is a rare phenomenon in Greece. A disadvantage of the nucleated type of settlement is that villagers frequently

The study of material remains from the distant or nearest past occupies the most central part of the archaeological discipline. The interpretation of material culture is the

One step higher in the hierarchy we find villages with several hundreds of inhabitants (200-800). They may (but need not) have been attended by one or more satellites, for which they performed some central functions like the ones just mentioned. These were of a lower order and largely local in scope.

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ultimate purpose of archaeologists, who normally seek to explain continuity and change in all aspects of material remains of past societies. The meaning, however, of material culture is a rather complex one and its study includes a broad variety range of objects, borrowing methodologies from a wide range of disciplines. Material culture includes many aspects, such as settled landscapes and settlements, religious and secular buildings of all types as well as domestic furnishings. Domestic material culture refers more specifically to aspects of daily life, such as ceramics, aspects connected with diet and economic trends, dress and costume fashions, and items associated with furniture and domestic comfort.

APPENDIX

villages in Doris, viz. Vlakhokatounon (nowadays Trikorfo) and Palaiokatounon (today Krokyleio). 8 See Sathas 1869, 29. 9 See Miller 1921, 380. 10 The modern name of this village is Kallion, a village now submerged in the artificial Lake Mornos. 11 See Koder and Hild 1976. 12 See Vacalopoulos 1976; Shaw 1976, 114; Zakythinos, 1976; Spiridonakis 1977, 132-135. 13 See Braudel 1962. 14 See Giannopoulos 1971, 107-108. 15 See G. Finlay [1877] 1971, 3-4 and McGrew 1985, 22-40. 16 F.C.H.L. Pouqueville, (Paris, 18201) Tome III 205-263 or (Paris, 18262) 486-545. 17 Khouliarakis 1973-1976. 18 See McGrew 1985. 19 See Mansola 1867, 146. 20 See Noukhaki 1901, 213-281, 334-339. 21 See Rankavi 1853, 572-577. 22 See Doorn and Bommeljé 1990, 81-97. 23 See Lienau 1986 and Niemeier 1967. 24 Avoriti was the birthplace of General Makrygiannis (1797-1864), one of the leaders of the Greek revolution of the 1820s. See Lidderdale 1966 for a translation and edited version of the memoirs of General Makrygiannis, 1797-1864.

– OTTOMAN SOURCES

The sources of the registers on Lidoriki: 1466/7 1506 1520/1 1540 1570

Maliyeden Mudevver 66, fol. nr. 149-151 (Istanbul). Tapu Defter 36, fol. nr. 73-82, 97-109, 1255-1259 (Istanbul). Tapu Defter 105, fol. nr. 435-438, 586-596, 615-623 (Istanbul). Tapu Defter 445, fol. nr. 14-18, 162-187 (Istanbul). Kuyudu Kadime (K.u.K.) 50, fol. nr. 31-51 (Ankara).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexander, J.C., 1985, Towards a History of PostByzantine Greece: the Ottoman Kanunnames for the Greek Lands, circa 1500 - circa 1600, Athens. Barkan, O.L., 1940-1941, ‘Les grands recensements de la populations et du territoire de l’Empire Ottoman, et les régistres imperiaux de statistique’, Revue de la Faculté des Sciences Economiques de l’Université d’Istanbul 2, 21-34, 168-178. Barkan, O.L., 1957, ‘Essai sur les données statistiques des régistres de recensement dans l’Empire Ottoman aux XVe et XVIe Siecles’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1, 9-36. Beldiceanu, N., 1976, Le monde Ottoman des Balkans (1402-1566), London: Variorum Reprints CS 35. Braudel, F., 1962, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II, 3 Vols, Paris. Doorn, P., 1989, ‘Population and settlements in Central Greece: computer analysis of Ottoman tax registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’, in P. Denley et al., History and Computing II, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 193-208. Doorn, P.K. and Bommeljé, L.S., 1990, ‘Transhumance in Aetolia, central Greece: a mountain economy caught between storage and mobility’, Revista di Studi Liguri, A. LVI, 1-4, 81-97. Finlay, G., 1971 [1877], History of the Greek revolution and the reign of King Otho, (reprint 3-4) of Vols VI and VII of A history of Greece from its conquest by the Romans to the present time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864, London: Zeno. Finlay, G., 1906, History of Greece under Ottoman and Venetian domination, Edinburgh and London. Giannopoulos, I.G., 1971, I dioikitiki organoseis tis Stereas Ellados kata tin Tourkokratia (13931821), Athens.

The sources of the registers on Vitrinitsa: 1466 1506 1521 1540 1570

Maliyeden Mudevver 66 (Istanbul). Tapu Defter 35, fol. nr. 735-744 (Istanbul). Tapu Defter 367, fol. nr. 94 (Istanbul). Tapu Defter 431, fol. Nr.1070-1084 (Istanbul). Kuyudu Kadime (K.u.K.) 183, fol. nr. 188-203 (Ankara).

NOTES * The author wishes to thank Machiel Kiel of Utrecht University, who transliterated the Ottoman sources from 1466-1570. Yvette Bommeljé assisted in the creation of statistical databases, including data from 1879 onwards. Some parts of this text have been previously published by the author under the title ‘Population and settlement in Central Greece: computer analysis of Ottoman tax registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’, in Denley et al. 1989. The research on Post-Byzantine Doris was carried out in the context of the Aetolian Studies Project, which was co-directed by Sebastiaan Bommeljé (see also his contribution in this volume). 1

One tax register on the district of Lidoriki from around 1680 has been found in the archives, but it is difficult to interpret. Ecclesiastical sources, such as those of the Varnakova monastery in Southwestern Doris offer additional insight on parts of the province; see Kalanoros (1957) and Katasaros 1979, 347-401. 2 See Karydis and Kiel 1985, 1859-1903 and Kiel 2004, 219-237. 3 See Stavrianos 1950, Vacalopoulos 1963, 265-276 and Spiridonakis 1977. 4 See Karydis and Kiel 1985, 1859-1903. 5 See Beldiceanu 1976, Giannopoulos 1971 and Finlay 1906. 6 See Barkan 1940-1941, 21-34, 168-178; 1957, 9-36 and Alexander 1985. 7 The suffix ‘katun’ survives in the old names of some present-day

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Kalanoros, P.P., 1957, I Agia Moni Koimiseos Theotokou Varnakovis, Amfissa. Karydis, D.N. and. Kiel, M., 1985, ‘Sandzaki tou Evripou: 15os - 16os ai’ (Sançak of Egripos: 15th - 16th century), Tetramina 28/29, 18591903. Katasaros, B., 1979, ‘A chronicle of the Varnakova Monastery’ Klironomia 11, 347-401. Khouliarakis, M., 1973-1976, Geografiki, dioikitiki kai plithysmiaki exelixis tis Ellados - Geographical, administrative and population development, 1821-1971) 4 Vols, Athens: EKKE. Kiel, M., 1991, ‘Post-Byzantine architecture and painting in Central Greece 1460-1570. Its demographic and economic basis according to the Ottoman census- and taxation registers for Central Greece preserved in Istanbul and Ankara,’ in From Mantzikert to Lepanto, The Byzantine World and the Turks 1071-1571, Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, 1985, Birmingham, Byzantinische Forschungen, Vol. XVI, Amsterdam: Hakkert, 429-446. Kiel, M., 1992, ‘Central Greece in the Süleymanic Age: Preliminary notes on population growth, economic expansion and influence on the spread of Greek Christian culture’, in G. Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifique et son temps, Actes du Colloque de Paris, Ecole du Louvre, Paris: La Documentation française, 399-424. Kiel, M., 1997, ‘The rise and decline of Ottoman Boeotia, l5th - l9th centuries: Remarks on the Settlement pattern, Demography and Agricultural production according to unpublished Ottoman Turkish censusand taxation records’, in J. Bintliff (ed.), Recent Development in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece: Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Boeotian Studies, BAR International Series 666, Oxford: Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology, 315-358. Kiel, M., 1999, ‘The Ottoman Imperial Registers: Central Greece and Northern Bulgaria in the 15th - 19th century: the Demographic Development of two Areas compared,’ in: J. Bintliff and K. Sbonias (eds), Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 195-218. Kiel, M., 2004, ‘Anatolian-Balkanic Connections: The Central Greek district of Vitrinitsa (Tolophon) and North Anatolian town of Amasya in the 15th 17th centuries according to unknown and rarelyused OttomanTurkish sources’, Anatolia 30, 219-237. Koder, J. and Hild, F., 1976, Hellas und Thessalia, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 1, Vienna.

Lienau, C., 1986, 1995 (revised edition), Ländliche Siedlungen or: Die Siedlungen des ländlichen Raumes, Das geographische Seminar, Braunschweig. Lidderdale, H.A. (ed.), 1966, Ioánnis Makrygiánnis: The Memoirs of General Makrygiannis, 1797-1864, translated by H.A. Lidderdale (ed.) with an introduction by C.M. Woodhouse, London: Oxford University Press. Mansola, A., 1867, Politeiografikai pliroforiai peri Ellados, Athens, (reprinted in the series ‘Vivliothiki Istorikon Meleton’). McGrew, W.W., 1985, Land and Revolution in Modern Greece, 1800-1881, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. Miller, W., 1921, Essays on the Latin Orient, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Niemeier, G., 1967, Siedlungsgeographie, Das geographische Seminar, Braunschweig. Noukhaki, I.E., 1901 (3rd edition), Elliniki Khorografia: geografia, istoria, statistiki plithismou kai apostaseon, Athens. Pouqueville, F.C.H.L. 1820 (1st edition), 1826 (2nd edition), Voyage de la Grèce, Paris, Tome III, 1820, 205-263 or 1826, 486-545. Rankavi, I.R., 1853, Ta Ellinika, itoi perigrafi geografi, istoriki, arkhaiologiki, kai statistiki tis arkhaias kai neas Ellados, Athens. Sathas, K.N., 1869, Tourkokratomeni Ellas, Athens. Shaw, S., 1976, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spiridonakis, B.G., 1977, Essays on the historical geography of the Greek world in the Balkans during the Turkokratia, Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies. Stavrianos, L.S., 1958, The Balkans since 1453, New York: Rinehardt. Vacalopoulos, A.E., 1963, ‘La retraite des populations grecques vers des régions éloignées et montagneuses pendant la domination turque’, Balkan Studies 4, 265-276. Vacalopoulos, A.E., 1976, The Greek Nation, 1453-1669: The Cultural and Economic Background of Modern Greek Society, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Zakythinos, D.A., 1976, The Making of Modern Greece: From Byzantium to Independence, Oxford: Blackwell. Peter Doorn DANS (Data Archiving and Network Services) The Hague – The Netherlands Email: [email protected]

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6.2 Connecting the Archaeological Past with the Ethnographic Present: Local Population Records and Settlement Development on 19th Century Methana* Hamish Forbes can be gained by integrating the evidence derived from material culture with that from documentary sources, both written and oral.

INTRODUCTION

It is not too far-fetched to say that our understanding of the archaeologically-documented past of Greece has been revolutionised by the substantial number of archaeological survey projects that have been published since Cherry’s seminal article ‘Frogs around the pond’ (Cherry 1983). The avowed aim of such projects has been to trace changes in settlement and land use from the period of earliest occupation of a survey area up to ‘the modern period’. The definition of what is meant by ‘modern’ has varied. So, too, does that of the phrase ‘up to’, since some publications end at the beginning of what they define as the modern period, while others continue their remit well into the 20th century.

Because of the lack of archaeological information on the Post-Medieval past, especially in terms of settlement and land use, a number of survey projects have employed social or cultural anthropologists to undertake studies in their project areas. It has been assumed that their methodologies will enable them to document the most recent situations in the area, especially in terms of settlement, land use and social organisation, to bring the narrative of changing settlement and land use up to the present day. The reasoning has been that long term continuity over several hundred years in most survey areas allows the ethnographic record to be connected directly with that of archaeology. In essence, the employment of social or cultural anthropologists to complete the historical narrative of a region is an application of the Direct Historical Approach of North American archaeology and cultural anthropology (Trigger 1989, 69, 124-125), even if the fact is not always fully acknowledged.

Although significant progress has been made in the PostMedieval archaeology of Greece, Ottoman archaeological data are still relatively rare (Armstrong 1996, esp. 125; Bintliff 2007, 221; Vroom 2007). As Bintliff (2007, 121) has recently noted, only some twenty years ago most field projects did not systematically collect Post-Medieval material. If they did, the finds were generally classified as ‘Ottoman/Venetian to Modern’ or even ‘Medieval to Modern’. Ironically, even the relatively short period defined by the term ‘Turkish/Modern’ still represents one of the longest ‘archaeological’ periods in Greece since the Neolithic: one which is at the same time both the most recent and arguably the least well documented archaeologically. This situation is linked to the perception in Greek archaeology, current until very recently, that for the 18th or 19th century archaeological techniques are of little if any use in identifying settlement patterns, land use, etc. One of the reasons for this view, apart from the relative lack of research on the ceramic record and vernacular architecture, is the perception that the settlement pattern and even practices of land use were little different at that time from those found in the first half of the 20th century.

In keeping with the Direct Historical Approach, a number of ethnographic or ethnoarchaeological studies have attempted to identify settlement and land use patterns in earlier decades. For the earlier part of the 20th century such information has been available directly via recall ethnography as elderly residents give their own recollections. Some documentary sources in kinotis (community) or dhimos (municipality) offices may also provide detailed evidence directly related to local communities, although my experience in the Southern Argolid of the Peloponnese suggests that in some cases records prior to the earlier 1940s no longer exist because they were destroyed by communist partisans. Nevertheless, where they exist they can be very valuable. For instance, when conducting research in the Southern Argolid I was able to use the annual log of the forest service, which ran from the 1930s to the 1960s. Detailed figures for the types of forest products exploited and the amounts involved were very useful in building up a picture of the contribution of the non-cultivated landscape to the regional economy in the middle portion of the 20th century (e.g. Forbes 1996, 85-86).

However, the last fifteen years or so have seen something of a revolution in the interest shown in the Ottoman period. Several scholars published important work on Ottoman period documentary sources and archaeological evidence in Greece during the 1990s (e.g. Davis 1991, Kiel 1997 and Bintliff, summarised in Bintliff 2007), but Baram and Carroll’s volume of articles (2000) presenting a historical archaeology specifically of the Ottoman Empire has had a particularly significant impact for archaeologists working in Greece. Overall, although an exercise in stating the obvious, it is worth stressing that the greatest understanding of interrelated changes in settlement pattern, population, society, economy and land use in the Post-Medieval period

For the 19th century, historical information is quite widely available via oral tradition – stories, sayings, etc. handed down to living generations by older generations now dead. Documentary sources in the form of broad-brush information, such as total populations of settlements derived from national censuses, are also available for this 215

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period, but more detailed, community-based documentary sources are much more sporadically available.1 Thus Petronoti (2000) has been able to combine oral historical traditions with local documentary sources to reconstruct 19th century social and economic developments in and around Kranidhi in the Southern Argolid.

The present contribution discusses how one might fill the hazy and often blank space of time mentioned above with real information rather than assumptions based on perceived timelessness. It addresses the problem of the integration of scarce historical records with the archaeological and oral historical records – or in this case, the apparent lack of any – for the peninsula of Methana in the Peloponnese. In particular it investigates the question of the circumstances under which oral records may be maintained or forgotten, and the reliability as historical documents of those which purport to exist. The field data on which the study is based consist of two years’ ethnographic fieldwork undertaken as part of my doctoral research (Forbes 1982) and the archaeological results of the Methana Survey Project conducted between 1981 and 1987 (Mee and Forbes 1997). In addition, a month’s ethnographic work was conducted on Methana in the summer of 1998. Some of the results of that most recent research and datagathering provided the impetus for the present discussion.

Oral historical documents concerning the past are therefore vitally important, since much of the rural population in the 19th century was illiterate and therefore unable to commit information to paper. Indeed, much of the population of rural Greece was at best semi-illiterate until towards the middle of the 20th century. Thus archaeologists and anthropologists studying aspects of rural Greece dating to earlier than the early 20th century have to recognise that they are working with a record which is quasi-protohistoric in character. Most of the limited numbers of documents that exist were generated by agencies exogenous to local communities, particularly the Greek state, but also occasionally non-Greek travellers, etc.

TH

RECONSTRUCTING THE EARLY 19 CENTURY SETTLEMENT PATTERN OF METHANA

It is for this reason that oral testimonies concerning the gap between the archaeologically-documented past and the ethnographically documented present are so attractive to researchers. It is tempting to describe these testimonies about the past as the ‘ethnographic past’. However, this is not strictly correct, since their utterance, being oral, is purely in the present until written down. Furthermore, as Vansina (1965, 1985) makes abundantly clear, the knowledge which generates these utterances is being constantly re-worked, and/or partially or completely forgotten with the passage of time and the transition from speaker to hearer and generation to generation. In trying to understand oral testimonies, it is crucial to recognise that they are subject to processes of erosion and partial survival comparable with those which affect the archaeological record.

The small, rugged, volcanic peninsula of Methana is located towards the southern extremity of the Saronic Gulf. It is attached to the Peloponnesian mainland by a narrow isthmus, only a few hundred metres wide. Its overall extent is barely 10 kilometres across but it reaches a height in the centre of almost 750 metres (Fig. 1). Since mentions of the peninsula in the ancient literature are extremely rare, and it had little in the way of particularly interesting architectural remains from antiquity, little archaeological attention was paid to it before the early-mid 1980s (Forbes and Mee 1997, 2). The Methana Survey was conducted in the years 19811987, with publication of the results appearing in 1997 (Mee and Forbes 1997). However, one of the reasons for choosing the peninsula as a venue for field survey was the fact that I had conducted two years of ethnographic research there in 1972-4. Therefore, unlike many survey archaeology projects, the ethnography preceded the actual survey. Nevertheless, data from ethnographic research contributed significantly to a picture of historical developments on PostMedieval Methana (Forbes 1997).

The question, therefore, is to attempt to fill the generally hazy, and often blank, space of time between the most recent limit of what is documented archaeologically and a point some time in the 20th century when the recollections of older inhabitants and more recently compiled documents can provide a reasonable picture of life in the region. Since documents relevant to detailed questions concerning population, land use or settlement pattern in specific small regions dating to the 19th century or earlier are rarely found, it is highly tempting to fill the blank space in the record with an image based very closely on the situation found in the 20th century.

In the final report of the Methana Archaeological Survey I discussed the development of settlement on the peninsula from the Medieval period onwards, based on the evidence available in the mid 1990s (Forbes 1997). The evidence itself was drawn primarily from archaeology and historical documents. Archaeological evidence was mainly in the form of artefact scatters at various sites, and the results of Theodore Koukoulis’ (1997b) meticulous study of the small, generally architecturally unremarkable, churches which are scattered over the countryside. The historical evidence consisted primarily of a Venetian period census, a very few mentions of Methana in travellers’ accounts during the last few decades of Turkish rule, the publications of the French Scientific Expedition to the Morea (i.e. the Peloponnese), and censuses made by the Greek state. Evidence of settlement or events prior to the later 19th

The ways in which those who have observed and studied Greek villages and villagers have tended to place them outside of time and spatially isolated from urban centres of cultural change have been discussed and criticised in an important article by Sutton (2000a, 7-12, 18-20). While Sutton is primarily considering ethnoarchaeological approaches which link 20th century ethnographic research directly to Greek antiquity, there are similar dangers in assuming that little if any significant change took place in the Greek countryside from the mid 19th century and earlier to the mid-late 20th century. 216

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city and all are at, or very close to, sea level. Hence the statement ‘on the side of the mountain’ is clearly incorrect. There is one fresh water spring, also on the other side of the peninsula from the ancient city, which is indeed located on a mountainside. But the present-day village nearest to it, some fifteen minutes’ walk away, is carefully positioned so as to be completely invisible to shipping in the Saronic Gulf. These problems suggest that Chandler did not visit the site in person and misunderstood an answer given to him by a local inhabitant. If he meant that the village was ‘in view’ from the ancient city site, the basis of the discussion at this point in his account, then he clearly means the village of Methana.2

century could not be derived from ethnography in a form which made any clear historical sense. This was despite a two year period of ethnographic fieldwork, and more sporadic ethnographic study during archaeological survey seasons. Methanites’ descriptions of the past tended to be restricted to extremely vague statements about ‘i papoudhes mas’ (our grandfathers) and ‘ekina ta khronia’ (in the old days). Based on the evidence available, I presented the following picture (Fig. 1). By the beginning of the Ottoman period in the mid 15th century, there was only one settlement, close to a church called Panayitsa, situated in an eagle’s nest position over 400 m above sea level at the top of an extremely long and steep slope. The site’s mixed Greek/Albanian place name, Paleokatundi (Old Village), only learned in subsequent fieldwork, indicates a continued memory of its previous existence. Its position overlooking the abandoned settlement of ancient Methana allowed it to use the ancient city’s natural harbour as its main point of contact with the outside world. On the basis of the very limited quantities of pottery on all other sites of the period, as well as the very restricted areas of these other sites, it was suggested that most if not all were occupied only seasonally (Forbes 1997, 103-105). At some point before the beginning of the 18th century the peninsula’s only permanent village seems to have been moved directly downhill from its previous location. A Venetian census of 1700 identifies a single settlement on the peninsula, called Methana, of a size almost certainly too large for the area covered by the Paleokatundi site. That there was but a single community on the peninsula during the Second Venetian Occupation is corroborated by a tithecollection document dated to the period. Written in Greek, it refers specifically to ‘Methana village’ – ‘khorio Methena’ – (Davies 1994, 453-454). The evidence thus indicates that Methana’s only settlement had been moved from its early Ottoman period location by 1700. The new settlement seems to have been located at the site of the modern village of Meghalo Khori (Forbes 1997, 105-107). Few Western European travellers actually visited Methana. Dodwell (1819) describes his visit in some detail. He reached the peninsula travelling overland to visit the site of the ancient city, and he mentions a modern village not far from it. Pouqueville (1826-7, Vol 4, 143) names the village as Methana. Chandler (1817) visited the ancient city by boat in the 18th century, sailing round the peninsula to do so. He makes no mention of the village of Methana, being only interested in describing the ancient site and the meagre ancient literature associated with it. However, in discussing the hot spring mentioned by Pausanias, he states categorically that it ‘is on the side of the mountain, by a village which is in view; and tinges the soil near it with the colour of ochre’ (Chandler 1817, Vol 2, 248). The statement is very problematic for several reasons, particularly inasmuch as it seems to suggest that there might have been more than one village on Methana at this time.

Fig. 1 - Methana and its changing settlement pattern

Under the circumstances, Chandler’s statement must be considered of no worth. It is noteworthy that his maps of Methana are both highly inaccurate and inconsistent with each other. Chandler is not unique in being an unreliable witness: the description of the peninsula given by Gell (1827, 200-201) is equally garbled: it is evident that he decided to rely on local information, not necessarily fully understood, rather than autopsy. The data collected by the French Scientific Expedition to the Morea, undertaken in the years 1829-1832 provide some more reliable information about Methana at the end of the War of Independence (Bory de Saint-Vincent 1834, Vol 2). Census figures are given, in terms of numbers of

There are in fact three separate hot springs on Methana. All are on the opposite side of the peninsula from the ancient 217

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century documents: Meghalo Potami, Dhritseïka, Kypseli3 and Kaimeni Khora (Fig. 2). Meghalo Potami (Big River) is a small village: the census of 1879 records only 17 households. In the 19th century documents to be discussed below it is always treated as a satellite to the neighbouring village of Meghalo Khori. It is unclear therefore whether it already existed in 1830 but was subsumed under Methana (Meghalo Khori), or was missed out of the list by error, or was a seasonal settlement. The -eika ending of Dhritseika (‘Dhritsosville’) is characteristic of small seasonal settlements. However, there is no evidence to indicate when it came into being as a seasonal settlement, nor when it became a permanent settlement.

families, for six villages on Methana, part of the list of villages in the eparkhia of Corinth. The names as given in the French report (Khouliarakis 1973, 33-34, quoting Bory de Saint-Vincent 1834, Vol 2, 64) are followed by their 21st century names: Methana

Meghalo Khori

Vromolimni

Vromolimni

Kato-Mouska

Palea Loutra

Apano-Mouska

Makrylongos

Kounopitsa

Kounoupitsa

Hagios Theodoros

Aghii Theodhori

Other seasonal settlement sites known later in the century are also missing from the list. One possible explanation for the omission of certain villages in the French census, therefore, is that they simply did not exist at the time, or that they were only seasonal settlements, and thus did not count as ‘official’ villages for purposes of the census. A possible alternative explanation, that they were simply erroneously missed out in the count, should not be accepted without support since a number of very small villages with less than ten families are mentioned in the French Expedition’s census elsewhere in the eparkhia: some of these are in very remote and inaccessible locations, but did not escape notice.

Table 1 - Methana village names in 1830, and their modern counterparts

The settlement name of Methana is the name now used for the spa town and present-day main settlement of the peninsula, otherwise known as Loutra. Loutra, however, did not exist as a settlement at all until the establishment of the spa at the end of the 19th century (Forbes 2007a, 82). The French census omits four other villages which exist at the present day and whose names appear in later 19th

Fig. 2 - Methana: late 19th century settlements

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Difficulties in establishing the exact nature of the settlement pattern in 1830 increase, when the evidence of the indefatigable English traveller Leake is taken into account. In Peloponnesiaca, published in 1846, he produced a ‘Map of the Morea, reduced with alterations from the French survey executed in 1829, 30 and 31’ (Leake 1967). This shows eight villages rather than the French Scientific Expedition’s six: all the present-day villages apart from Dhritseika and Meghalo Potami are marked. It also uses the village name Meghalo Khori rather than Methana.

was a wave of immigration onto Methana during the years of intense upheaval associated with the War of Independence. Methana’s peninsular location and extremely rugged topography make it an ideal refuge landscape, and evidence for its importance during periods of disruption in previous periods is visible both in the archaeological and in the ancient historical record (Gill and Foxhall 1997; Gill et al. 1997). In addition to the naturally defensible nature of the peninsula, specific historical factors applied during the War of Independence. In particular the establishment of the forces of the philhellene Fabvier on the isthmus gave Methana a much greater level of protection than that available to most other parts of Greece (St. Clair 1972, 291; Forbes 1997, 107-109).

Aldenhoven (1841, 420-421) whose text reproduces almost verbatim part of the report of the French Expedition (Forbes and Mee 1997, 2) seems to indicate that at least one of the villages missing from the French Scientific Expedition’s census already existed at that time. While discussing an archaeological site, he mentions en passant that it is ‘près de Kaymeno-Khori’. The name of the modern village of Kaïmeni Khora, which is indeed near this site, means literally ‘Unfortunate Place’ or ‘Burnt Place’: Aldenhoven uses a name which means ‘Burnt Village’. It is unlikely that this linguistic slip would have been made if the name was merely a toponym. The implication, therefore, is that some form of a village did exist but was not reported for some reason. The best explanation is that it was at that point a collection of shelters which were only seasonally occupied.

There are three problems with the picture presented above. The first – that it is heavily dependent on an argumentum e silentio – has already been noted. The second is the lack of certainty over the existence of certain villages in 1830. The third and most important is the fact that there is no oral historical record among Methanites which in any way might be considered to refer to the establishment of between five and nine permanent villages, with perhaps a trebling of the population on the peninsula, in less than a decade. A partial exception to this statement is the tradition that the inhabitants of Kaïmeni Khora, one of the villages not recorded by the French Expedition, came from the Aegean island of Psara after its devastation by the Turks in the War of Independence (e.g. Athanasiou 1998, 43). The fact that oral tradition is silent on the foundation of other villages which are listed in the French census merely serves to highlight the problems. Not least of these is the question: is the oral tradition of Psariote refugees actually correct? The fact remains that over the course of more than two and a half decades I had been unable to discover clear oral records of any other population movement to Methana, either in the form of family histories or in the form of general histories known to the whole community.

It should perhaps come as no surprise that the availability of historical documents concerning Methana should shed light and doubt in roughly equal measure onto the situation in earlier 19th century Methana. Generating a historical picture (sensu lato) of the Turkish-Modern periods on Methana for the publication of the archaeological survey presented a particular problem. How to interpret a critical period in the landscape history of Methana which linked the primarily archaeologically-documented past with the ethnographically-documented past: the data at my disposal were a set of documents whose limitations were, if not selfevident, at least evidently significant. The situation which emerged, however, indicated that in the decades prior to the Greek War of Independence, mentions of the peninsula of Methana were few, made by non-Methanites, not always reliable, and the areas visited (or at least reported upon) were restricted largely to the ancient city site. Only a single village, named Methana, could be clearly identified from the documents. The situation therefore seems to have remained unchanged from that in 1700, documented by the Venetian census. However any argument that no other villages existed prior to the War of Independence rested largely on negative evidence. Despite Koukoulis’ (1997b) admirable work on the churches, archaeology plays little part in documenting settlements, or their non-existence, in the later phases of the Tourkokratia.

ORAL HISTORIES: ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Thanks to the pioneering work of Jan Vansina (1965; 1985) anthropologists have become aware of the value of oral traditions as historical documents, particularly among nonliterate peoples around the world.4 While exact chronologies can almost never be achieved, it is evident that many peoples world-wide are able to record events at least as far back in time as the one and a half centuries that have elapsed since 1830, and often much further into the past (Vansina 1985, 187-190). It has also been discovered that the corpus of intentional oral historical accounts found around the world contains a very limited range of topics, but that tales of migrations are consistently represented (Vansina 1985, 119-120). It is also important to note that almost every community has some form of tradition about its own origin, wherever that is placed in time or space, and that traditions of origin themselves reflect a people’s or community’s world view (Vansina 1985, 21-24, 133).

While the evidence of travellers as late as the first decade of the 19th century suggests only one village existed on Methana, the survey by the French Scientific Expedition to the Morea in 1829-1831 gives clear evidence for the existence of at least five further villages. If the evidence from Leake’s map is included, up to eight villages may be identifiable. The most economical way to interpret the differences between the two periods is to assume that there

Chagnon’s study of the Yąnomamö of the Amazon Basin is a good example of how oral history can be used to trace events in the past. Through the detailed study of kinship and 219

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the recitation of people’s ancestors, Chagnon managed to work out a time-depth of some 150 years – some 5-6 generations. Moreover, the knowledge embedded in Yąnomamö memory of their ancestors and relatives also enabled him to reconstruct the frequent and complex movements of individuals and villages over the landscape during that time-period (Chagnon 1997, 80-83). The Nuer, who have a classic example of the widespread segmentary type of kinship system found in sub-Saharan Africa, are not dissimilar to the Yąnomamö in certain respects. Their kinship system allows many Nuer to trace back ancestors some five or six generations (Evans-Pritchard 1940, 199). Furthermore, there is, both in ideology, and to some extent in reality, a connection between the level of relatedness of different Nuer lineage segments and their geographical distribution (Evans-Pritchard 1940, chap. 5, esp. 247). In general, genealogies are a key means by which non-literate peoples around the world link themselves to their origins and their landscapes, as well as linking individuals to each other (Vansina 1985, 182).

peninsula have been located in four different communities in the last 150 years, and at one stage were shared between two communities, being located for six months of the year in each (Forbes 1997, 111-112). It is therefore not to be wondered at that certain documents seem to have been lost in the multiple translations. One of these sets of documents, the mitroo arrenon (register of males) is a running register of male births, said to have been kept for purposes of conscription for military service. I had been aware of its existence, and the fact that its earliest entry dated from the closing years of the Tourkokratia, since the earlier 1970s. However, at that time the existence of a military dictatorship and the ensuing administrative chaos in the wake of its collapse meant that these 150 year old documents were classified as military secrets! Fieldwork seasons during the 1980s were dominated by archaeological considerations. In addition, a government in Greece at that time with strongly nationalist leanings and a distinct suspicion of the foreign policies of the English-speaking world again made it an inauspicious moment to request access to these ‘military’ documents. A wait of some 25 years was necessary in order to study them.

Given the emphasis placed on oral history among nonliterate peoples by a number of social anthropologists, and the prevalence of migrations in these histories, the lack of an oral tradition of a mass movement of population to Methana raises serious questions about the correctness of the interpretation of the landscape history of Methana in the early 19th century. It is a recurring feature of oral histories that key events tend to continue to be remembered, even if uncoupled from linear time. This is especially true of largescale public events such as wars and migrations (e.g. Vansina 1965, 116; 1985, 24). Other peoples around the world have oral historical traditions dating back 5-6 generations, i.e. ca. 150 years, so why should such a momentous event be unremembered on Methana? A possible explanation for the lack of a general oral historical record of arrival on Methana, therefore, is that it indicates that most if not all of the villages on the peninsula have existed from well before the War of Independence and that their foundation has been forgotten by the lapse of several centuries. This hypothesis would certainly coincide with the views of a number of Methanites, who place the foundations of their villages several centuries in the past (e.g. Forbes 2007a, 224-5). However, Methanites’ attempts to assign great time-depth of occupation deduced from what are evidently old houses generally rely on assigning impossibly long individual time-spans to each generation of inhabitants: 50 or even 100 years rather than the 20-30 years normally assigned by academics (Forbes 2007a, 213215, 289-292).

The register of male births continued to be compiled into the 20th century (although this occurred alongside a register of female births). Given the limited amount of time at my disposal, and in light of the personal sensitivity of the more recent entries, I restricted my studies to a discrete set of documents dating to before 1879. Even then, since I was not allowed to photocopy either set of documents, I had to copy them all out by hand. This time-consuming and laborious process had the advantage, however, of forcing me to decipher the entries on the spot. When I was unable to do so, I generally sought help from Dhimarkhio staff, who could normally make sense of entries such as surnames. For example, they could reconstruct surnames known on Methana from the more legible parts of an otherwise indecipherable name. The section of the mitroo arrenon which I studied consisted of a reprinting of the entries in what seem to have been more than one register. This was presumably done in association with the first genuinely reliable census of Greece, undertaken in 1879 (see below). The document which I studied therefore represented a copy, not the original set of documents. It also evidently contained gaps in the early years. The first entry was dated 1809 – i.e. 12 years before the declaration of Greek independence in 1821. The next is dated 1829, and thereafter they occur sporadically until regular recording starts in 1844. Each entry consists of the year, the baby’s surname, his first name, his father’s name, and the village of residence. There are some exceptions to this last category, which will be discussed below. The other set of documents studied was the original returns for the 1879 census – as noted above, the first truly reliable census undertaken in Greece. I had been unaware of the existence of these 120-year old documents until one of the Dhimarkhio secretaries moved some of the census folders out of the way in the archive while looking for more copies of the mitroo arrenon. Once

LOCAL DOCUMENTARY SOURCES ON METHANA:

It was partly in an attempt to address these nagging doubts that I conducted a month’s field study on Methana in 1998. During the course of this work I studied two sets of documents in the archive of the Dhimarkhio (municipal offices) in the present-day main town of Loutra (Methana). The documents themselves had suffered from the exigencies of history, although luckily they had not been destroyed by partisan forces during or immediately after WW II.5 In particular, the main administrative offices of the 220

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be investigated via these 19th century documents (see also Forbes 2007b, 123-128). In particular, it indicates the potential for investigating the way in which kinship was the controlling factor in the location and ownership of structures (i.e. houses) within villages (see Saitas this volume). Thus it allows for the meeting of broadly social anthropological concerns with archaeological concerns when investigating the principles which gave organisation and meaning to material culture – in this case, house construction and settlement layout – in the past.

I had identified what they were I had some difficulty in assuring him that these were of any historical interest! I was able to study complete copies of the census records for seven communities. The records of another community were not studied because they were incomplete, and the returns for two more could not be located with the time available to myself and the Dhimarkhio staff. Each community was documented by three people, one of whom was invariably the priest. Each household was given a number, then each individual within the household was listed by surname, first name, father’s first name, or in the case of married women, husband’s first name. Other details included whether male or female (an important entry where unbaptised, and therefore unnamed,6 children were listed) their age, and status in the household – e.g. son of x, daughter of y, wife of z, widowed, divorced etc. In addition, there were columns in the census sheet for occupation, whether they were literate, and the language spoken by the person. In many of the documents, male heads of households tended to be listed as literate, to the extent that there must be some doubt about the definition of ‘literate’. In almost all cases the language spoken was recorded as Albanian. There was also a column for other observations, such as reasons for temporary absence from home.

In addition, analysis of the census documents has enabled me to check the validity of various elements in oral historical reports. For example, Methanites repeatedly mentioned a time in the relatively distant past, which probably related to the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries, when it was quite common for elderly couples to live and work together with their married sons and their families in a large joint household. The situation was summarised by the formulaic phrase ‘pende nyfadhes’ (five brides): i.e. there were five sisters-in-law all in the one household. Both Clark (1988, 221) and I (Forbes 2007a, 122) received the impression that these large extended families all lived under one roof. Clark’s research failed to document clear examples of households with even three married sons and their offspring, although she discovered a few examples of shortterm situations with two married brothers in the same dwelling (Clark 1988, 221). A detailed search of the census records similarly failed to identify such mega-households. The lack of such evidence does not seem to be because of sloppy census-taking since there are indications that considerable care was taken by the census teams (Forbes 2007a, 122-123).

The existence of the census returns, dating to almost exactly 50 years after the French Expedition’s census, allows a form of ‘population progress report’ on the peninsula. One of the features of the French census was that it was based on ‘familles’ – approximately the same as households – rather than on individuals. Although figures for the numbers of individuals in each community are given by the earlier census, they were generated simply by applying a hearthmultiplier of 4.75 to the numbers of families (Khouliarakis 1973, 32-45). The official figures published for the 1879 census only gave the total number of individuals. Consultation of the original census documents allows a direct match to be made in the numbers of households between the two dates. This has been of considerable consequence, as will be discussed below.

As I note elsewhere, Western scholars tend to privilege written sources over oral sources (Forbes 2000, 204-206). It would thus be easy to dismiss the apparent disjuncture between these two types of sources by assuming that the oral records were simply fictional memories of the bad old days. However, further research indicates that it is possible to reconcile these apparent contradictions via Methanites’ ideas of what a household represents. While a standard Western definition of a household would include coresidence, for Methanites the primary feature was economic co-operation. It therefore seems that these mega-households represented several married sons living in houses built separate from, but close to, the parental home, all cooperating in a single economic unit directed by the parents (Forbes 2007a, 123-124). Even when households in kinship neighbourhoods did not form a single economic unit, there was still a great deal of co-operation, exchange, borrowing and lending between related households (Forbes 2007a, 287-314). Thus, kinship neighbourhoods did not simply provide a way of incorporating anthropological concepts into village layouts, but actually represented a historical legacy of closely cooperating households. The details relating to this observation could only be teased out by combining ethnographic data with the documentary sources.

One of the interesting features of the internal evidence of the census is that it seems to have been undertaken on a house-by-house basis, with the census takers progressing along the streets of the village (Forbes 2007a, 292-294). Thus it is likely that where households appear close to each other in the census list for a community, they were usually close to each other spatially. The significance of this fact lies in the way in which several households with the same surname often tend to cluster together in the census lists in each village. On occasions, evidence of a shared father’s name for the senior males in the different houses confirms that these adjacent households were all closely related (Forbes 2007a, 294-303). The extent to which villages consisted of a series of contiguous kinship clusters has been discussed by Clark (1988, 221-223), and in more detail in Forbes 2007a, 121125; 287-314. Two points are particularly relevant here. One is the way in which ethnographic concerns with kinship as an organising principle of Greek rural society can 221

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which was previously recorded as living at or on ‘Methana’ invariably appear associated with a specific village. The last reference to ‘Methana’ as a place of birth occurred in 1856, when male births to households with two different surnames are recorded. The most economical interpretation of this phenomenon is that these entries represent households which had recently arrived on Methana and had not yet permanently settled in any village – an interpretation corroborated via a tradition reported by Athanasiou (1998, 85; see also Forbes 2007a, 69-70).

WHAT THE DOCUMENTS INDICATE:

The founding of Methana’s villages The register of male births (mitroo arrenon) allows for a strong diachronic element to research questions, which is not readily available via the census documents alone. Its importance, along with the census, as a research tool is discussed at length in Forbes 2007a, but one particularly valuable aspect is its function as a diachronic account of the births of the male half of the population and the fact that it provides an important cross-check on several aspects of the 1879 census. Of special relevance in the context of the present discussion is the ability to investigate changes in numbers of births per household over time from the 1840s to 1879, in addition to changes in the number of households themselves. It also allows investigation of the earliest mentions of the different communities on Methana. By contrast, the census allows us a detailed synchronic snapshot view of the Methana population as it was some 50 years after the end of the serious disruptions caused by the Greek War of Independence and the founding of several villages on the peninsula.

The one present-day village so far excluded from discussion is Kypseli. Its existence was not recorded by the French Scientific Expedition, but it is identified on Leake’s map of 1846. The first reference to it in the mitroo arrenon occurs in 1849, almost 30 years after the French census. This entry also sees the first appearance of a particular surname, one of the four still characteristically associated with this village at the present day. However, the second appearance of this surname, a birth to a father with a different personal name a year later (1850), states the place of birth as a small seasonal settlement not far from the coast. This is the only time in several hundred entries that this location is recorded for a birth. What is probably this same father registered another son ten years later, but this time he is registered as living in Kypseli. While it is impossible to be absolutely certain that the two entries relate to the same father, the chances that this is the case are very high. It suggests that the location of the family at the seasonal settlement was only a temporary residence. In 1854, only five years after the first appearance of this surname, yet another man with the same surname, also resident in Kypseli, registered the birth of a son.

The first entry in the mitroo arrenon, dated to 1809, refers simply to ‘Methana’ in the village column. The next two entries, both for 1829, record births in the village of Vromolimni. It is not until 1844, however, that male births were systematically recorded for the various villages on Methana. In the 1809-1844 period one third of all entries refer to ‘Methana’. Starting in 1845, there are entries for ‘Meghalo Khori’, while the very occasional occurrence of ‘Methana’ after 1845 seems to refer to households with no permanent residence at that time (Forbes 2007a, 70; and see below). The one village never mentioned in the register at any point through to 1878 is Meghalo Potami. Its small size (18 households in 1879), especially in comparison to its near neighbour, Meghalo Khori (87 households in 1879), presumably meant that it counted as part of the larger village for official purposes. A cross-check between individuals listed in the 1879 census for Meghalo Potami with the mitroo arrenon births indicates that they are indeed listed as resident in Meghalo Khori and thus confirms the hypothesis.

A second surname characteristically associated with the village of Kypseli first appears in 1852, three years after the first appearance of the village in the records. Again the residence is stated as ‘Methana’, suggesting that the family did not have a permanent residence at that time. In the following year another man with the same surname registered the birth of a son, but this time the place of the birth is given as Kypseli. One year on again (1854) and three further children with the same surname but different fathers were born in Kypseli. It is almost certainly significant that two of the babies with this surname born in this year also shared the same first name. The most probable explanation is that they both took their name from the same grandfather, in accordance with Greek custom: hence their fathers were brothers and the babies were first cousins.

Within five years of the start of systematic recording of male births, eight of the nine villages other than Meghalo Potami, which are known from more recent times, are named. With the exception of Dhritseika and the minuscule village of Makrylongos (16 families in the French census) they are all mentioned several times in these five years. They include two villages (Kaimeni Khora and Dhritseika) missing from the list of the French Expedition. Furthermore Dhritseika, missing from Leake’s 1846 map, is first mentioned in 1840, before systematic male birth records seem to have been kept.

The third of the four surnames which are associated with Kypseli first appears with the registration of a birth in Kypseli in 1852, again only three years after the first appearance of the village name in the register. However, the second appearance of the name, in 1857, declares a residence in Meghalo Khori. Although the father’s personal name is the same in both cases (Ioannis), the younger boy’s father is distinguished in the register with the initial of his own father’s (i.e. the baby’s grandfather’s) personal name, as Ioannis D (almost certainly Dhimitrios). Two years after this, in 1859, a boy with a very similar surname is

Despite the fact that the main settlement of this period was renamed Meghalo Khori, the name Methana continues to appear in the mitroo arrenon. Significantly, it tends to appear only at the point in time when a particular surname first occurs in the register. Subsequent records of a surname 222

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have this surname, both of them in the neighbouring village of Kaimeni Khora.

registered, resident in the village of Vromolimni. The boy is named Ioannis, while his father is named Dhimitrios. The regular recurrence of the names Ioannis and Dhimitrios can also be seen in the sons’ and fathers’ names in the 15 male births to six different fathers with this surname registered to Kypseli households between 1852 and 1878. Bearing in mind the way the Greek kinship system ‘recycles’ personal names from the grandparental generation to the grandchild generation, it is hard to escape the conclusion that a closely related group of fathers appears here.

To understand this phenomenon of surnames restricted to single villages, and also occasional ‘outliers’, we must return again to the Greek system of kinship and marriage. The overwhelming preference on Methana, as traditionally in much of Greece, has been for patrilocal residence. This means that on marriage a bride not only took her husband’s surname, but also became a new member of the household of her husband and his parents. The emphasis on patrilocal residence therefore meant that in almost all cases the men did not move from their natal village. Thus surname groups have tended to stay in their original village. The exception to this rule is the soghambros – the out-marrying man, who moved into his wife’s household. This situation occurred only rarely, but generally explains the existence of isolated households with a surname characteristic of one village which can be found in another.

In contrast, the fourth characteristic surname group in Kypseli derives from only one father, who registered the births of four sons between 1851 and 1867. Even in the 1970s this was the smallest of the four characteristic surname groups in the village.7 The conclusion to be drawn from these data found in the registers is that Kypseli had existed as a form of seasonal settlement for some time, but permanent occupation occurred only in the second decade following Greece’s independence. The conclusion is strengthened by the date 1848 carved in two places in what used to be the main church of the village in the 19th century. The occupants seem to have been displaced persons still arriving on the peninsula, though from where they originated is unknown. A noticeable feature of the data presented here is the way that these displaced persons seem not to have arrived as isolated families, but mostly as groups of families sharing the same surname, and therefore almost certainly closely related. I will discuss the apparent occurrence of the same phenomenon in another Methana village below.

If internal population growth had led to the foundation of ‘daughter’ villages, there would have been a fairly even spread of the same surnames Methana-wide. The existence of surnames specific to individual villages suggests that they were not originally settled by internal migration. Instead, the founders of the different villages seem to have come from elsewhere. As a result of the strong preference for patrilocal marriage, the ‘founder effect’ was still visible in the surnames of individual villages at the end of the 20th century. This observation suggests that the foundation of individual villages may have been relatively sudden, not a matter of a very slow build-up as households trickled in from one or more other settlements elsewhere on the peninsula.

The evidence also indicates that the village of Kypseli was settled after the founding of the other Methana villages. Can the documents support the idea that other villages were settled by displaced families during the War of Independence? The short answer is: up to a point, but not beyond all doubt.

The relatively abrupt nature of the foundation of the villages is also hinted at by other aspects of the surname evidence. It has already been noted that the evidence for the earliest settlers in Kypseli indicates that three of the surname groups consisted of several males. The existence of shared personal names emphasises the possibility that three groups of closely related males and their households were involved in the foundation of the community, plus apparently another isolated male with a different surname. The existence of ‘companies’ of households, normally recruited along close agnatic lines, has been documented by Campbell in his classic study (1964) of Sarakatsan pastoralists in Epirus. However, as Koster (1977, 77) points out, it is widely used by other herding groups in other parts of Greece. Even more significantly, Koster (1976) documents the formation of a temporary agnaticallyorganised ‘company’ (parea) when the exigencies of the moment demanded it. In fact such multi-family units are not confined to Greek pastoralists: they are a feature also documented historically among the Slavic speaking and Albanian speaking groups, both pastoralist and agriculturalist, in Southeastern Europe (Hammel 1972; Forbes 1982, 464-467). In reality they represent no more than ‘a product of patrilocal extension and virifocality’ (Hammel 1972, 339).

It was noted above that certain surnames are characteristic of the village of Kypseli. Even at the end of the 20th century virtually every permanent inhabitant of the village had one of the four surnames. In addition a small number of households had a particular surname found in a considerable number of villages on Methana. Births of babies in Kypseli belonging to all five surname groups can be found in the mitroo arrenon in the early 1850s. The same feature of the existence of characteristic surnames occurs in a number of other villages. Even in the later 20th century, some of these surnames are almost completely restricted to a specific village. In the 19th century documents, restriction of a particular surname to a specific village occurs even more regularly. Every village for which census records exist has at least one surname which is unique to it. Even more commonly, a name will be found characteristically in one village, with one or two ‘outlier’ households with the same name in another village. This occurs, for example in the village of Palea Loutra, where nearly 30% of all households have the same particular surname. Only two households in the rest of the peninsula

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An initial influx of a group of agnatically-related families certainly seems to explain the situation as found in the 1879 census documents relating to the village of Kaimeni Khora. Eight of the seventeen households (approximately 50% of the community) share the same surname, which is unique to the village. The mitroo arrenon and census documents are not completely consistent on certain details, but these eight households documented in 1879 most probably derive from a group of five or six men bearing that surname. The dates of birth of their offspring listed in the sources range from 1821 to 1843, which would be consistent with a group of relatively young men, presumably brothers and/or cousins and their families, fleeing the consequences of hostilities associated with the War of Independence (1821-1830). If this surmise is correct, everyone with this surname was probably related at the level of second cousin or closer. In terms of Greek kinship calculation, this degree of relatedness would place them all within a single lineage, or soi.

the contention that villages were founded on the peninsula only during or after the War of Independence. Even more important, they shed some light on the likely social organisational factors involved in the arrival of displaced families, by suggesting that they came in groups of related households, rather than as isolated individuals. Population increase in the 19th century Another significant issue that the population documents from Methana can address is the way in which the population of the peninsula grew during the course of the 19th century. For some archaeological survey projects, present-day and recent villages pose significant challenges. It is usually impossible to identify via archaeological methods the extent to which villages changed in the 19th century. At the same time, ethnographic interview techniques are generally of little help either, since informants do not generally keep in their heads quantified or quantifiable data of the kind which would address the question (e.g. Forbes 1989, 92). This is especially the case when dealing with oral historical information handed down from earlier generations. The existence of 19th century population records such as those from Methana can therefore help to bridge this gap.

In addition, there are two further households with a surname unique to the village in the 1879 census. One was headed by 92 year old Ioannis, living with his 97 year old wife, their married son and his family. The other was headed by another of Ioannis’ sons. Ioannis would have been 34 in 1821. Again, he would have been a relatively young man during the War of Independence. His elder son would have been born in 1829. It is tempting to argue that Ioannis was one of the ‘company’ of young men just discussed: his inclusion in the group might conceivably have been via an affinal link. All other surnames in the village can be found elsewhere on the peninsula. It is possible that some internal migration was involved in the establishment of the village as well. However, it is also possible that this represents a certain level of dispersal of ‘companies’ of agnatically related families after their arrival on Methana, as was implied for Kypseli.

Censuses conducted in the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th century, show that Methana, like many parts of rural Greece, experienced a substantial increase in population (e.g. Jameson et al. 1994, 141-2; Sutton 1991, 391-2; Sutton 2000b, 98-99). In less than 70 years the peninsula’s population had more than doubled (Forbes 1997, 108). The natural expectation would be that this was the result of an increase in the numbers of households being established during this period. Methanites certainly believed that 19th century village populations grew in large part because of the practice of building extra houses to accommodate more than one son who stayed to continue farming on Methana. For villages where there are records for both 1830 and 1879 this expectation can be investigated and the veracity of the oral reports tested. The results are tabulated in Table 2 below:

Despite the uncertainties, the circumstantial evidence available from the two sets of documents tends to give qualified support to the oral historical evidence that some, though not necessarily all, of the inhabitants of Kaimeni Khora originated from a group of families which came to the peninsula from elsewhere. Documentary sources provide further evidence that the oral history is at least partially correct. A Greek government report of 1828 notes that some 2000 refugees from the island of Psara were temporarily quartered on the nearby island of Aegina (Khouliarakis 1973, 32). It is thus quite conceivable that a handful of refugee families from that island were settled at this location on Methana. Furthermore, archival documents from Psara mention several individuals with the same surname (or a version of it) as the eight families previously mentioned. While not amounting to proof, therefore, documentary sources give independent weight to the oral historical tradition.

Village Meghalo Khori

1830 records 78

1879 records 87

Percentage increase 11.5%

Vromolimni

35

53

51.4%

Aghii Theodhori Palea Loutra

32

42

31.3

39

39

0%

METHANA AVERAGE

Although the 19th century population documents do not shed clear and unambiguous light on the question of the settlement of Methana in the early 19th century, they do at least tend to point in the same direction as the conclusion reached previously. In particular, two cases clearly support

20.1 %

Table 2 - Increases in numbers of households 1830-1879

It is evident that the significant, but still relatively modest overall rise in household numbers is far lower than the over 224

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100% rise in population as a whole. It reflects the observation made elsewhere (Forbes 1997, 110) that, especially in the latter half of the period 1830-1879, inmigration of households from beyond Methana seems to have had a minimal effect on population growth. The most likely explanation, therefore, is that the sizes of households increased far faster than the overall numbers of households. Elderly Methanites regularly commented in the 1970s that in the old days at the end of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century there was no attempt to limit family sizes, and large families were the norm. Reminiscences speak of large numbers of family members all sleeping in one room on goat-hair mats with their feet towards the fire, ‘like piglets round a sow’. The 1879 census documents support these reports. Several examples of households with eight or nine – or more – members, all living in a one- or two-room house, can be found in every village where records survive. The most extreme example was a household containing fourteen in all: a couple in their 50s with four unmarried sons and five unmarried daughters, along with their oldest son and his wife in their mid 20s, and their son of two years old.

In the context of the present discussion, the figure used by the Expédition Scientifique de Morée is particularly significant, since it was applied as a result of the experience of the staff in working with census figures in the Peloponnese at the time. Although designed as a Peloponnese-wide figure, the discrepancy between this figure thought suitable for the earlier 19th century and that from the census documents discussed here suggests that household sizes on Methana had grown over the course of the 19th century. The reasons for the disjuncture between the rapid increase in population and the more moderate increase in numbers of households on Methana are doubtless manifold. One likely factor is a significant level of permanent out-migration of young adult men and women. This, combined with large numbers of births per woman would help to explain the apparent disparity between high levels of population increase and much lower levels of increase in numbers of households. Nevertheless, the crude figures suggest strongly that numbers of births or numbers of children surviving to adulthood increased in the period under discussion. Either factor, or both combined, could explain the figures.

Analysis of the census results indicates that average household sizes were remarkably high in comparison with those sometimes used by historians working on historical documents from the Balkans. For example Topping (1972, 70; 2000, 39) uses a hearth-multiplier of 4 to derive approximate population figures from census evidence based on the number of families. On the basis of the Venetian census of the Peloponnese in 1700 I used a hearthmultiplier of 4.3 (Forbes 2000, 45). A figure of 4.75 was used by the French Expédition Scientifique de Morée towards the end of the Greek War of Independence (Khouliarakis1973, 32-45) while Barkan (1957) preferred to use a figure of 5. The average number of inhabitants per household on Methana derived from the 1879 census is significantly higher than any of these, at 5.42. This is also noticeably higher than the average of 5.16 inhabitants per household for the single settlement on Methana documented in the Venetian census of 1700 (Forbes 1997, 106).

Numbers of births in a household depend heavily on a woman’s age at the birth of her first child. However, although elderly Methanites reminisced about lack of concern with limiting family sizes, they did not discuss preferences for relatively early or late age at marriage. In order to investigate whether early marriage was a probable factor in the rise in population, I analysed the 1879 census data to calculate the ages at which women had their first child. The results are crude, because the census data only record surviving children: almost certainly for several mothers the age at first birth was actually younger than that calculated because of unreported infant deaths. I also only considered women of 40 years of age and under because of the probability that adult children of older parents might not have been recorded, either through moving to another household on marriage or leaving the peninsula altogether. In a few households the oldest surviving child was only 14 or 15 years younger than the woman listed as the wife of the child’s father. Where there was an age disparity of more than about 12 years between husband and wife I ignored such cases, since there was a significant possibility that the wife was in fact step mother to the oldest child, the birth mother presumably having died. Nevertheless, there were significant numbers of households in which the age of the mother at the birth of the oldest child was only 15 or 16, and a small number of childless couples in which the wife was only 17-19 at the time of the census. These indicate that some women might indeed have had their first child at age 14. It is also possible that women listed as mothers in other households had married the household head after the death of the first wife, and were therefore not necessarily biological mothers to the oldest children.

For the different villages on Methana the 1879 census figures vary as follows: Village

Average per household

Number of households

Meghalo Khori

4.87

87

Meghalo Potami

4.94

18

Aghii Theodhori

4.95

42

Palea Loutra

5.39

39

Vromolimni Kaimeni Khora

6.02 6.94

53 17

Dhritseika

7.09

11

Despite the crudeness of the calculations, it is evident that a tendency to an early age of women at marriage was a significant contributor to rapid population growth. Using the approach noted above, I calculated a peninsula-wide

Table 3 - Average household sizes in Methana, 1879

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mean age of women at the birth of their first surviving child of 21.6 years. In Meghalo Khori, the largest village and that closest to the mean, 45% of women in the sample (20 in all) had their first surviving child by the age of 20. If we add to this number the five households with a childless couple in which the wife was 19 years or younger, it is reasonably safe to assume that some 50% of the sample were 19 years old or younger when they married. The average ages of women at the birth of their first surviving child for the different villages are as follows (Table 4): Village

Ages of women

Sample size8

Kaimeni Khora

18.0

7

Meghalo Potami

20.0

10

Aghii Theodhori Meghalo Khori

20.8 21.3

28 44

Vromolimni

22.7

23

Palea Loutra

23.1

20

Dhritseika

24.0

7

Early age at marriage – hence potentially early age of first child – thus seems to have been a significant contributor to rapid population increase. The other element in the equation – reduced infant mortality – is much more difficult to quantify from census materials, which are only concerned with living individuals. Nevertheless, there are hints in the census data that infant deaths were not especially common. Of particular interest in this context is the way in which the children listed in a substantial proportion of households were born in a regular sequence, two (sometimes three) years apart, although the sequence is generally less regular with later births. The extreme example of the household from Dhritseika with 14 members is also an extreme example of this sort of birth sequencing. The oldest son, aged 26 was followed, after a seven year gap,9 by nine children at two-year intervals (Table 5). Much the same sequence of births, if less extensive, can be seen in the next household to that above in the census (Table 6) below. The first household listed in the census for Meghalo Khori also indicates much the same sequence (Table 7).

Table 4 - Average ages of women at the birth of their first surviving child, by village

Surname Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou Lazarou

Baptismal name Ioannis Ekaterini Anastasios Katerinio Ioannis Eleni Marigho Panaghiotoula Eleni Athanasios Angeliko Khristos Nikolaos Konstandinos

Father’s (or husband’s) name Khristos (?) Ioannis Ioannis Anastasios Anastasios Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis

Age 58 50 26 24 2 19 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3

Status in household Household head Wife of Ioannis Son; married Son’s wife Son’s son Daughter Daughter Daughter Daughter Son Daughter Son Son Son

Table 5 - An example of two year birth spacings

Surname Skourtis Skourtis Skourtis Skourtis Skourtis Skourtis

Baptismal name Ioannis Marina Dhimitrios Athanasios Katerinio Stamata

Father’s (or husband’s) name Dhimitrios Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Ioannis Dhimitrios

Skourtis Skourtis

Dhiamanda Marigho

Dhimitrios Dhimitrios

Age 36 25 5 3 1 50 18 16

Status in household Household head Wife of Ioannis Son Son Daughter Widow of Dhimitrios Skourtis Stamata’s Daughter Stamata’s Daughter

Table 6 - Two-year birth spacings in two generations in the same household

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Surname

Baptismal name

Father’s (or husband’s) name

Age

Status in household

Politis Politis Politis Politis Politis Politis Politis Politis Politis Merkouris

Andonios Stamato Maria Petroulia Paraskevi Stylianos Marina Ekaterini Anastasios Maria

Not stated Andonios Andonios Andonios Andonios Andonios Andonios Andonios Andonios Not stated

42 36 18 16 14 12 10 5 2 100

Household head Wife of Andonios Daughter Daughter Daughter Son Daughter Daughter Son Widow

Table 7- An example of the two-year birth sequence breaking down with later births

exception of Meghalo Khori, Methana’s villages were of relatively recent foundation.

While these sorts of two- or sometimes three-year birth sequences are far from universal in the data, they appear with considerable regularity. They tie in with accounts given in the 1970s by elderly women who occasionally described the difficulties of weaning young children due to the lack of suitable foods. Because of these difficulties, breast feeding was relatively extended. The two year birth spacings suggest that exclusive or almost exclusive breast feeding continued until the child was well over six months old, and possibly closer to one year, causing lactational amenorrhoea and consequent infertility. Once the child was weaned onto solid food and breast feeding was reduced or ended, women would become fertile again – hence widespread occurrences of two-year birth sequences.

These observations drawn from the census materials serve to emphasise by comparison the coarseness of much of our extrapolations from even the most detailed of archaeological survey data. They also highlight the challenges to the use of ethnographic data for interpreting archaeological evidence of settlement (e.g. Clarke 2000, 107-8, 121-124). In particular, they indicate that factors such as household sizes are dependent on historical, social and economic variables which may not be directly visible in the archaeological record. Archaeologists who conduct surface surveys may well be tempted to assume some kind of rough equation between the area covered by a settlement and the size of the population. Most archaeologists tacitly assume that a rise in the number of households (and therefore houses) in a settlement will be proportionate to the rise in overall population. The Methana data raise questions about the assumed link. They also raise important questions about the extent to which, in the Pre-Modern era, birth rates and child survival rates during politically and economically stable periods may rise and, equally important, the extent to which they may be low during periods of instability.

Early age at marriage, large numbers of children, and the evidence that large numbers of children survived to adulthood all indicate a population which is not under stress, regularly ravaged by diseases, or struggling to support itself on inadequate resources. These positive observations are very much at odds with oral histories of the peninsula in the past, which emphasise the lack of a land base sufficient to support an exceptionally dense population, inadequate food supplies, and the intense hard work necessary to feed large families. Doubtless making a living on Methana at this time involved intense hard work, but all the evidence suggests that the diet was generally healthy and food was adequate if not plentiful. The period of peace and relative prosperity in the decades following the end of hostilities was presumably also a major contributor to the health and relative well-being of the population at this time.

RECALL ETHNOGRAPHY IN GREEK ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY: LIMITATIONS AND AN EXCEPTION

A number of archaeological survey projects have incorporated ethnographic studies into their research programmes. The intention has generally been to extend the overall diachronic spread of the archaeological studies of regional settlement patterns and the exploitation of the landscape forward into the 19th and 20th centuries. One way in which this is accomplished is by identifying via ethnographic research the patterns of land use and other behaviours among modern populations in the survey areas. It is generally hoped that these data will provide relevant models for the interpretation of the archaeological past. Additionally, ethnographic studies often identify evidence about past events and patterns of behaviour (what might be

Early age at marriage and large numbers of offspring are also generally associated with populations expanding to take advantage of new opportunities. Such a feature is exactly what would be expected from communities recently established in a new environment. Significantly, Meghalo Khori, the original village, had the lowest average family size of all the communities for which census documents survive. Again, although by no means conclusive, the phenomenon lends support to the idea that, with the

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broadly termed ‘history’) not immediately visible to archaeologists in the survey area. A major rationale for employing ethnographic studies in Greek survey is thus the perception that they are more efficacious in dealing with historical developments within the last two centuries or so than archaeology. The data presented here raise some questions about the extent to which remembrance of things past is of direct use in archaeological survey.

There is therefore a clash of cultures in what is considered ‘history’. As Western academics, we tend to see history as ‘events’ or ‘trends’. Methanites preferred to see history as stories about individuals. Significantly, the Greek word for ‘history’ and ‘a story’, or ‘a tale’ are the same (see also Herzfeld 1987, 201).11 Thus the belief that local oral history might be expected to record generalised events like ‘population movements’ associated with the War of Independence is likely to be erroneous (Forbes 2007a, 210212, 219-222).

The anthropological literature emphasises the way in which non-literate peoples around the world can maintain a sense of their own history, handed down from generation to generation via oral tradition. This information, although difficult to interpret, often sheds light on major events which happened several centuries ago. It might thus be expected that the people of Methana, who have a strong group identity as Methanites, would have maintained a clear tradition of their origins. Yet this is not the case. Why should this be? Methanites’ time-depth of memory is essentially limited to three generations. The main reason for this lies in the Greek kinship system (Forbes 2007a, chaps. 5, 7, 8). As noted above, on a world-wide scale much oral historical material is rooted in genealogies. In Greece the tradition of grandchildren taking their personal names from grandparents means that personal names are effectively ‘recycled’ in alternate generations. When not constantly repeated, personal names can be a particularly good way of sequencing the order of key individuals in prior generations, as endless passages in the Hebrew Bible / Biblical Old Testament, which detail ‘ ...who begat c who begat d, who begat e, who begat f, who begat g who begat ...’ indicate. However, where the same few names constantly re-appear, past generations become essentially blended together, or homogenised. Significantly, in Methana, most people had no idea of their ancestors prior to their grandparents. This became clear when Methanites computed who was their second cousin. Anthropologists generally define blood relations as people who share a common ancestor: in the case of second cousins, they share a common great grandparent. Methanites, however, defined second cousins as the children of parents who are or were first cousins: they could not identify a common ancestor. This fact restricts most historical memory to a maximum of three generations: considerably less than the period covered since the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1821 (Forbes 2007a, 127136, 212-219).

If any oral histories about the situation on Methana in the early 19th century were to be discovered, they were much more likely to be personal remembrances handed down to speakers by their parents or grandparents. The fact remains, however, that few Methanites showed any interest in the question of where they came from. They were more interested in telling generalised accounts of the harsh living conditions imposed on Greeks by the Turks. In particular, many emphasised the ubiquitous nature of pirates and marauding bands of Turks or Turko-Albanians, the latter considered quite different ethnically from themselves, despite the shared linguistic origins (Forbes 2007a, 222224). Nevertheless, in order to test the hypothesis about personal remembrances, I decided first to attempt to identify in the 19th century records, the ancestors of the oldest Methanites interviewed during my initial period of ethnographic fieldwork (1972-4). If that proved possible, the next stage would be to check my over 1000 pages of single-spaced typed field notes for any comments about the origins of Methanites that they might have made. I was able to identify the grandfather of one of my elderly informants, initially listed as a father in the mitroo arrenon in the year 1851. The identification was accomplished by following the principle of the recycling of names through the generations. My informant, the elder of two brothers, had the same name as the man I identified in the register as his grandfather. The oldest sons of both my informant and his brother had the same name as one of the man’s sons listed in the register, confirming my original identification. Ethnographic knowledge was thus linked to documentary sources to connect the present directly with the past. My elderly informant had a habit of telling long convoluted stories: on occasions they involved the combined forces of personnel drawn apparently at random from both the Old Testament of the Bible and ancient Greek mythology! At other times, he retold well-worn stories of the more recent Greek past, such as the fate of the women of Sulli.12 I had therefore written him off as a verbal rambler, an unreliable informant. However, on checking my field notes I came across these entries, from two separate dates:

Related to these observations is the fact that Methanites generally link what academics think of as ‘history’ (in its broadest sense) first and foremost to individual people, not depersonalised ‘events’. For Methanites, history is personalised (Forbes 2007a, 216-219). The personalisation of history is not restricted to Methanites: it is widespread among Greeks.10 Thus, for example, a locally-produced history of the region of Ermionidha in the Peloponnese (Tsimanis 1975), devotes a full third of its contents to a catalogue of local luminaries of the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of the historical narrative consists primarily of the experiences of individual people from the region. Furthermore, when people in the region wished to demonstrate highlights in the book they usually chose sections on people.

‘[Barba Andreas]13 said that before the 1821 war Methana was deserted: so were Aigina and other places. Only after that period was Methana settled. The people who had previously been on Methana had fled at the coming of the Turks.’‘[Barba Andreas] said that Methana was deserted at one stage and people came from Albania to settle it. Here they found the ancient churches with the flat tiles [actually 228

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So if this account is to be regarded as accurate, why does it not exist as an item of general knowledge on Methana? The first part of the explanation must be that this particular Methanitis simply liked stories about the past, and liked to retell them. This brief story about the past just happened to be one from many in his store. He had no doubt retained it either directly from accounts given him by his own grandfather, or transmitted to him from his father. In the more general context of Methanites’ personalised notions of ‘history’, it may be significant that this man did not connect this story specifically to his own grandfather, although that man was the probable source.

of Byzantine date – Koukoulis 1997b]. The Albanians didn’t have any tiles themselves so they built their house roofs of mud, on venia [juniper] poles.’ It is evident that, although the quotes seem to agree with my reconstructed settlement history in some aspects, a number of the elements within these accounts are not technically correct. For example it is known that both Methana and the island of Aigina were inhabited in the period immediately prior to 1821. Likewise, Albanian speakers had been in the eastern Peloponnese for many centuries (Koukoulis 1997a, 93). Nevertheless, these statements make historical sense if not understood too literally. The island of Aigina saw a large of influx of displaced people during the War of Independence (e.g. Khouliarakis 1973, 32), and the reports of Western Europeans suggest that Methana, although very underpopulated, had a settlement prior to 1821 (Forbes 1997, 107).

Why, then, do the vast majority of Methanites not have any clear idea of, or interest in, where their own family lines originated? Absolute answers cannot be found. It is important to note, however, that the lack of interest can be connected to the kinship system and the tradition of recycling names: in this way the past of one’s own family becomes lost before the grandparental generation. It may also lie partly in the broader cultural milieu (see Vansina 1965, 170). Methanites have traditionally had a strong cultural emphasis on the future, via the concept of prodhos (progress), and a preference for seeing the past as a time of evils, hardships and ignorance. The past is not looked on as a source of positive experiences.

It should be noted that individual ‘facts’ stated within these accounts have differing levels of relatedness to the specific situation being described. The most critical ‘facts’ are those most closely related to Methana itself, and thus the person or people from whom the speaker learned them. These consist of: a) the influx of outsiders to the peninsula – an event linked to a specific period; b) the fact that his ancestor settled on the opposite side of the peninsula from the original settlement – hence the least likely side to have been cleared and cultivated; c) the pre-existence of churches in the Methana landscape; d) the details of construction of houses. What can broadly be described as ‘off-Methana facts’ in the account include the erroneous description of the abandoned state of Aigina and the highly dubious location of the origin of the incoming settlers. It is the ‘facts’ of most immediacy to the originators of oral sources and the later transmitters which have the best chance of retaining a reasonable level of historical accuracy (see Vansina 1965, 114-120).

Finally, another explanation may lie in the very fact that the War of Independence is involved. The events of this period have been ‘taken over’ by official national ‘History’, controlled by the political centre of the Greek state. At one level, therefore, they do not ‘belong’ to Methanites. In addition, there has been a long tradition of attempts by the political centre to expunge non-Greek elements from official ‘History’. Since Methanites have traditionally been speakers of Albanian, rather than Greek, there has been at best no encouragement from the political centre to record any aspect of their place in the mainstream of Greek ‘History’.14 The tensions between ‘local’ histories-cumstories and ‘official’ history in the context of Greece is explored enlighteningly by Herzfeld (1987, 57-58, 201).

The most telling evidence in support of the historical authenticity of this account is that, with the help of local documentary sources we can be sure that the informant’s own grandfather was on Methana contemporary with, or only shortly after, the events reported. He would certainly have been alive during the period of the War of Independence. This observation, however, only highlights the fact that the accuracy of oral historical sources can often only be accepted with the corroboration of other sources (Vansina 1965, 170-182). In the case of the tradition related here, it has been possible to identify that the person from whom the story probably originated was alive at the time of the events described. Equally important, it is possible to cross check the accuracy of the subsidiary elements of the story, whose reliability gives increased credence to the whole account. In this case archaeological study (Koukoulis 1997b) has documented the fact that many of the churches in the landscape date to the medieval or early Ottoman periods. Similarly, the description of houses roofed with mud laid on juniper branches was verifiable by direct observation of the oldest houses in villages at the time of first ethnographic field study (see also Clarke 2000, 110112).

CONCLUSIONS: ORAL TRADITIONS AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY

In many ways the personalised view of history discussed above is mirrored by the personalised nature of my contribution to this volume. Nevertheless, I offer my experiences as an example of the problems inherent in connecting ethnographic data with the historical and archaeological past. For many archaeological survey projects in Greece the 18th and 19th centuries are akin to another Dark Age. Archaeologically, relatively little is known about the period – it is too ‘modern’. Yet, with some signal exceptions, local documentary sources have rarely been studied. The bulk of the population in most parts of rural Greece was illiterate, so a large body of written reminiscences, correspondence, etc. by local people is not available. Oral testimonies collected by ethnographers, on the other hand, ought theoretically to be available to fill this void. Anthropological studies indicate that memory and tradition can be successfully tapped in non-literate societies 229

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throughout the world to shed light on past events (Vansina 1965, 173).

NOTES * Acknowledgements: I wish to thank particularly the Leverhulme Foundation, whose Research Fellowship allowed me to revisit Methana in June-July 1998. I also wish to thank John Bintliff who invited me to contribute to this volume, Lin Foxhall who commented on a draft of this contribution, and all those Methanites who have taken me into their homes over the years, and spent time answering what at times must have seemed extremely stupid questions. Most particularly I wish to thank the Dhimarkhos of Methana for permission to study the archival material, and the staff of the Dhimarkhio for all their help in locating materials, deciphering illegible handwriting and providing much-needed coffee.

The challenge that the situation on Methana presents in terms of investigating the 19th century, is the rarity of oral testimonies as genuine historical documents, despite their widespread occurrence in other parts of the world. In fact, a large number of the examples presented by Vansina in his two seminal books (1965; 1985) are drawn from societies in sub-Saharan Africa. However, although a gross overgeneralisation, it is fair to say that most of the African societies studied by anthropologists have had significantly greater time-depths built into their oral histories via the greater generation-depths in their kinship systems. This is not the case in the context of Greece – or, indeed, of Europe generally.15 African societies have been very widely studied and have been crucial for the development of theory for the discipline of social/cultural anthropology. However, one of the reasons for anthropologists’ fascination with African societies was their very ‘otherness’ from those of Europe. In essence, my expectations of the dynamics of Greek culture were based on theoretical approaches which have been strongly influenced by anthropologists’ studies of these very different societies. We should not expect to be able to force Greek culture and social institutions into a subSaharan African – nor yet a native American nor Australian Aboriginal – mould.

1 Greek villages possess registers of inhabitants which include people born in the 19th century, but these were initiated shortly before World War I. They are therefore not technically 19th century documents, and the accuracy of some of the information referring back to the 19th century may on occasions be questionable. 2 Quite conceivably a local inhabitant misunderstood the question being asked by Chandler in the first place. The village of Methana (now Meghalo Khori) has a seasonal river bed in a deep chasm running close to it. This highly visible feature is a vivid red-brown colour. 3 I am using the present name for the village, which it received in the 20th century. 4 Those who study the ancient Mediterranean world are well aware of the debate over the historicity of the Homeric account of the siege of Troy, itself originating in oral literature. Here, however, I will keep the lid of that Pandora's box firmly closed and concentrate on the social anthropological literature. 5 This latter fact is in part, at least, a tribute to the effectiveness of Methana's refuge landscape status, even in the 20th century. My attempts to study archival documents in town halls and village offices in the eparkhia of Ermionis were repeatedly thwarted by the claim that they were destroyed by partisan forces. 6 In Greek Orthodox tradition, a child is not given a name until it is baptized. 7 Two children of the youngest of the boys, registered in 1867, were still alive in the early 1970s. 8 I.e. the number of households used in this calculation. 9 Given what has already been said about the early age of marriage for women, it is entirely possible that there were daughters born during this seven year period who had already married and left the household. 10 It was also standard in ancient Greece, where complex reforms tend to be associated with a named individual, e.g. Solon. It is also widespread among British people. My local weekly newspaper in England’s East Midlands area runs a regular feature of ‘historical’ photographs, almost exclusively of groups of people associated with schools, hospitals, clubs or businesses. At a national level, the continuing popular vision of ‘English history’ as the memorised sequence of the names of the kings and queens of England and their dates is another reminder of how our own society prefers its history to be ‘personalised’. 11 Similarly the equivalent word in ancient Greek does not mean ‘history’ in our sense, but ‘enquiry’. The first line of Herodotus' ‘Histories’ talks of a display or perhaps a public performance of his ‘enquiry’, emphasising the similarities between his work and a good story, well told. 12 The women of Sulli, rather than surrender to the Turks, danced in a circle on the edge of a precipice, each in turn throwing her baby over the edge. Then each in turn threw herself over the precipice. 13 By ethnographic convention, informants' real names have not been used. However, I have used the original names from the census when presenting examples. My rationale for so doing is partly because of the expectations of archaeologists and historians when I have presented these data. They understandably consider that as these are historical data they should not be falsified. After considerable thought, taking into account the fact that neither those mentioned nor their offspring are alive, I have accepted that argument. 14 Herzfeld (1987, 57-58) notes exactly the same phenomenon with reference to the Sarakatsani. 15 The internal tension between the ‘western-ness’ and the ‘unwestern-ness’ of Greek culture is eloquently explored by Herzfeld (1987) in an introductory chapter.

Equally fallacious is the assumption that life in most areas of Greece continued unchanged throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Yet recall ethnography among elderly villagers tends to produce a static picture of what life used to be like when they were young. There is little in these recall data which suggests that life changed radically over the course of, say the 19th century. It is only a small step from this perception to the assumption of minimal change during the gap between the earlier 20th century and the ‘deep past’ of Classical Antiquity which was prevalent in archaeological scholarship in previous decades. The temptation to contrast an unchanged past with a rapidly changing present can also occasionally be seen, though not in the simplistic way described here, in ethnographies of Greece (e.g. Du Boulay 1974, 233-258). Yet as Sutton (2000a; 2000b) has argued, and this contribution has shown, massive changes in settlement pattern and population, and the agrarian landscape that supported them, have occurred in rural Greece since 1800. Furthermore, the changes may have been surprisingly rapid. My intention in this contribution is to highlight the fact that local documentary sources, as opposed to exogenous travellers’ accounts, etc., may more often be available than has sometimes been thought. Their historical value when present makes them well worth searching for. Where they exist they can be invaluable in evaluating and reinterpreting the record of settlement and land use available to those who study these phenomena over the course of centuries. In addition, I have sought to connect the essentially 20th century data available to ethnographers with the ‘deeper’ past normally studied by archaeologists. The act of so doing has highlighted a series of challenges to assumptions, both in Greek archaeology and in anthropology. 230

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Evans-Pritchard, E.E., 1940, The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Forbes, H.A., 1982, Strategies and Soils: Technology, Production and Environment in the Peninsula of Methana, Greece, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International. Forbes, H.A., 1989, ‘The Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Ancient Greek Agriculture’ in B. Wells (ed.), Agriculture in Ancient Greece. Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 16-17 May, 1990, Stockholm: Paul Åströms Förlag, 87-101. Forbes, H.A., 1996, ‘The Uses of the Uncultivated Landscape in Modern Greece: a pointer to the value of the wilderness in antiquity?’ in G. Shipley and J. Salmon (eds), Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity: Environment and Culture, Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 6, London, 68-97. Forbes, H.A., 1997, ‘Turkish and Modern Methana’ in C.B Mee and H.A. Forbes (eds), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 101-117. Forbes, H.A. and Mee, C.B., 1997, ‘Introduction’ in C.B. Mee and H.A. Forbes (eds), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1-4. Forbes, H.A., 2007a, Identity and Meaning in a Greek Landscape: An Archaeological Ethnography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forbes, H.A., 2007b, ‘Early Modern Greece: liquid landscapes and fluid populations’ in S. Davies and J.L. Davis (eds), Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 111-136. Gell, W., 1827, Itinerary of the Morea, London: Longman. Gill, D., and Foxhall, L., 1997, ‘Early Iron Age and Archaic Methana’, in C.B Mee and H.A. Forbes (eds), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 57-61. Gill, D., Foxhall, L. and Bowden, H. 1997, ‘Classical and Hellenistic Methana’, in C.B Mee and H.A. Forbes (eds), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 62-76. Hammel, E., 1972, ‘The Zadruga as Process’ in P. Laslett and R. Wall (eds), Household and Family in Past Time, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 335-374. Herzfeld, M., 1987, Anthropology through the Lookingglass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aldenhoven, F., 1841, Itinéraire descriptif de l'Attique et du Péloponnèse, Athens: Imprimerie de l’Ami du Peuple. Armstrong, P., 1996, ‘The Byzantine and Ottoman Pottery’ in W. Cavanagh, J. Crouwel, R. Catling and G. Shipley, Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape. The Laconia Survey, Volume II, Annual of the British School at Athens Supplementary Volume 27, London: British School at Athens, 125-140. Athanasiou, S. 1998, Methana apo to 10.000 p.Kh. mekhri to 2.000 m.Kh. O ilios, i thalassa, to psomi to ladhi ke to krasi ine i zoi mas …, Piraeus: author. Baram, U., and Carroll, L. (eds), 2000, A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Bintliff, J.L. 2007, ‘Considerations for creating an Ottoman archaeology of Greece’ in S. Davies and J.L. Davis (eds), Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 221-236. Bory de Saint Vincent, 1834, Expédition scientifique de Morée, Paris: F.G. Levrault. Campbell, J.K., 1964, Honour, Family and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chagnon, N.A., 1997 (5th edition), Yąnomamö, Fort Worth, Philadelphia: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Chandler, R., 1817 (3rd edition), Travels in Asia Minor, and Greece: An Account of a Tour Made at the Expense of the Society of Dilettanti, 2 Vols, London: Joseph Booker. Clark, M., 1988, The Transformation of Households on Methana, Greece, 1931-1987, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International. Davies, S., 1994, ‘Tithe-collection in the Venetian Peloponnese 1696-1705’, Annual of the British School at Athens 89, 443-455. Davies, S., and Davis, J.L. (eds), 2007, Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Davis, J.L., 1991, ‘Contributions to a Mediterranean Rural Archaeology: historical case studies in the Ottoman Cyclades’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 4 (2), 131-216. Dodwell, E., 1819, A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece during the Years 1801, 1805 and 1806, 2 volumes, London: Rodwell and Martin. Du Boulay, J., 1974, Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Jameson, M.H., Runnels, C.N. and van Andel, T.H., 1994, A Greek Countryside: the Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Khouliarakis, M., 1973, Gheoghraphiki, dhiikitiki ke plithysmiaki exelixis tis Elladhos, 1821-1871, Vol.1, pt 1, Athens: Ethnikon Kendron Kinonikon Erevron. Kiel, M. 1997, ‘The Rise and Decline of Turkish Boeotia, 15th-19th Century (remarks on the settlement pattern, demography and agricultural production according to unpublished Ottoman-Turkish census and taxation records)’, in J.L. Bintliff (ed.), Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece. Proceedings of the 6th International Boeotian Conference, BAR-IS 666, British Archaeological Reports, Oxford, 315-358. Koster, H.A., 1976, ‘The Thousand Year Road’, Expedition 19 (1), 19-28. Koster, H.A., 1977, The Ecology of Pastoralism in Relation to Changing Patterns of Land Use in the Northeast Peloponnese, Ph.D. Dissertation in Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International. Koukoulis, T., 1997a, ‘Medieval Methana’ in C.B. Mee and H.A. Forbes (eds), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 92-100. Koukoulis, T., 1997b, ‘Catalogue of Churches’ in C.B. Mee and H.A. Forbes (eds), A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 211-256. Leake, W., 1967 [1846], Peloponnesiaca: A Supplement to Travels in the Morea, Reprinted Amsterdam: Adolph M. Hakkert. Mee, C.B., and Forbes, H.A. (eds), 1997, A Rough and Rocky Place: The Landscape and Settlement History of the Methana Peninsula, Greece, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Petronoti, M., 2000, ‘Social and Economic Formations in Kranidhi (1821-1981): a preliminary investigation’, in S.B Sutton (ed.), Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy and Land Use in the Southern Argolid since 1700, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 71-83. Pouqueville, F.C.H.L., 1826 (2nd edition), Voyage de la Grèce, 6 Vols, Paris: Firmin Didot.

St. Clair, W.L., 1972, That Greece might still be free. The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, London: Oxford University Press. Sutton, S.B., 1991, ‘Population, Economy, and Settlement in Post-Revolutionary Keos: a cultural anthropological study’, in J.F. Cherry, J.L. Davis and E. Mantzourani (eds), Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands, Monumenta Archaeologica series Vol. 16, Los Angeles, 383-402. Sutton, S.B. (ed.), 2000, Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy and Land Use in the Southern Argolid since 1700, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Sutton, S.B., 2000a, ‘Introduction: Past and Present in Rural Greece’ in S.B. Sutton (ed.), Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy and Land Use in the Southern Argolid since 1700, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1-24. Sutton, S.B., 2000b, ‘Liquid Landscapes: demographic transitions in the Ermionidha’ in S.B. Sutton (ed.) Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy and Land Use in the Southern Argolid since 1700, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 84-106. Trigger, B.G., 1989, A History of Archaeological Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tsimanis, P., 1975, Mnimes Ermionidhos. Ghi – thalassa – kosmos, Athens: Khartovivlioekdhotiki. Vansina, J., 1965, Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, originally published 1961 as De la tradition orale. Essai de méthode historique, translated by H.M. Wright, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Vansina, J., 1985, Oral Tradition as History, London: James Currey. Vroom, J., 2007, ‘Kütahya between the lines: PostMedieval ceramics as historical information’ in S. Davies and J.L. Davis (eds), Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, Hesperia Supplement 40, Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 71-96. Hamish Forbes Department of Archaeology University of Nottingham, UK Email: [email protected]

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7.1 The Concept of diachronia in the Greek Archaeological Museum: Reflections on Current Challenges Marlen Mouliou contemporary artists, uses museums, objects and collections as sources and platforms for reflection on categorical matters such as time, memory, material culture and the frame imposed by epistemological principles that cut across the elemental structure of human life. In 1999, he and a team of volunteers, during a two-phase project that included both an archaeological surface survey and a museological presentation, combed the foreshore of the Thames at low tide close to the two Tate Gallery locations to gather material that would reveal the ongoing diachronic cultural and industrial history of London. As a result, a fascinating spectrum of artefacts dating from all periods was collected (contemporary consumer objects being juxtaposed with old bones, potsherds, clay pipes etc.). These finds were serried into broad categories – ceramic, glass, bone, leather, shell, organic, plastic, metal and so on and then displayed in a traditional museum-like double-sided mahogany cabinet with drawers, in the style of an old ‘cabinet of curiosities’. The artist, however, preferred to organize the objects loosely according to type, but without labels and beyond strictly constructed taxonomies (Fig. 3), allowing daring juxtapositions of treasures sitting next to ephemera, of contemporary objects placed next to those of the past. He thus assimilated typical museum ‘tactics’ and ‘trappings’ (i.e. vitrines, archive boxes, etc.) into his working practice and literally performed all the usual archaeological duties, namely collecting, data management, classification and presentation. Dion deliberately refused to adopt a historical approach to categorization, for his aim was to encourage visitors to create their own imaginative and poetic associations allowing them to open the drawers, look at all the objects up close and form their own ideas about them (Putman 2001, 40-41). Essentially, by organizing this display, he wanted to explore the museum’s authority as a ‘sacrosanct container’ and powerful ‘manipulator’ of culture that performed particular institutional roles in line with certain predetermined principles (Putman 2001, 93). And that is because the archaeologist, and in the Tate Thames Dig the artist-curator, has the power to select the object of study and the process of research and by effect the contours of knowledge itself (Renfrew 2003). The artist abolishes the periodisation of objects as a meaningful conceptual tool and thus undermines one of the most standard epistemological traditions of the museum. Instead, he suggests that museum rules over the classification of collections might be systematic and scientific but remain artificially constructed and subjective by nature; he thus encourages viewers to think about the selection and organization of valuable or junk

A MATTER OF REFLECTION

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the potentials of an emerging hybrid museum category in Greece, the socalled ‘diachronic museum’ which can be an interesting example for exploring the discourse(s) of Greek archaeology and the representation of the Greek past(s) and heritage in the museum. As an ideologically vested concept and as a cultural policy and performed practice, the diachronic museum has been one of the main desiderata of the political agenda, official rhetoric and strategic priorities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture in the late 1990s and from then on. The long-standing and often misleading division of Greek archaeological museums,1 to those which housed exclusively prehistoric and classical antiquities (the so-called archaeological museums – Fig. 1) and those which housed Byzantine antiquities (the so-called Byzantine museums – Fig. 2) could thus be gradually amended, at least in new provincial museum projects.

Fig.1 - Emblematic artworks of Classical Antiquity. Athens, National Archaeological Museum [Photo Source: Author’s personal archive]

As a general term, however, it is fairly elusive, for it is not always straightforward what its chronological spectrum is and how historical diachronia can be expressed in its collections, exhibition narratives and adjunct activities. A thought provoking art installation in the Tate Modern Gallery, the Tate Thames Dig by Marc Dion,2 acts as a useful preamble to the aforementioned matter of reflection, an insightful reading into the archaeological discourse and an inspiring allusion to museum’s powerful authority as a knowledge producer. Dion, as other 233

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As such, they are also meaningful in the context of this paper, whose aim is to provide a reflection on how the concepts of historical periodisation and ‘diachronia’ can be expressed in the context of the Greek archaeological museum. Today, there are already some operating examples of diachronic archaeological museums in Greece (Museums of Drama, Symi, Leros) and some others will be operating within the next year or so (Museums of Messenia, Elia, Larissa, Igoumenitsa). The purpose of this paper, however, is not to focus on any single example and analyse it in its specifics; nor is it to analyse in any detail this new museum trend but rather to reflect on factors, driving or restraining, that can define the characteristics and the perspectives of diachronic museums in Greece. It is to assess how ideological and political agendas, legislative and institutional changes alongside epistemological traditions and current practices, can shape the representation and understanding of the diverse Greek pasts in the physical and intellectual space of diachronic museums.

objects and the process of meaning-making through objects’ classification in museums.

Fig. 2 - Religious objects in the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens. View from the temporary exhibition ‘From a Christian Collection to the Byzantine Museum’, 2002 [Photo Source: Author’s personal archive]

THE CONCEPT OF DIACHRONIA IN THE GREEK ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM: A DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS

This artistic understanding of the past as a large collection of images and styles which gives birth to new material associations without obeying chronological affinities, finds its parallel in the historical multiplicity of chronicities (Liakos 2007, 209-210). This multiplicity, which lacks temporal sequential structures, is not primarily experienced in museums but in everyday life within urban cityscapes and rural landscapes where the ‘spoils of history’, the past and its heritage co-exist with the present (Lowenthal 1998). Dion’s project and the thought-provoking allusions it creates for the present meaning-making of the past are conceptually close to some questions posed by historians, who ponder about ‘how history and memory become representations of an experience that connects the past with the present and the future’ (Liakos 2007, 24).

What does ‘diachronic’ mean? According to the Oxford Dictionary, diachronic is defined as what is ‘concerned with historical development of a subject’. In an authoritative academic dictionary of the Modern Greek language, diachronia is described ‘as the study of phenomena through time’ and diachronic as ‘the one that maintains its significance and value through this passage of time’ (Babiniotis 1998, 506). As a concept it has been firstly explored by linguists who became interested in the diachronic approaches to language. Ferdinand de Saussure, among them, insisted on the importance of the synchronic as distinct from the diachronic study of language, which involved the recognition of a language’s current structural properties as well as its historical dimensions (Hawkes 1989, 19-28).

Fig. 3 - Chronological taxonomies of ancient lamps (7th century BC to 4th century AD). Museum of the Ancient Athenian Agora [Photo Source: Author’s personal archive]

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complexities a diachronic museum entails and provide some pointers regarding its challenging interpretative scope. In order to do so, we propose that the concepts of ‘discourse’ and ‘representation’ provide insightful paths toward a critical analysis of museum interpretations. Discourse according to cultural theorist Stuart Hall is:

Each language, he argued, should be studied not only in terms of its individual parts, and not only diachronically, but also in terms of the relationship between those parts, and synchronically. Each language, that is, has a wholly valid existence apart from its history, as a system of sounds issued from the lips of those who speak it now, and whose speech in fact constructs and constitutes the language in its present form. Of the many ‘samenesses’ or differences that actually occur (or have diachronically occurred) in the language, we only perceive those which the language’s synchronic structure makes meaningful, and vice versa. When we talk about a diachronic approach to language, we basically mean the study and comparison of two or more synchronic modes of this language. And when we talk about panchronic treatments of language, we mean the more holistic juxtaposition of synchronic and diachronic approaches.

‘The way of referring to or constructing knowledge about a particular topic of practice: a cluster (or formation) of ideas, images and practices, which provide ways of talking about, forms of knowledge and conduct associated with, a particular topic, social activity or institutional site in society’ (Hall 1997, 6). In relation to archaeology, discourse is a way of thinking that indicates how archaeological records, archives, exhibitions etc. can be constructed upon local and global structures and networks, methods and technologies of cultural production, ideas, rules, values, procedures, forms of rhetoric, narratives, institutions, people, media of dissemination, buildings, etc. These elements create specific frames of mind, and dominant ideologies as well as power relations that affect our receptions and views on the past and its meaning for the present.

Beyond the field of linguistics, these terms have been more widely used in the 1980s to define an investigating approach that did not have only to do with any specific present in time, but with the progressive march of any given phenomenon through time. History itself, of course, can also be perceived as a linguistic and cultural pointer of the many different ways of understanding social chronicities (Liakos 2007, 30). The past itself is made by innumerable personal and collective deeds and events, but historians or archaeologists select some among the different options they have in their disposal in order to interpret and represent it.

Hall also explains that ‘representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture (...) This is a far from simple or straightforward process’ (Hall 1997, 15). Discourse, like language and visual images, operates as a ‘system of representation’, that is an array of different ways of organising and classifying concepts to form complex ideas and thoughts through which knowledge is produced and disseminated. As a system of representation, it ‘uses some elements to stand for or represent what we want to say, to express or communicate a thought, concept, idea or feeling’ and more importantly these elements construct meaning and transmit it (Hall 1997, 4). They operate as symbols or signs that represent the conceptual and emotional world of their prompters; they carry meanings and messages that are to be read, decoded and interpreted by others in similar or (most likely) different ways to the ones their initiators have originally intended. Representation is a signifying practice performed in diverse social contexts and institutional sites, including museums. The archaeological museum, as one representational system of the archaeological discourse, carries along, reproduces and employs many of archaeology’s materials and working methods (i.e. techniques, styles, narratives, classifications, values, people, etc.). In a sense museums are themselves a historically situated and defined discourse.

If we try to transpose the aforementioned linguistic categories into the Greek archaeological museum and if we understand well their original meaning, then the term ‘diachronic’ should not be used as a synecdoche of a linear historical (or archaeological) review but rather as a synecdoche of a procedure that intends and attempts to comparatively explore two or more synchronic modes of life and culture in two or more corresponding historical chronicities. In other words, a diachronic museum should primarily reveal the interconnections or possible discontinuities between the current present and the preceding pasts or/and between any specific historical period and the others that precede or follow it. In which relative terms, if at all, however, does the Greek diachronic museum illuminate these visible or hidden associations and how deeply does it go into analysing and assessing them in the public realm? Which are the dominant pasts that become part of its narrative and why? These core questions are very complex and demanding to be covered in the space of this paper, for they require a thorough investigation of the many different factors and features that define the poetics and politics of museum representations of the Greek pasts within the historical, cultural and political context of their long standing intellectual traditions (Osborne and Alcock 2007, Snodgrass 2007, Morris 2004, Mouliou 2008, Damaskos 2001, Damaskos and Plantzos 2008, Aggelidi 2003, Anagnostakis 2003, Kiousopoulou 2003, Gratziou 2003).

As such, a broadly discursive approach toward their epistemological and socio-political histories is important and demands not only an analysis of the how of their representation (the ‘poetics’ of museum exhibitions) but also of the effects and consequences of representation (its ‘politics’).

In this paper, however, we can attempt, as food for thought for further investigation, to reflect on the 235

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The ideological context

a Museum of Greek Handicrafts, was based on a general effort to trace the survival of ancient customs in the modern country. Let us, also, be reminded that the Christian Archaeological Society was founded in 1884, the Historical and Ethnological Society in Athens was formed in 1882, whereas the Byzantine Museum and the Historical Museum were properly housed only years later, in the late 1920s and the early 1960s respectively (Voudouri 2003, 59-86; Hadjinicolaou 2003). So, the connotations of a continuous and unified past were turned against the prevailing tendency in European historical circles to view the Greek past as a series of separate and discontinuous worlds. They eventually formulated the essence of Modern Greek national ideology, which was embedded in Romantic ideology, and defined the grounds upon which the Greek studies of the past and Greek culture developed in Greece from the turn of the nineteenth century onwards.

The expression of Hellenicity/Greekness in Greece, the notion of diachronia and of the historical continuity of Hellenic culture have been ideas and messages that have been embodied in the dominant state ideology since the mid 19th century. The creation of the Greek nation’s sense of identity has been an act of self-portraiture which could incorporate other elements of the Greek heritage, including the vernacular language, literature, religion, folklore, Byzantine and Christian traditions as well as oriental influences. All of these elements accumulated to foster a single national and cultural identity, which would represent the whole ethnos. How this could be achieved satisfactorily has been problematic, as many intellectual debates in the 19th century have been constructed around the complex issue of the Hellenic thesis versus its counter argument, the Romaic proposition (ancient versus modern Greeks or Hellenism versus Neo-Hellenism) (Herzfeld 1982, Kitromilides 1985, Leigh Fermor 1966, Leontis 1998, Petropoulos 1978, Puchner 1996, Skiotis 1978, Svoronos 1985, Tsoukalas 1994, Chrysos 1996). Byzantine heritage and material culture, for instance, have been contested issues in the early history of the Modern Greek State. Byzantine studies were from the beginning a historical field, which although it was held in contempt by historians and archaeologists was useful for the knowledge of antiquity and the making of national history (Anagnostakis 2003). In the 19th century, the promotion of the Classical heritage was symbolically so significant for Greek intellectuals that the Byzantine past was completely overshadowed (Augustinos 1989). This original indifference for Byzantium was not simply a matter of taste, i.e. Byzantine art perceived and described as ‘the ultimate barbarisation of the art’ (Baroutas 19911992, 213-214). In reality, it had deep roots in the political and socio-historical circumstances that emerged and prevailed in the wake and aftermath of the Greek War of Independence. However, this attitude changed from about the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, when the new ideological tenet, the Great Idea and the politics of national unity gathered momentum to support the unbroken continuity of the Hellenic nation from the past through to the modern present and to impose unity as the prime subject-matter of historiographic grounding: unity in space, unity in time, unity in national ideology (Skopetea 1984, Tatsios 1984). This change affected all domains of scholarly production and cultural analysis, such as historical studies, archaeology, folk-studies, etc. The study of Greek Folklore, for instance, right from its birth, was organised around the discourse of historic continuity and the survival of certain cultural phenomena, and acquired political significance in fashioning an acceptable image of the nation abroad (Orlandos 1969, 6; Puchner 1996). Comparisons between ancient and Modern Greek customs became very common in the early 19th century and constituted the principal tenet in the study of Greek folklore. The field was officially recognised among writers and scholars in 1909 with the establishment of ethnography as a scholarly discipline. The philosophy of the first folk-art museum, which was founded in 1918 as

The political, legislative and administrative context Although there have been proposals, as early as in the mid 1980s, for the operation of local diachronic museums,3 that would present the cultural characteristics of any given local community from antiquity to the very present, it was only later in the 1990s that this ideological standing was partly enforced as a political decision and then transcribed into a specific cultural policy. This ideology can be clearly traced in official documents of the Ministry of Culture and published articles signed by the then Minister, E. Venizelos (1998), who stated that the official political rhetoric was by definition a political act and an applied discourse that could be translated into specific legislative and organisational initiatives, policies and practices. From his writings, we compile the most illustrative statements which formed the philosophical basis of legal documents that then came to the fore during his service in the Ministry. ‘In the Ministry we are interested in highlighting the diachronia of Greek culture. [We acknowledge] that classical civilization as a doctrine repressed the diachronia of Greek culture and this is the reason why Byzantine and PostByzantine eras were undervalued as dark historical periods alongside their material stock which was often downgraded and humiliated’ (Venizelos 1998, 142). ‘The terms ‘diachronia’ and ‘synergy’ define simultaneously the chronological and thematic breadth, the basis and the axis on which a cultural policy is articulated... The definitive inclusion of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine artefacts and monuments in the main body of our cultural heritage as well as the absolute significance of contemporary Greek culture in the formation of a comprehensive cultural policy render the choice of the term ‘diachronia’ almost self-explanatory’ (Venizelos 1998, 15). ‘The cultural heritage, the archaeological artefact is not just a museum piece, a product of 236

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resources, the existence of archaeological material from all relevant periods, and last but not least the potential to put together specialists from different knowledge fields to work collaboratively on the formulation of exhibition narratives, based on multiple chronicities and different discourses regarding the interpretation of the Greek past.

excavation or restoration work or museum presentation, but a living experience in contemporary Greek culture, a source of inspiration and often an element integrated in everyday life. This diachronic axis is very much in the core of the Ministry’s concerns, for it is directly related to museum and exhibition policies, to the promotion of Greek culture abroad, to the synergy and collaboration between the various state cultural bodies’ (Venizelos 1998, 72).

The epistemological context There is no doubt that Greek archaeology in its tripartite scheme, Prehistoric, Classical and Byzantine, is not shaped by a singular but many different discourses, which certainly are more than three, corresponding to each broader archaeological period. In the last twenty years, the fast growing interest in the historiography of archaeology in general and of Greek archaeology in particular, has created an impressive body of enlightening literature that has proposed new ways into exploring the historiography of the discipline.5 To write the history of a discipline one has certainly to go beyond the collection of biographical details and explore the interplay between its practitioners and the values of their time. Bruce Trigger had distinguished, already in the 1980s and 1990s, two main approaches in the process of historical explanation and interpretation (Trigger 1985, 1994; see also Christenson 1989). One was the positivist approach which presented successive periods of archaeology as a logical and inevitable development. This internalist approach essentially concentrated on delineating the changing understanding of a particular problem within archaeology or through theoretical developments in other fields, such as ecology, systems analysis and art history (Trigger 1994, 118). The counterpart to the former disposition was the intellectual/contextual approach, which considered all the social, economic, political or other factors that infringe on archaeology from the outside. Fundamentally, the externalist approach focused on the relationship between archaeological understanding and the socio-cultural context in which archaeology was practiced (Trigger 1994, 118). One way or another, a comprehensive and spherical examination of the discipline requires both these generic approaches, for they are complementary and closely interconnected to each other. When studying museum representations of the past, we must similarly not lose sight of the likelihood, as Nick Merriman suggests in his essay on the crisis of representation in archaeological museums, that

Since 1997, a series of legal measures has shaped the official state framework that would be necessary to put into practice the political doctrine of the diachronic and synergic processes in culture. First, Law 2557/1997 Institutions, measures and Actions for Cultural Development, and then Law 3028/2002 For the Protection of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage in General have been the two instrumental legal tools that broadened the notion and scope of the protection framework of monuments and works of all cultural traditions and historical periods, and created more defined contours for the management of modern and contemporary cultural creation; not less significantly they also turned the spotlight on the museum sector by establishing some generic and long awaited legal provisions for the betterment of its operation. In these measures, the main elements that cut across all the articles of the new archaeological law are two: the first is the periodisation of protection on the principle that all cultural goods are characterized as monuments, with some generic dualities, namely the distinction of monuments to ancient and modern and to movable and immovable; the second, based on the notion of continuity and diachronia, is that all cultural goods are social goods, that integrate and codify the historical collective memory. In 2003, the Presidential decree 191/2003 ‘On the organization of the Ministry of Culture’ redefined the organizational plan and responsibilities of the Ministry and enforced administrative mergers that would soon demand a change of approach toward the making of new archaeological museums and the redisplay of the existing ones. Some of the most significant amendments have been at the level of the Regional Services operation, the increase in the number of Ephorates of Antiquities4 that would gradually allow and encourage intensification in the work of protection and enhancement of antiquities and monuments in each Prefecture. At the level of Central Services operation, it was the merging of the two divisions responsible for the management and operation of archaeological and Byzantine museums into the Directorate of Museums, Exhibitions and Cultural Programmes. This merging has been no doubt the driving force for the gradual development of the new hybrid museum model, the diachronic archaeological museum, which would then define the identity, philosophy and role of new archaeological museums. Key factors for deciding whether a newly founded archaeological museum would be diachronic, that is covering all periods from Prehistory to Byzantine or Post-Byzantine eras, would be mainly the availability of exhibition space, the adequacy of financial

‘The overarching effect of archaeological interpretive traditions has been the production of historical myths that have served the needs of different interest groups to construct identities for themselves and those around them. The myths exhibited in archaeological museums tend to be those that receive establishment and academic approval. These coexist with a series of non-establishment myths that exist outside official institutions and which develop to provide a past for disenfranchised groups with no access to official media or representation’ (Merriman 2000, 300301). 237

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and problematising the past and its material culture, which will be made accessible to the mass of people and thus to society as a whole. Current museum theory and practice is very much about understanding and encouraging the importance of interpretation and creation of meaning in the museum. This is not a simple claim for a more educative museum; rather it is an aspiration for ‘intrinsically motivated’ and ‘mindful’ experiences that can help museum researchers and visitors alike to draw novel distinctions, examine information from new perspectives, and be sensitive to context. There are many ways of viewing the past and its meanings. As concluding remarks and pointers for further exploration and museum experimentation in the Greek Diachronic archaeological museum, the following three generic suggestions may be useful:

In the Greek diachronic archaeological museum, it goes without saying that the overall narrative, contrary to what the Tate Thames Dig proposes, depends on the discourses and systems of representations of the different archaeologies that have been entrusted with the study and interpretation of the various museum collections, classified themselves according to the chronicities and disciplinary traditions each one belongs and upholds. Beyond this obvious interpretive approach, the collections are usually presented as parts of a linear historical narrative that evolves in space and time, with none, one or more overriding ideas to be acting as connecting threads between the different historical parts (Fig. 4). It may also be possible, and often this is the most common choice, that the different collections are not approached as an integrated whole but rather as pieces of separate historical puzzles that just happen to be stored and displayed together under the same museum roof.

‘Re-figure the past’ This can be decoded in two key ways: first as a way of changing those aspects of the archaeological record which have traditionally been perceived as significant and by extension the ways of writing about the past. This approach eventually leads to a reflection upon the changing cultures of viewing the past and upon how this shift has roots directly planted in particular temporal, intellectual and social contexts. Secondly as a way of repeopling and re-humanising the past, that is reintroducing real people into the past, as well as rethinking about present-day humans, experts and nonexperts, who are entitled to manifest their own needs, expectations and ways of viewing the past and heritage matters as a whole. ‘Show the invisible and speak the unspoken’ This again can have a double meaning; first it points to the importance of understanding the implications brought in by the polarity between visibility and invisibility, voices and silence in archaeology and the museum alike. This is crucial in order to start deciphering a discourse, be it archaeological or museum, and providing a wholesale exposure of its mechanics, its rhetoric and power, as an ‘Aladdin’s cave of history’s debris’ (Beard and Henderson 1994, 20). Secondly, it may translate into the treatment and presentation of specific sets of themes and approaches in archaeological writings and museum exhibitions and into the avoidance of dealing with other more difficult and darker sides of ourselves and our pasts (e.g. slavery, gender divisions, racism, etc.).

Fig. 4 - The Greek pasts in a sequence, highlighted in museographical terms by the placement of representative objects for each period in central showcases within the gallery. Museum of the Ancient Athenian Agora [Photo Source: Author’s personal archive]

Thereby, how sure can we be that these interpretative choices encourage the exploration of the visible or hidden associations that exist between any two or more historical periods (Fig. 5) and how certain can we be that they form the interpretative basis of a truly diachronic museum? A CHALLENGE FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION

‘Exhibit disciplinary discourses and the museum’

One of the most pressing and meaningful challenges archaeological museums face nowadays all over the world, the diachronic museums included, is to work more constructively to transform notions of archaeological representation in museums into something more responsive to the needs of the 21st century. It is now time for museum authors to take up the task of interpreting their subject matter from many viewpoints and interconnecting angles. If this is a call to arms for more scholarship and experimentation, museums and exhibitions can be the bulwark for new ways of working

Fixed ‘permanent’ displays often articulate and embody more traditional codes and means of representation both with regard to content and form. Temporary and changing exhibitions, on the other hand, are more able to express different and shifting viewpoints and histories. One way or another, we must start thinking how we can render museums as ‘sites where one not only asserts things but where there is also the possibility of questioning those very assumptions’ (Karp and Wilson 1996, 267). N. Merriman rightly suggests:

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‘Museums are not just places where stories are told, but also where people learn to evaluate evidence, examine archaeology as a discipline within the context of the displays, understand the hitherto hidden process whereby one moves from archaeological evidence to interpretation as well as the cultural and historical context of the museum...Museums must cease to act simply as transmitters of grand narratives and national myths but rather become places where myths are challenged, where communities engage into a process of mutual selfunderstanding, where the incorporation of the right doses of subjective and emotional touch into the official interpretative process through visitors’ commentaries on the displays can connect the past with contemporary more relevant to the visitors’ issues.’ (Merriman 2000, 303305).

type of museum offers, both at the level of the interpretation of the Greek past(s) and at the level of these pasts’ evaluation and social significance in modern Greece.

NOTES 1 As E. Venizelos, Minister of Culture in the late 1990s, had in fact mentioned in one of his essays, the idea of a diachronic museum was not so straightforward, for old predetermined ideas operated as restraining forces against changes occurring within the Greek museum sector, which was used to categorising museums into archaeological, Byzantine, folklore and modern art museums’ (1998, 123). 2 For a description of the project, see http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/thamesdig/flash.htm; for its philosophical underpinnings see also Putman 2001, 40-41; Renfrew 2003. 3 In his talk during a gathering of the Association of Greek Archaeologists in 1984, Isidoros Kakouris, Byzantine archaeologist who headed for many years the Direction of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Antiquities, proposed the creation of ‘mixed local museums’ as a model and scheme of creative cultural centres, in towns with up to 5,000 inhabitants. These museums could hold and present to the public archaeological, historical and folk collections alongside contemporary artistic creations; their aim would be the interpretation and presentation of local identity, through an array of displays. For further information, see Kakouris 1987, 193-199. 4 Ephorates are decentralized departments dependent upon the Ministry; they are distributed throughout Greece and usually located in the prefecture (county) seats. There are today thirty nine Ephorates of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and twenty eight Ephorates of Byzantine Antiquities. For the protection of monuments dating after 1830 there are two Ephorates of Contemporary and Modern Monuments and thirteen Services of Modern Monuments and Technical Works. The latter are based at the 13 regional capitals and are equally collaborating in all technical works and interventions implemented to ancient, Byzantine and modern monuments in their area of responsibility (Presidential Decree no. 191/2003 ‘On the organization of the Ministry of Culture’; Presidential Decree no. 15/3696/20.1.2004 ‘Concerning the devolution of competencies upon the regional services of the General Directorate of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage and the General Directorate of Restoration, Museums and Technical Works’. 5 The available literature is fast growing and already quite extensive. We suggest the following publications, only as a small but indicative sample, for further insightful reading: Anagnostakis 2003, Andreadis 1989, Athanasoulis 2002, Brown and Hamilakis 2003, Gratziou and Lazaridou 2006, Damaskos and Plantzos 2008, Damaskos 2001, Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996, Herzfeld 1982, Kiousopoulou 2003, Kokkinidou 2005, Kotsakis 1991, 1998; Liakos 2007, Lock and Sanders 1996, Morris 1994b, 2004; Mouliou 1997, 2008; Osborne and Alcock 2007, Shanks 1996, Snodgrass 2007, as well as three thematic issues of the scientific journal Arxaiologia & Technes dedicated to the Historiography of Greek Archaeology in 2003: issue 86 on the archaeology of Prehistoric Aegean, issue 87 on the archaeology of Classical Antiquity and issue 88 on the archaeology of the Byzantine Period.

Fig. 5 - Antiquity and Christianity co-existing in this marble head of Aphrodite. Sculpted in the 1st century AD, it bears crosses on the forehead and chin that were carved after the spread of Christianity. Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Inv. No, 1762. [Photo Source: Author’s personal archive, photo taken at the temporary exhibition ‘Praxiteles’, National Archaeological Museum, September 2007)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aggelidi, X., 2003, ‘Byzantio kai Istoriographia’, Arxaiologia kai Technes, 88, 6-7. Anagnostakis, I., 2003, ‘Synainesi’ me ti byzantini istoriographia: I eironeia’, Arxaiologia kai Technes, 88, 8-13. Andreadis, G., 1989, Ta Paidia tis Antigonis: Mnimi kai Ideologia stin Neoteri Ellada, Athens: Kastaniotis. Athanasoulis, D., 2002, ‘Gia tin epanidrysi tis Arxaiologikis Ypiresias. Ideologikes parametroi kai systimiki leitourgia’, in To Mellon toy

Thereby, as a way of conclusion we can reiterate the need for a more theoretically comprehensive analysis and redefinition of the contours, current roles and scope of the Greek Diachronic archaeological museum. The writing of the historiography of Modern Greek views of the past, official, scholarly and other, is very important for a fuller and further appreciation of the cultural opportunities this 239

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Parelthontos maw. Anixneuontas tis prooptikes tis Arxaiologikis Ypiresias kai tis Ellinikis Arxaiologias’, 4th Congress of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, 24-26/11/2000 Athens, 42-48. Augustinos, G., 1989, ‘Culture and authenticity in a small state: historiography and national development in Greece’, East European Quarterly XXIII (1), 17-31. Babiniotis, G., 1998, Lexiko tis Neas Ellinikis Glossas, Athens: Kentro Lexikologias. Baroutas, K., 1991-1992, ‘O dialogos gia tin Byzantini Techni stin Ellada ton 19o aiona kai i apokatastasi tis’, Domo 5-6, 209-233. Beard, M. and Henderson, J., 1994, ‘“Please don’t touch the Ceiling”: the culture of appropriation’, in S. Pearce (ed.), Museums and the Appropriation of Culture, New Research in Museum Studies, An International Series, No.4 , London and Atlantic Highlands (NJ): The Athlone Press, 5-42. Brown, K.S. and Hamilakis, Y. (eds), 2003, The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Christenson, A.L. (ed.), 1989, Tracing Archaeology’s Past: the Historiography of Archaeology, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. Chrysos, E. (ed.), 1996, Enas neos kosmos gennietai. I eikona tou ellinikou politismou sti Germaniki epistimi kata ton 19o aiona, Athens: Akritas. Damaskos, D. and Plantzos, D. (eds), 2008, A Singular Antiquity: Archaeology and Hellenic Identity in Twentieth-Century Greece, 3rd Supplement, Athens: Benaki Museum. Damaskos, D. (ed.), 2001, ‘I Arxaiologia stin Ellada’, Afieroma Epta Imeres Kathimerini, I Kathimerini 30. Gratziou, O. and Lazaridi, A. (eds), 2006, Apo ti Xristianiki Syllogi sto Byzantino Mouseio, 18841930, Exhibition Catalogue, Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens: Archaeological Receipt Fund. Gratziou, O., 2003, ‘Byzantini Arxaiologia. Anamesa stin arxaiologiki proseggisi ton kataloipon tiw mesaionikis epoxies kai tin Istoria tis Byzantinis Texnis’, Arxaiologia kai Technes 88, 22-28. Hadjinicolaou, R., 2003, ‘Eisagogi. Mouseia kai Laikos Politismos’, Ethnographika 12-13, 11-26. Hall, S. (ed.), 1997, Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices, London: Sage Publications. Hamilakis, Y. and Yalouri, E., 1996, ‘Antiquities as symbolic capital in modern Greek society’, Antiquity 70, 117-129. Hawkes, T., 1989 (1st published 1977), Structuralism and Semiotics, London: Routledge. Herzfeld, M., 1982, Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology and the Making of Modern Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kakouris, I., 1987, ‘Sygxrona topika mouseia’, in Ergo kai Leitourgia mias Ypiresias gia tin Prostasia

ton Mnimeion Simera, Athens: Association of Greek Archaeologists, 193-198. Karp, I. and Wilson, F., 1996, ‘Constructing the Spectacle of Culture in Museums’, in R. Greenberg, B.W. Ferguson and S. Nairne (eds), Thinking about Exhibitions, London: Routledge, 251-267. Kiousopoulou, T., 2003, ‘I Meleti toy Byzantiou sti Neoteri Ellada’, Arxaiologia kai Technes 88, 19-21. Kitromilides, P.M., 1985, ‘The Last Battle of the Ancients and Moderns: Ancient Greece and Modern Europe in the Neohellenic Revival’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 1, 79-91. Kokkinidou, D., 2005, Parelthon kai Exousia: Opseis tis Arxaiologias stin Elliniki Koinonia kai Ekpaideysi, Thessaloniki: Vanias. Kotsakis, K., 1991, ‘The powerful past: theoretical trends in Greek archaeology’, in I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory in Europe, London: Routledge, 65-90. Kotsakis, K., 1998, ‘The past is ours: images of Greek Macedonia’, in L. Meskell (ed.), Archaeology Under Fire. Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, London: Routledge, 44-67. Leigh Fermor, P., 1966, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece, New York: Harper and Row. Leonti, A., 1998, Topographies tou Ellinismou. Xartographontas tin Patrida, Athens: Scripta. Liakos, A., 2007, Pos to Parelthon ginetai Istoria?, Athens: Polis. Lock, P. and Sanders, G.D.R. (eds), 1996, The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford. Lowenthal, D., 1998, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merriman, N., 2000, ‘The crisis of representation in archaeological museums’, in F. P. McManamon and A. Hatton (eds), Cultural Resource Management in Contemporary Society. Perspectives on Management and Presenting the Past, One World Archaeology 33, London, 300-309. Morris, I., 1994, ‘Archaeologies of Greece’, in Morris, I. (ed.) 1994: Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, New Directions in Archaeology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 8-47. Morris, I., 2004, ‘Classical Archaeology’, in J. Bintliff (ed.), A Companion to Archaeology, Oxford: Blackwell, 253-271. Mouliou, M., 1997, The ‘Writing’ of Classical Archaeology in Post-War Greece; The Case of Museum Exhibitions and Museum Narratives, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Leicester. Mouliou, M., 2008, ‘Museum representations of the classical past in post-war Greece: A critical analysis’, in D. Damaskos and D. Plantzos (eds),

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A Singular Antiquity: Archaeology and Hellenic Identity in Twentieth-Century Greece, 3rd Supplement, Athens: Benaki Museum, 83-109. Orlandos, A., 1969, ‘To erghon tou Kendrou Ereuvnis tis Ellinikis Laographias kata tin pendikotaetian apo tis idriseos aftou (1918-1968)’, Epetiris tou Kendrou Erevnis tis Ellinikis Laographias 20-1, 5-14. Osborne, R. and Alcock, S.E., 2007, ‘Introduction’, in S.E. Alcock and R. Osborne (eds), Classical Archaeology, Oxford: Blackwell, 1-10. Petropoulos, J.A., 1978, ‘The Modern Greek State and the Greek Past’, in S. Vryonis Jr. (ed), The Past in Medieval and Modern Greek Culture, Byzantina kai Metabyzantina, Vol.1, Malibu: Undena Publications, 163-176. Puchner, W., 1996, ‘Oi ideologikes vaseis tis epistimonikis enasxolisis me ton elliniko laiko politismo ton 19o aiona’, in E. Chrysos (ed.), Enas neos kosmos gennietai. I eikona tou ellinikou politismou sti Germaniki epistimi kata ton 19o aiona, Athens: Akritas, 247-268. Putman, J., 2001, Art and Artifact: The Museum as Medium, London: Thames and Hudson. Renfrew, C., 2003, Figuring it out: what are we? Where do we come from? The Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists, London: Thames and Hudson. Shanks, M., 1996, Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of the Discipline, London: Routledge. Skiotis, D., 1978, ‘The Nature of the Modern Greek Nation: The Romaic Strand’, in S. Vryonis Jr. (ed.), The Past in Medieval and Modern Greek Culture, Byzantina kai Metabyzantina, Vol. 1, Malibu: Undena Publications, 155-162.

Skopetea, E., 1984, To Protypo Vasileio kai i Megali Idea, Thessaloniki: University of Thessaloniki. Snodgrass, A., 2007, ‘What is Classical Archaeology? Greek Archaeology’, in S. E. Alcock and R. Osborne (eds), Classical Archaeology, Oxford: Blackwell, 13-29. Svoronos, N., 1985, ‘Towards Nationhood, the survival of the Hellenic spirit’, in R. Browning (ed.), The Greek World, Classical, Byzantine, Modern, London: Thames and Hudson, 281-286. Tatsios, T. G., 1984, The Megali Idea and the Greek Turkish War of 1897: the Impact of the Cretan Problem on Greek Irredentism 1866-1897, East European Monographs 156, Boulder, Colorado. Trigger, B., 1985, ‘Writing the history of archaeology’, in G. W. Stocking Jr. (ed.), Objects and Others, Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of Anthropology, Vol. 3, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 218-235. Trigger, B., 1994, ‘The Coming of Age of the History of Archaeology’, Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 2, 1, 113-136. Tsoukalas, K., 1994, ‘Ellin I Romios’, To Vima (30/1/94), B4/34. Venizelos, E., 1998, Diachronia kai Synergeia. Mia Politiki Politismou, Athens: Kastaniotis. Voudouri, D., 2003, Kratos kai Mouseia. To Thesmiko Plaisio ton Arxaiologikon Mouseion, Athens: Sakkoulas. Marlen Mouliou University of Athens and Thessaly / Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Directorate of Museums, Exhibitions and Cultural Programmes Email: [email protected]

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7.2 Material Remains and Past Ethno-Cultures in Greek Archaeology: The Contribution of Landscape Archaeology Kostas Sbonias (Hurst 1986, Kotsakis 1991, Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996, Mouliou 1996, Yalouri 2001). Since the Greek War of Independence this glorious past and its appropriation by the Europeans created an idealized image of Greece, which ensured the support of the European philhellenes for the emergent nation-state (St. Clair 1972) and reinforced the ideological use of the past as the dominant ideology of the new state (Herzfeld 1982, Skopetea 1988, Kotsakis 1991, Voutsaki 2003). Beside the Classical legacy, the integration of Byzantine civilization into Greek history by Paparigopoulos provided continuity through historical time. Byzantine history became the connecting link in the tripartite system of Ancient, Byzantine and Modern Times and through the political and cultural unity of the Byzantine Empire contributed to the geo-graphical cohesion and expansion of the Modern Greek state (Dimaras 1986, Veremis 1990, 12).

Attribution of cultural identity to material remains is a fundamental paradigm in the history of the discipline of archaeology and has affected the way we perceive past and present cultures and identities (Shennan 1989, Graves-Brown et al. 1996, Jones 1997). In Greek studies, although there is a vivid discussion on the relationship between history and the politics of identity (cf. for example Kitromilides 1979, Herzfeld 1982, Skopetea 1988, Blinkhorn and Veremis 1990), little attention has been paid to material remains in regard to theories of cultural identity (cf. Kotsakis 1991, 1998; Hamilakis 2007). In this paper I would like to discuss this relationship in Greek archaeology. The introductory part of the paper will deal with the role of the archaeological evidence in the construction of contemporary identities and how this has affected the way we perceive archaeological cultures. In the second part of the paper I shall examine how far we can archaeologically identify past ethno-cultures, by drawing upon an example from the Boeotia survey project.

The complete acceptance of this ideological paradigm meant that previous ways of thinking and perceiving culture and identity were abandoned. In European modern states national cultures emerged in terms of exclusive ethnohistories (Jones and Graves-Brown 1996, 2-3). In the Balkans, nation-building, as Kitromilidis notices, “was a dynamic process not of ‘national awakening’ but of forging collective identity as part of the creation of a sense of community that was essential in cementing the social cohesion of the new nation-states of the 19th century” (Kitromilides 1990, 34). In Greece, the doctrine of national unity of the 19th century state stressed uniformity and cultural homogenization, restricting the study of regional variation and of cultural contradictions. This affected the ways we perceive culture both in the present and the past (Kitromilides 1990, 41). Moreover the equation of ethnic cultural characteristics with nationality left little place for regional cultural variability (Tziovas 1994, Sbonias 2004). On a historical level the cultural unity was projected back into the past and emphasis was laid on the uninterrupted continuity of Hellenism from ancient to modern times.

CREATING COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES

Turning first to the relationship between archaeology and the construction of identity, we can support without doubt the concept that the past is central to claims for selfdetermination and legitimization. Moreover, the past as a shared descent and association to a primordial territory is a basic characteristic of ethnicity (Hall 1997, 2). Thus it is no surprise that archaeology has played a fundamental role in the cultivation of ethnic consciousness. As DiazAndreu and Champion (1996, 3, 11) notice, nationalism ‘is deeply embedded in the very concept of archaeology, in its institutionalization and development’, as to a great extent it was nationalism that stimulated the creation and development of archaeology as a discipline. The display of the past has often been connected to a political agenda and archaeology has played a crucial role in serving establishment ideologies and the broad aims of nationand colonial states (Trigger 1984, Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990, Stone and MacKenzie 1990, DiazAndreu and Champion 1996, Brown 1994). Practice has ranged from trying through a unified syllabus to develop notions of the nation-history and justify the cultural bases of the nation (Kohl and Fawcett 1995, Graves-Brown et al. 1996) to the misuse of archaeology by fascist and racist regimes to legitimize their positions (Arnold 1990, Wiwjorra 1996).

Within this framework, Greek archaeology had an active role in the construction of Modern Greek identity. First of all it provided monuments and archaeological material from the Classical past to be used as symbols in the ideology of the new state (Yalouri 2001, Voutsaki 2003). On the other side it reinstated the picture of the nation as a homogenous, historically continuous entity objectively defined by its culture. Greek folklore studies were organized around the same principle, trying to discover surviving ancient traces in the rural population and reinstate the connecting link with the ancient ancestors

In Greece the past, equated with the ancient Greek past, has played a crucial role in cementing collective identity and was often used with pride as ‘symbolic capital’ 243

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(Kyriakidou-Nestoros 1978, Herzfeld 1982, 4-8; Danforth 1984).

population was used to prove the historical/biological continuity of the modern nation.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURE AND ETHNIC GROUP

Publicly this archaeological paradigm of cultural historical archaeology has been dominant in Greece during the 20th century. The presence of ancient Greek cultural remains was conceived as the presence of racial/biological elements that proved the Greekness of geographical regions in the past, and through the model of historical continuity it provided legitimization to the rights of the Greek nation. Relevant to this was the transformation of aspects of ancient material culture into material cultural symbols that objectified the national spirit (cf. Yalouri 2001).

The main paradigm in archaeology that facilitated these approaches was that of cultural historical archaeology, which prevailed in Europe in the early 20th century and correlated distinct archaeological cultures with peoples (Veit 1984, Shennan 1989, 5-14). I should like to briefly discuss this archaeological paradigm because it still constitutes a basic approach and influences the perception of the role of archaeology in the public domain. According to this theoretical stance in European Prehistory, distributions of distinct archaeological remains constitute an archaeological culture. A basic assumption is that there is linear connection between material culture and ethnicity; archaeological cultures are correlated with peoples. Thus archaeologists on the basis of material remains and of their distribution in space have tried to recognize the presence and movements of ancient peoples. Moreover, as a result of the 19th century perception of ethnic groups as historically continuous entities, archaeological cultures and material cultures were used to establish the uninterrupted continuity of modern nations since the remotest antiquity. Ancient peoples were perceived thus as ahistoric, established peoples not being subjected themselves to complex historical processes. As Jones and Graves-Brown (1996, 6) notice ‘Culture history has facilitated the construction of long genealogies for contemporary ethnic and national groups which reinforce their consciousness of identity and provide political legitimization in the present’. In Greece this archaeological paradigm supported the traditional model of continuity of Greek rural populations from Antiquity to today.

In the last few decades archaeologists have refined their theoretical tools, rejecting the concept of cultural historical archaeology. From the 1960s it was recognized that archaeological cultures cannot be treated as identical to ethnic ones. Material culture is not necessarily ethnically diagnostic since other factors, for example social, economic, ideological, regional etc., can affect the form and distribution of material cultural assemblages. Moreover it has become clear both from historical evidence and anthropology that the formation of ethnic identity is a social construct and need not necessarily correlate with biological, linguistic or material elements. Alternatively it is accepted that, where material culture and artefactual assemblages were used consciously as symbols to negotiate and communicate social and personal identity, or were selected to carry social and political meaning, then they could be regarded as reflecting statements of identity (Hodder 1982, Shennan 1989, 17-22; Conkey 1990, Kotsakis 1998, 56-57; Meskell 2001). LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY AND PAST ETHNOCULTURES

An extreme version of cultural historical archaeology has been the equation of culture with race. The prevalence of the 19th century racial model saw cultures as biologically determined, static categories, and the culture concept was closely linked with the notion of race (Jones 1997, 4045). Thus distinct archaeological cultures not only signified distinct ethnic groups but also distinct peoples with their own physical characteristics. So in European Prehistory it was attempted on the basis of skull studies to show that differences in the Bronze Age cultural equipment and especially the use of Beakers corresponded to differences in physical anthropology and thus signified the migration of new peoples (Banks 1996, 2-3). Although in the construction of modern Greek identity ethnicity has been mainly ‘culturally’ defined (Tziovas 1994, 97), this biological aspect of ethnicity has played a crucial role in Western arguments concerning the historical continuity of modern Greeks, focusing on the percentage of the racial relationship of the modern to the ancient population (Skopetea 1997). Modern Greeks in their attempt to refute racial arguments used culture and material culture to prove historical continuity. In this sense survival of ancient cultural traits in the rural

The recent interest in nationalism and archaeology, that has uncovered the ideological role of archaeological interpretations, as well as the interest in notions of agency and the individual, rather than in a collective national spirit objectified through the materiality of archaeology (Rowlands 1994), pose for Greek Medieval and PostMedieval archaeology the subject of the variant cultural traditions of the Greek past and of their archaeological manifestation. Yet moving beyond a patriotic interpretation of archaeological finds through modern perceptions of culture and ethnicity, how far is it possible to identify past ethno-cultures archaeologically? Does the diachronic framework of archaeology enable us to recognize shifts in the expression of ethnicity? Greek archaeology is only beginning to develop a methodology for studying how past societies have conceptualized ethnic and cultural differences (Morgan 1991, Hall 1995, 1997). The contribution of landscape archaeology and archaeological surveys are significant for a deeper understanding of later periods (cf. Barker and Lloyd 1991, Kardulias 1994, Barker and Mattingly 1999-2000, Alcock and Cherry 2004), since long-term 244

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shall present an example from the Boeotia survey project (Bintliff and Snodgrass 1985).

perspectives provide a diachronic framework, which could enable us to determine cultural shifts. Moreover the emphasis of such projects on the long term development as well as their limited geographical scale, develops an interest in the study of regional communities and a shift of focus from large scale national history to local regional history, whose archaeology had a limited role in shaping the official view of history and ideology. Considering that the relevance of material remains as expressions of ethnicity is problematic, landscape archaeology offers new methodological tools in the study of past ethnocultures. I mention among others settlement history, continuity in space, relocation of villages and population fluctuations (cf. Bintliff 1995, Bintliff and Sbonias 1999). Yet what we see from such regional projects is that the complex historical picture of migrations, incursions and continuity is not manifested in a straightforward way in the settlement history of the landscape. To illustrate this I

In a series of period by period settlement maps we can follow the settlement history of Boeotia, from the PostRoman to the present times (Bintliff 1995, figs 4-12). First of all, the survey results show a high degree of continuity of settlement location from Greco-Roman times to the high Middle Ages. Although in Post-Roman times the town and widespread rural farm settlement pattern of the Greco-Roman rural landscape is abandoned and replaced by nucleated village sites spaced regularly across the landscape, overall, as Bintliff and Snodgrass note, a continuity in space can be observed with many sites overlying ancient settlement foci of the GraecoRoman eras, in some cases even postulating continuity of settlement (Bintliff and Snodgrass 1989, 290, 294-295; Bintliff 1995; 1996, 3).

Fig. 1 - Population in Greek (white circles) and Arvanitic (dark circles) villages of Boeotia in 1466 (based on archive research by M. Kiel)

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Fig. 2 - The demographic development of Medieval to Early Modern Boeotia as reflected in the number of households of 16 Boeotian villages (based on Kiel 1997 and 1999)

fiefs adapted themselves to a village and hamlet system that reflected to a considerable measure the settlement system of Late Antiquity”.

The breakdown of imperial authority in the Early Byzantine period from the mid 7th to the mid 9th century AD is reflected in the minimal traces of human activity in countryside and rural towns and only a few pieces found by the survey may attest continuity. Yet the incursion of Slav peoples following the breakdown of Byzantine imperial authority is hardly revealed in the landscape. Possible abandonment of villages, the settling of Slavs in places of earlier settlement, or their merging and assimilation within existing Greek communities, are all invisible archaeologically in the Boeotian landscape. The pottery of the period also continues later Roman traditions and doesn’t offer any fixed points of discontinuance (Bintliff 1996, 3). On the other hand, Slav village names, a seal recording the existence of a local Slav leader and possible Slav personal names in the Early Ottoman censuses are slight indications for a different picture (Bintliff 1995, 113; 1996, 4).

In contrast, for the High Middle Ages, especially the Late Frankish and Early Ottoman periods, there is historical information that shows considerable change, discontinuity in settlement and new population influx (Jochalas 1971, Kiel 1997, Kiel 1999). It is interesting to see how the archaeological picture correlates with that from historical sources. Following are the main points of development: firstly, a picture of massive depopulation in the Late Frankish period, as a result of the mid 14th century Black Death and increasing warfare between Franks, Byzantines and Ottomans. Secondly, a large scale colonisation of the Boeotian landscape by people of Albanian origin, the so called Arvanites, in the late Frankish Period, just before the Ottoman occupation. This is followed by a steady population increase in the early Ottoman period between 1466 and 1570. The population record of the 1466 census of the Ottoman imperial archives studied by Kiel reveals this colonisation clearly, as according to Kiel, 47% of the households in the Ottoman administrative district of Thebes were Arvanitic (Fig. 1) (Kiel 1997, 323).

This archaeological image of continuity carries on into the Frankish era (Bintliff 1996, Lock 1997). The new order is reflected in the erection of feudal towers controlling older indigenous or in some cases relocated villages nearby (Lock 1986). With the coming of nobles from France, Italy and Iberia we have new ethnic elements in the upper levels of society, yet there are hardly any studies in archaeology to show their connection to material culture (Lock 1995, 271; Vroom 2003, Vionis 2006 for an example from the Ottoman period). We speak of Frankish sites or Frankish pottery, but the names have no relevance in the ethnic sense, they are used merely in terms of the chronological period. In general though, as Bintliff notices (1995, 114): ‘Frankish

Figures 2 and 3 present a comparison of the Ottoman census data with the survey data in terms of the population trends. Although the survey results (Fig. 3) reveal a considerable population increase between the Frankish (LByz/F) and Early Ottoman Period (F-T), they fail to show the exact sub-period in which the change took place (immigration in Late Frankish, natural

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population growth in Early Ottoman times). They also miss the very low population levels of the Late Frankish period, a short term decline that resulted in the recolonisation of the landscape by the Arvanitic immigrants. Moreover, the results for the Late FrankishEarly Turkish Period (F-T) contain both the result of the Arvanitic colonisation that almost doubled the population within a very short period around 1400 AD and the considerable natural population increase within the Early Ottoman period, and do not clearly differentiate between these two phenomena.

On the other side, especially in Western Boeotia, we see larger, stable villages practicing traditional polyculture, linked to the indigenous Greek-speaking population and clustering on or beside ancient settlement foci (Fig. 1) (Chaironia, Chostia, Thisbe, Koroneia, Copai, Haliartos, Askra). These differences between the two types of villages could potentially be revealed archaeologically, although no excavations of medieval villages and analysis of animal and plant remains have been undertaken in central Greece, which could confirm archaeologically what we know from historical sources.

In spite of these remarks, however, the discontinuity and change is manifested archaeologically. We notice in the survey the abandonment of numerous Byzantine village sites. Moreover the sites that are the result of this colonisation are definitely found by the survey, as they are associated with a new pottery style and mark the relocation of villages (Bintliff 1995, 115).

From the mid 16th century onwards the archaeological identification of ethnicity in the Boeotian villages becomes even more difficult as Arvanitic villages grew in size and started following ‘Greek’ economic patterns. With demographic increase the Arvanitic villages turned to supplementary activities and viticulture appears along with cultivation of cereals, cotton and stock raising (Farinetti and Sbonias 2001, 274, fig. 7). From now on they resemble a typical Greek village in respect to economy, village size, architecture and material culture. In deserted villages the survey was unable to distinguish ethnicity on the basis of the pottery, as the same ceramics were found in both Greek and Arvanitic villages, whilst in vernacular architecture the long-storey single house was the typical traditional form in both types of villages (Stedman 1996, Sigalos 2004). Yet this transformation was not one sided. The Greek villages pressed by their large population and limited availability of land were forced to embark on other activities. In the village of Panagia (modern Askra), for example, viticulture was drastically reduced, cereal production was increased to feed the growing population and, most of all, stock raising was enhanced, changing essentially the character

But is the different ethnicity visible archaeologically? We have some hints indicating the existence of different cultures which could be regarded as expressing different populations. So the dramatic loss of traditional village populations in East Boeotia at the end of the Frankish era, in the 14th -15th centuries, is followed up by two different habitation and subsistence models (Bintliff 1995, 115; Farinetti and Sbonias 2001, 272-273, figs 1-6). On one side we have the appearance of a vast scatter of tiny Arvanitic hamlets, mobile around several village locations with a strong pastoralist base supplemented by cereal cultivation. These villages almost completely dominate Eastern Boeotia, where traditional villages did not survive (Fig. 1).

Fig. 3 - Settlement trends in Medieval to Early Modern Boeotia on the basis of settlement data from the Boeotia survey

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of this village economy (cf. Farinetti and Sbonias 2004, 274, fig. 8). In respect to pastoralism, therefore, looking at the size of flocks and their distribution we see a more specialized landscape, in which pastoralism from now on was determined by topography (lowland-upland) and soil potential rather than by ethnicity. Can we assume assimilation? The survival of the Arvanitic language up to this century shows that this is not the case (Tsitsipis 1983). Yet archaeologically the different ethnicity is not visible, nor was material culture apparently used to express it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alcock, S. and Cherry, J.F. (eds), 2004, Side-by-Side Survey: Comparative Regional Studies in the Mediterranean World, Oxford: Oxbow. Arnold, B., 1990, ‘The past as propaganda: totalitarian archaeology in Nazi Germany’, Antiquity 64, 464-478. Banks, I., 1996, ‘Archaeology, Nationalism and Ethnicity’, in J.A. Atkinson et al. (eds), Nationalism and Archaeology, Glasgow: Cruithne Press, 1-11. Barker, G. and Lloyd, J. (eds), 1991, Roman Landscapes: Archaeological Survey in the Mediterranean Region, Archaeological Monograph 2, London: British School at Rome. Barker, G. and Mattingly, D. (eds), 1999-2000, The Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes, 5 Vols., Oxford: Oxbow. Barth, F., 1969, ‘Introduction’, in F. Barth (ed.) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, Boston: Little Brown, 1-38. Bintliff, J., 1995, ‘The two transitions: current research on the origins of the traditional village in Central Greece’, in J. Bintliff and H. Hamerow (eds), Europe Between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Recent Archaeological and Historical Research in Western and Southern Europe, BAR International Series 617, Oxford, 111-130. Bintliff, J., 1996, ‘Frankish countryside in Central Greece: The evidence from archaeological field survey’, in P. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxbow Monograph 59, Oxford, 1-18. Bintliff, J. and Sbonias, K. (eds), 1999, Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe (3000 BC - AD 1800), Oxford: Oxbow. Bintliff, J. and Snodgrass, A.M., 1985, ‘The Cambridge/Bradford Boeotian Expedition: The First Four Years’, Journal of Field Archaeology 12, 23-161. Bintliff, J.L. and Snodgrass, A.M., 1989, ‘From Polis to Chorion in South-West Boeotia’ in H. Beister and J. Bunckler (eds), BOIOTIKA. Vorträge vom 5. Internationalen Böotien-Kolloquium, München: Editio Maris, 285-371. Blinkhorn, M. and Veremis, Th. (eds), 1990, Modern Greece: Nationalism and Nationality, Athens: Sage-Eliamep. Brown, K.S., 1994, ‘Seeing stars: character and identity in the landscapes of modern Macedonia’, Antiquity 68, 784-796. Conkey, M.W., 1990, ‘Experimenting with style in archaeology: some historical and theoretical issues’, in M.W. Conkey and C. Hastorf (eds),

The above example from the Boeotia survey shows that linking material remains to past ethno-cultures is not a straightforward matter. A more integrated approach is needed, a co-operation between archaeology, settlement history, documentary studies and anthropology in order to approach such questions. But even in such approaches what is recorded are settlement history, population cycles, and movement of peoples, continuity or discontinuity as revealed on the landscape. Landscape archaeology reveals very little on concepts of ethnicity or identity as perceived by the people themselves (Barth 1969). A map recording Medieval Greek and Albanian villages on the basis of the linguistic element certainly records the different population groups, but says nothing on perceptions of identity. A different perception, beyond modern concepts of ethnicity, is shown instead by the Arvanitic dialect itself, which calls the Greek language the language of “Shklyr”, which means the language of the inhabitants of the town, who in contrast to the rural population did not speak Arvanitic (Kollias 1996, 10). This might be an indication for a rural as opposed to urban perception of difference. It is interesting too that the Ottoman records reveal the same difference: big refuge villages where the Greek population concentrated with the two major urban foci of Boeotia, Thebes and Levadia being also essentially Greek. In conclusion I would say that first of all we need to critically examine our present perceptions of culture and ethnicity and see how these affect the ways we look at the past. Greek archaeology needs to move beyond cultural historical archaeology and the historical continuity model and develop a methodology for studying how past societies may have conceptualised cultural differences. The historical picture is complex and is not manifested in a straightforward way in the archaeological record. A more integrated approach is required in order to approach questions of ethnicity. Moreover since the concept of ethnicity is a subjective one we must go beyond landscape archaeology and look at how people constructed identity and used material culture for this goal. With the exception of the 19th century construction of national identity, there are hardly any studies in Greek archaeology dealing with such issues and this should be a developing area of research in Medieval and PostMedieval archaeology of Greece.

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Kardulias, P.N. (ed.), 1994, Beyond the Site: Regional Studies in the Aegean Area, Lanham, New York and London: University Press of America. Kiel, M., 1997, ‘The Rise and Decline of Turkish Boeotia, 15th -19th Century’, in J.L. Bintliff (ed.), Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece, BAR International Series, Oxford, 315-339. Kiel, M., 1999, ‘The Ottoman Imperial Registers. Central Greece and Northern Bulgaria in the 15th - 19th Century, The Demographic Development of two Areas Compared’, in J.L. Bintliff and K. Sbonias (eds), Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe (3000 BC - AD 1800), Oxford: Oxbow, 195-218. Kitromilides, P., 1979, ‘The Dialectic of Intolerance: Ideological Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict’, Journal of Hellenic Diaspora 6, 5-30. Kitromilides, P.M., 1990, ‘Imagined Communities’ and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans’, in M. Blinkhorn and Th. Veremis (eds), Modern Greece: Nationalism and Nationality, Athens: Sage-Eliamep, 23-66. Kohl, P.L. and Fawcett, C. (ed.), 1995, Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kollias, A., 1996, «Συγκριτικό Λεξικό της Αρβανίτικης Γλώσσας», Αρχείο Αρβανιτικών Σπουδών 1, 943. Kotsakis, K., 1991, ‘The powerful past: Theoretical trends in Greek archaeology’, in I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory in Europe, London and New York: Routledge, 65-90. Kotsakis, K., 1998, ‘The past is ours: images of Greek Macedonia’, in L. Meskell (ed.), Archaeology under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, London and New York: Routledge, 44-67. Kyriakidou-Nestoros, A., 1978, Η θεωρία της ελληνικής λαογραφίας, Athens: Etairia Spoudon Neoellinikou Politismou kai Genikis Paidias. Lock, P., 1986, ‘The Frankish Towers of Central Greece’, Annual of the British School at Athens 81, 101123. Lock, P., 1995, The Franks in The Aegean, 1204-1500, London and New York: Longman. Lock, P., 1997, ‘The Frankish Period in Boeotia: Problems and Perspectives’, in J.L. Bintliff (ed.) Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece, BAR International Series 666, Oxford, 305-311. Meskell, L., 2001, ‘Archaeologies of Identity’, in I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory Today, Cambridge: Polity Press, 187-213. Morgan, C., 1991, ‘Ethnicity and Early Greek States: historical and material perspectives’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 37, 131-163. Mouliou, M., 1996, ‘Ancient Greece, its classical heritage and the Modern Greeks: aspects of nationalism in museum exhibitions’, in J.A. Atkinson et al.

The Uses of Style in Archaeology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 5-17. Danforth, L.M., 1984, ‘The ideological context of the search for continuities in Greek culture’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 2, 53-85. Diaz-Andreu, M. and Champion, T., 1996, ‘Nationalism and archaeology in Europe: an introduction’, in M. Diaz-Andreu and T. Champion (eds), Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe, London: University College London Press, 1-23. Dimaras, K.T., 1986, Κωνσταντίνος Παπαρρηγόπουλος. H εποχή του - H ζωή του - Tο έργο του, Athens: MIET. Farinetti, E. and Sbonias, K., 2004, ‘Fields of wheat back to the land: A GIS environment for the study of Medieval village history in central Greece’, in Enter the Past: The E-way into the Four Dimensions of Cultural Heritage, Proceedings of 31st CAA, Vienna, BAR International series 1227, Oxford, 271-275. Gathercole, P. and Lowenthal, D. (eds), 1990, The Politics of the Past, London: Unwin Hyman. Graves-Brown, P., Jones, S. and Gamble, C. (eds), 1996, Cultural Identity and Archaeology: The Constructions of European Communities, London: Routledge. Hall, J.M., 1995, ‘Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Iron Age of Greece’, in N. Spencer (ed.) Time, Tradition and Society in Greek Archaeology, London and New York: Routledge, 6-42. Hall, J.M., 1997, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamilakis, Y., 2007, The Nation and its Ruins. Antiquity, Archaeology and National Imagination in Greece, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hamilakis, Y. and Yalouri, E., 1996, ‘Antiquities as symbolic capital in modern Greek society’, Antiquity 70, 117-129. Herzfeld, M., 1982, Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece, Austin: University of Texas Press. Hodder, I., 1982, Symbols in Action: Ethnoarchaeological Studies of Material Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hurst, M., 1986, ‘The Greeks and Their Past’, in M. Hurst (ed.) States, Countries, Provinces, London: The Kensal Press, 35-51. Jochalas, T., 1971, ‘Über die Einwanderung der Albaner in Griechenland’, Beiträge zur Kenntnis Südosteuropas und des Nahen Orients 13, 89106. Jones, S., 1997, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present, London and New York: Routledge. Jones, S. and Graves-Brown, P., 1996, ‘Introduction: Archaeology and cultural identity in Europe’, in P. Graves-Brown, S. Jones and C. Gamble (eds), Cultural Identity and Archaeology: The Construction of European Communities, London: Routledge, 1-24. 249

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(eds), Nationalism and Archaeology, Glasgow: Cruithne Press, 174-199. Rowlands, M., 1994, ‘The politics of identity in archaeology’, in G.C. Bond and A. Gilliam (eds), Social Construction of the Past, London and New York: Routledge, 129-143. Sbonias, K., 2004, ‘Accepting diversity and the multiple layers of Modern Greek Identity: The implications for Cultural Resource Management in Greeece’, in P.N. Doukellis and L.G. Mendoni (ed.), Perception and Evaluation of Cultural Landscapes, Athens: Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity – National Hellenic Research Foundation, 117-135. Shennan, S., 1989, ‘Introduction: Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity’, in S. Shennan (ed.), Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity, London and New York: Routledge, 132. Sigalos, E., 2004, Housing in Medieval and PostMedieval Greece, BAR International Series 1291, Oxford. Skopetea, E., 1988, Το πρότυπο βασίλειο και η Μεγάλη Ιδέα, Athens: Polytypo. Skopetea, E., 1997, Φάλμεραϋερ. Τεχνάσματα του αντίπαλου δέους, Athens: Themelio. St. Clair, W., 1972, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, London: Oxford University Press. Stedman, N., 1996, ‘Land use and settlement in PostMedieval Central Greece. An interim discussion’, in P. Lock and G.D.R. Sanders (eds), The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, Oxford: Oxbow, 179-192. Stone, P.G. and MacKenzie, R. (eds), 1990, The Excluded Past. Archaeology in Education, London and New York: Routledge. Trigger, B., 1984, ‘Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist’, Man 19: 355-370. Tsitsipis, L.D., 1983, ‘Language Shift Among the Albanian Speakers of Greece’, Anthropological Linguistics 25, 288-308.

Tziovas, D., 1994, ‘Heteroglossia and the defeat of regionalism in Greece’, Kampos 2, 95-120. Veit, U., 1984, ‘Gustaf Kossina und V. Gordon Childe. Ansätze zu einer theoretischen Grundlegung der Vorgeschichte’, Saeculum 35, 326-354. Veremis, Th., 1990, ‘From the National State to the Stateless Nation 1821-1910’, in M. Blinkhorn and Th. Veremis (eds), Modern Greece: Nationalism and Nationality, Athens: SageEliamep, 9-22. Vionis, A. K., 2006, ‘The Archaeology of Ottoman Villages in Central Greece: ceramics, housing and everyday life in Post-Medieval Boeotia’, in A. Erkanal-Oktu, E. Ozgen, S. Gunel et al. (eds), Studies in Honour of Hayat Erkanal: Cultural Reflections, Istanbul: Homer Kitabevi, 784-800. Voutsaki, S., 2003, ‘Archaeology and the Construction of the Past in Nineteenth Century Greece’, in H. Hokwerda (ed.), Constructions of Greek Past: Identity and Historical Consciousness from Antiquity to the Present, Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 231-255. Vroom, J., 2003, After Antiquity. Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to 20th century A.C.: A Case Study from Boeotia, Central Greece, Archaeological Studies Leiden University 10, Leiden. Yalouri. E., 2001, The Acropolis: Global Fame, Local Claim, Oxford and New York: Berg. Wiwjorra, I., 1996, ‘German archaeology and its relation to nationalism and racism’, in M. Diaz-Andreu and T. Champion (eds), Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe, London: University College London Press, 164-187. Kostas Sbonias Ionian University, Department of History Corfu, Greece Email: [email protected]

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7.3 Coevolution of Environment and Culture in the 21st Century: The Impact of Modern Development and the Role of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in Greece Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory ‘The modern is not generated in a vacuum, it grows in the womb of tradition. It is modernised tradition - a new wave in the ocean of time. If the modern rejects the whole of tradition, it ceases to be modern. It becomes rootless and anaemic – a spurious product, glossy but ephemeral, destined for the dustbin of history. Equally, if tradition does not eschew the obsolete by modernising itself, it ceases to be tradition. It becomes sterile – a stagnant pool of decay and degeneration….’ (Raza 1990). ‘Developments do not take place in a vacuum but at an existing place, in existing surroundings…tensions between those bent upon retaining the old and those building the new…is a useful testing process…to establish a society’s priorities…’ (Kerr 1985). These quotes offer a good introduction to some of the issues explored in this paper. They summarise the contradictory pulls of tradition and modernity, development and conservation, nature and culture. More precisely, the present paper is a discussion of 21st century perceptions on the interplay between environment and culture, with special concerns relating to the impact of modern development on the cultural landscape. The paper describes the nature and practice of Cultural Resource Management, or CRM, in Greece with a focus on its effect, both on the landscape and on Greek archaeology. It concerns CRM as it is practiced by the Greek Archaeological Service, the administrative unit of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, responsible for CRM in Greece, and by academics, both Greek and foreign. The discussion centres on conservation and the evaluation of those heritage significance attributes, which determine whether a particular landscape (both cultural and natural) is either preserved or discarded and how. Suggestions are offered at the end of the paper as to how professionals, such as archaeologists, faced with an ethical responsibility towards the collection, management and interpretation of their data, can also make a significant contribution to their preservation. Recent archaeological projects in Greece, including the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey (EKAS) and the Australian Paliochora-Kythera Archaeological Survey (APKAS) are offered as examples of interdisciplinary collaboration, focusing on interaction between professionals, the local communities and governmental agencies such as the Greek Archaeological Service. At the same time, difficulties encountered as a result of conflicting attitudes on heritage and conservation among the concerned parties is also highlighted. It should be noted that most of the terms used in this paper, including CRM, are adopted from equivalent studies abroad, mainly the United Kingdom (Hewison 1987), United States (Stripe and Lee 1987), Australia, and New Zealand (Pearson and Sullivan 1995; Hall and McArthur 1996).

HERITAGE AND CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

In their 1995 publication titled Looking After Heritage Places, Michael Pearson and Sharon Sullivan define cultural resources as the result of humanity’s interaction with or intervention in the natural world or its natural resources including manifestations such as ‘buildings, landscapes, artefacts, literature, language, art, music, folkways and cultural institutions’. They continue by describing cultural resource management as ‘the process of looking after those cultural resources’. In other words, the term ‘cultural resources’ describes the items, and ‘cultural resource management’ describes the act of looking after them or conserving them. Understandably, CRM is undertaken in reaction to potential threat to cultural places usually by modern development. Pearson and Sullivan also provide the following outline as an example of heritage conservation and planning frameworks, focusing on the basic steps required for the effective management of cultural resources: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Location, identification and documentation of the cultural resource Significance assessment Planning and decision making Implementation of decisions

The first two steps, namely the location and identification of the cultural resource and significance assessments of this, constitute part of what they define as ‘cultural heritage studies’. According to The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, heritage is defined as ‘that which is or may be inherited…the fact of inheriting…a gift which constitutes a proper possession’. The World Heritage Convention is an international agreement, drawn up in 1972 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 251

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heritage conservation to mean the degree to which a place or object possesses a certain valued attribute, and is often used synonymously with the term ‘value’. CRM involves assessing the significance or value of heritage and understanding or weighing that assessment in decisionmaking. There are many different ways to divide, assess, analyse, and determine significance. One example can be seen in the Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (generally known as the Burra Charter) first adopted in 1979 by the Australian branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Australia ICOMOS), and most recently revised in 1999. The Burra Charter defines cultural significance as ‘aesthetic, historic, scientific or social value for past, present or future generations’ and it connects this most closely to individual places, although individual objects are also considered, especially in terms of their relationship with place. Aesthetic value in this context includes aspects of sensory perception, such as considerations of the form, scale, colour, texture and material of the fabric or the smells and sounds associated with the place and its use. Historic value includes influence of a historic figure, event, phase or activity. Scientific value or research value depends on the importance of the places/objects involved in terms of their rarity, quality or representativeness, and the degree to which further substantial information can be gained through investigation. Social value embraces the qualities of religious, spiritual, political, national or other cultural sentiment to a majority or minority group. Of course, not all these cultural values are quantifiable and none are mutually exclusive, so often a site or object may have two or more values associated with it.

Organization (UNESCO 1985). This document, which has been ratified by nearly all nations, identifies heritage as being either cultural or natural (Articles 1 and 2). Many places on the World Heritage List (of protected sites) are perceived to be significant in terms of both cultural and natural attributes. Article 4 of the Convention (WHC) puts the primary responsibility for conservation with the individual signatory states and emphasises ‘the duty of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the world’s cultural and natural heritage’. For WHC purposes, places have to be deemed to be of outstanding international value to all humans before any act of protection or conservation can take place. In general, international heritage agreements and concerns, such as those expressed by the WHC, have contributed powerfully to a general awareness of the significance of the past and a justification for protecting it in the face of its imminent disappearance. Nonetheless, the way in which heritage is usually defined and perceived is very much determined by its linkage to identity at the local and national level (Lowenthal 1998). Notions of a common cultural heritage owned by an individual group of people, a community, or a nation, are what eventually shape the way CRM, with its associated legislative structure, is conducted in a particular area. At this point of the discussion it is important to stress that the day-to-day operation of CRM is very different to the approach adopted by independent, privately funded international organisations such as the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the World Heritage Committee. Such organisations are biased towards sites of world or at least national significance, and they are influenced by global considerations based on a Western or European philosophical mindset. They are not interested in heritage issues at the regional level and often ignore local community and indigenous sentiments.

CRM is usually conducted as a response to threat, mainly from development. Impact assessments are therefore undertaken within CRM as a precaution to damage, investigating the potential threat to the resource and possible solutions for its conservation or preservation. Except for salvage operations, impact studies are rarely undertaken in areas where damage is already underway or has already taken place. The main reason for this is that impact is perceived as having immediate consequences and needs to be dealt with prior to it happening. The reality, however, is that impact happens at different rates and under different circumstances with both short-term and long-term consequences, and unfortunately mitigation or avoidance cannot take place all the time, just as CRM cannot be done everywhere for a variety of reasons, including lack of money and personnel. At the landscape level, impact can be observed over a large area affecting the resource involved at different rates.

As already mentioned, heritage is significant to different communities, groups and individuals depending on their values and the nature of the heritage resource, which is often divided into cultural heritage and natural heritage. Some argue that ‘the split of heritage into natural and cultural components is somewhat artificial, as the values associated with natural areas such as national parks; wilderness and scientific reserves are cultural in origin’ (Hall and McArthur 1996, 6). In other words, in this view, heritage places are not significant of and by themselves, but are given value by human beings (Pearson and Sullivan 1995, 21). This ‘wholly human artefact or concept’ is ‘as fluid, complex and dynamic as society’s multilayered and changing value system’ (Pearson and Sullivan 1995, 21). This is of course a point for further discussion, but not within the scope of this paper.

CRM IN A GREEK CONTEXT

Globalisation and economic phenomena such as multinational investment, which characterise most of the modern world, have had a tremendous impact on the Greek economy, which is currently on the uprise. As a result, in the last two decades, Greece has become one of the fastest developing countries in Europe. An enormous amount of money from both the national government and

In terms of heritage significance, four broad and interrelated areas can be identified: economic, sociocultural, scientific, and political, with economics usually the main driving force determining whether or not heritage is preserved. The term ‘significance’ is used in 252

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that is rapidly taking place unavoidably impacts directly on both the natural and cultural environment, normally in a negative way.

the private sector is being invested in developing industrial, technological and urban infrastructures. A major player in the equation is the European Commission, which contributes significant funds through its Structural Funds Programme. Since attaining membership in the European Union (then European Economic Community) in 1981, Greece has been a major beneficiary to such funding, which reached a level of some $ 24 billion in the period 2000-07, an amount that is also promised for the years 2007-13. This funding program aims to promote ‘harmonious development’ and ‘narrow the gap between the development levels of the various regions’. In fact, Greece falls into the category of the European Commission’s Priority Objective 1, ‘allocated to helping areas lagging behind in their development where the gross domestic product (GDP) is below 75% of the Community average’.1

So, how is development in Greece monitored in terms of its impact on these resources? Elsewhere, in places like Australia for example, Environmental Impact Assessments or EIAs, including an assessment on both the natural and cultural assets of the region under threat, are part of the legislative structure at all levels of government, including federal, state and local governments. Whether such legislation is proven to be successful in securing appropriate or even fair assessments is another matter altogether, worth discussing in detail elsewhere. The European Union has in force a Directive on Environmental Impact Assessment, first introduced in 1985 and amended in 1997 and 2003, but in keeping with the structure of the European Union, the drafting of empowering legislation and its implementation is left to the member states. In Greece, such a legislative structure exists (the main enabling legislation is Public Law 2540/98, Φ.Ε.Κ. 249Α/98, but most of the details are provided by Ministerial Decisions; for example, the regulations for impact assessments, interestingly described as Studies of Environmental Impacts [Μελέτες Περβαλλοντικών Επιπτώσεων] were issued in the “Common Ministerial Decision 69269/5387/1990, Φ.Ε.Κ. 678Β/90). Not surprisingly, enforcement of these laws and regulations are difficult and inefficient at best. This is especially the case in a situation where development is as rapid as it is at present and where a great proportion of development funding derives from outside sources including the EU. In such a context the Greek government is, in fact, poorly equipped to deal on its own with issues of conservation relating to development.

Table 1 lists the national programs in Greece funded by the European Commission’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the funding received for the period 2000-2006. In comparing figures, one notes that the first four programs, which include priorities in the creation and promotion of new businesses, the development of infrastructure, and improvements in Health, Education, and the Public Sector, received the most money. Culture and Environment received the lowest amounts (4.9% and 4.5% respectively) of total ERDF funding. Even though Cultural Heritage was the highest funded priority area in the Culture Program, receiving 36% of the program’s total funds in the period 2000-2006, it is obviously situated at the lower end of the EU’s priority list (Table 2). This is a significant consideration given that the monetary value placed on Heritage is of such small scale when compared to the enormous expenditure on development and infrastructure projects. At the same time, the large-scale development

National Programmes

Funding received in Euros (€)

1. Competitiveness* 2. Railways, Airports and Urban Transports** 3. Roads, Ports, and Urban development 4. Information Society 5. Culture 6. Environment *aims at promoting and creating new businesses **aims at improving Education, Health, and the Public Sector

2.055.773.607 1.468.752.690 3.369.500.470 1.793.581.863 473.585.027 430.073.656

Table 1 - List of national programs in Greece funded by the European Commission’s ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) for the period 2000-2006. (Information taken from the European Commission regional policy website: Regional Policy-Info-region) http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/objective1/index_en.htm

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Culture Programme – Priority Areas

EU Contribution in Euros (€)

Protection and enhancing of cultural heritage

340.013.750

Development of Modern Culture

124.571.277

Technical assistance Total

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assessment, while the current law, dating from 2002, says much the same thing (Public Law 3028/2002, Article 10). Most CRM work performed by the Greek Archaeological Service is associated with salvage operations, meaning that there is no archaeological input in the planning and decision making stages of any proposed development. In fact, rarely in Greece are there preliminary regional assessments equivalent to the Environmental Impact Assessments carried out elsewhere. Simply, the Greek Archaeological Service is normally only called in, once archaeological material is encountered or when existing archaeological material is under direct threat during the progress of development operations. Academic research has been generally excluded from these professional assessments, which are usually undertaken by archaeologists employed by the Service, and who normally have only limited field experience.

9.000.000 473.585.027

Table 2 - Priority areas of the Cultural Program in Greece showing EU contributions (Information taken from the European Commission regional policy website: Regional Policy-Info-region) http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/objective1/index_en.htm

The Hellenic Ministry for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works (ΥΠΕΧΩΔΕ-Υπουργείο Περιβάλλοντος, Χωροταξίας και Δημοσίων Έργων) is the main body responsible for urban and regional planning, including the elaboration, approval and implementation of urban master plans, and statutory town plans; it is also the main direct development arm of the state, responsible for the construction of roads and other large infrastructure jobs. In recent years it has had overall supervision of such enormous construction projects as the Athens Metro and Airport, the Egnatia Road, and the Rion Bridge. Interestingly, as its name indicates, ΥΠΕΧΩΔΕ is also responsible for the protection of the environment; a task that some might feel involves an inherent conflict of interest. According to Greek legislation, ΥΠΕΧΩΔΕ, just as any private contractor, is required to seek the approval of the Archaeological Service if development is to take place at or around monuments and historic buildings (Public Law 30282/2002, Article 10) and to meet specific environmental conditions in the case of public or private projects that may have significant impact on the environment (Public Law 1650/1986, Articles 3-5, as amended by Public Law 3010/2002). Both approvals are prerequisites for the granting of a building permit or any other form of development. Despite the legislation, however, the relationship between the two government agencies has often been rather competitive and bogged down in bureaucratic obstacles, with very little constructive communication actually taking place. The ΥΠΕΧΩΔΕ is a large and heavily funded Ministry, as opposed to the under-staffed and under-financed Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού, and it is in a position where it can often bypass, overlook, or even ignore consultation with the Archaeological Service in the issuing of development permits. Such a failure to inform the Archaeological Service makes it impossible for the Service to keep track of all the development that is taking place or even to pursue legal action. By the same token, even if the necessary steps are taken to inform the Service of every development that is to take place, the number of Service staff is inadequate and under-resourced to accomplish such an immense task.

In Greece, CRM is undertaken by the Greek Archaeological Service (Αρχαιολογική Υπηρεσία), the Department of Conservation (Διεύθυνση Συντήρησης), and the Department of Restoration (Διεύθυνση Αναστύλωσης) all of them departments of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού). At present, the Greek Archaeological Service is divided into regional Ephoreias (administrative units), with different Ephoreias responsible for Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities (Neolithic to Late Roman periods), Byzantine and PostByzantine Monuments (including Medieval and Ottoman), and Modern Monuments (from the formation of the Modern Greek State in 1830 until the present). There has been much discussion as to the reasons (mainly 19th century nationalist ideals), why individual sites or objects are deemed ‘important’ or ‘significant’ enough to be protected, promoted, and displayed by the Greek State (Hamilakis 2003; Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996, 1999; Yalouri 2001). This is not the place to discuss the mentality behind the Greek Antiquities legislation, but it is relevant to the present discussion to note that areas already declared as ‘archaeological’ fall into 3 categories or zones: A΄ Zone, which is highly sensitive and no development whatsoever is permitted; Β΄ Zone, where limited development is permitted; and Γ΄ Zone, where less strict rules for development apply. Areas that are not declared archaeological sites require that trial excavations (test pits) be carried out under the supervision of the Archaeological Service. The detailed results of these excavations are kept in notebooks and stored in the archives of the responsible Ephoreias, while a summary of these is annually published in the Service's Annual Report (Αρχαιολογικόν Δελτίον). Greek antiquity legislation from an early point ordered the protection of antiquities. Thus the 1932 Antiquities Law (Public Law 5351/1932, Article 37) prohibits the destruction of any ancient remains prior to professional

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simply in a state of inaction, often to the detriment of the site/building/object.

Of course, these problems could easily be resolved by involving ‘Non-Service archaeologists’, both academics and private contractors, to assist in conducting the fieldwork, as is done in other parts of the world. The complex bureaucratic nature of the Service, vested interest, and considerable infighting, however, currently prevent the use of non-government employees in the execution of CRM and result in the total absence in Greece of private archaeological consultancies. The mentality that government should be in total control of all national assets, including cultural resources, remains dominant in Greece, especially in the Ministry of Culture, even though such a feeling is significantly out of line with ideas and institutional development more generally in Greece. When construction companies employed nonService archaeologists as temporary staff in order to cope with the overwhelming number of salvage operations during construction of the new Athens Metro, there was an uproar and hostile protest by permanent Service staff, who felt threatened: the casual staff were being paid more and in many cases attained supervisory positions for which the permanent staff had to wait years.

Regional studies operating within the theoretical realms of a landscape approach to archaeology are in a position to include a heritage component within their investigation, and there have been, at least, some attempts to do so. The following brief discussion will concentrate on the practical application of a heritage component to two separate regional studies: one on the island of Kythera carried out by the Australian Paliochora-Kythera Archaeological Survey (APKAS), and the other on the Greek mainland by the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey (EKAS). Each of these projects was involved in an intensive archaeological survey of their respective study area, which included all periods up to the present (Coroneos et al. 2002; Tartaron et al. 2006). In fact, the Modern Period component of each project (from 1830 to the present) made an attempt to incorporate local perceptions and concerns of heritage through interviews with people from the local communities who have their own special relationship and interactions with the archaeological evidence and its place in the natural environment (Diacopoulos 2004). More specifically, the location and distribution of contemporary villages, cemeteries, churches, and other cultural features were examined in terms of the area’s economic potential, mainly agricultural land-use, within its historical and social context, also incorporating local notions of heritage and cultural significance.

CRM AND ARCHAEOLOGY IN GREECE

As mentioned above the Greek government is ultimately responsible for CRM, but academic archaeologists also have a moral responsibility toward the subject of their investigation. In fact, it is a legal requirement that all academic archaeological projects in Greece include a conservation plan, which must be approved by the Ministry of Culture and its Department of Conservation. Once again, however, the lines of responsibility and authority are normally not clear, and the plans for conservation often remain unfulfilled. This is a true dilemma, since one can fairly assume that both the Ministry and the academic archaeologists wish to conserve monuments in the best way possible. The fact that preliminary conservation plans are necessarily drawn up before excavation is carried out, along with the bureaucratic character of the Ministry, often results in problems. Many archaeological projects await the approval of their conservation proposals for unnecessarily long periods of time, often without explanation; departments within the Ministry often oppose each other, and, perhaps most important of all, conservation (i.e. CRM) is a sensitive and highly political issue where rights, responsibilities and control often overlap. The complexity of defining responsibility in the protection and management of cultural heritage often results in misunderstanding of how and by whom CRM should, in fact, be carried out, occasionally leading to a deliberate avoidance of the whole issue by many academic archaeologists working in Greece. As I have discussed elsewhere, the reality that CRM is legally controlled exclusively by managers (in Greece by the Archaeological Service), with hardly any external input, makes it an area inaccessible to non-managers, including academic archaeologists both Greek and foreign, other professionals, and the general public at large (Diacopoulos 2001). Ultimately, this frequently results

The conflict, or perhaps rather the misunderstanding that often arises among the interested parties, can be illustrated by several examples from Kythera. First, we should mention that the present paper is not intended as a criticism of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Greek Archaeological Service, or Greek government legislation. In fact, issues and concerns raised here are similar to those in many other parts of the world. Rather, the discussion is aimed at drawing out some of the problems facing CRM in Greece and how these, in turn, affect Greece’s cultural landscape and heritage in general, as well as the dilemma that those of us working in later periods of Greek archaeology almost necessarily face. In Kythera, the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Ephoreia in charge of the management and conservation of the island’s churches (and other Medieval monuments) has on many occasions opposed the wishes of local people who want to repair various churches since they wish to continue to use them as places of worship, remembrance, and social activity, even though some of them have been declared as archaeological monuments (Diacopoulos 2004). We, as academic archaeologists, were frequently put in a difficult position by the requests of locals, who saw us as ‘empowered’ outsiders and thus sought our assistance in their attempt to preserve monuments to which they felt special attachment. Our response, that we were simply academics who had no power or authority in the government-dominated world of Greek CRM, fell on deaf ears. We were, to the local people, educated authorities, and archaeologists (and often from other 255

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concern from many locals, as well as the Greek Archaeological Service and the APKAS project. Even though Paliochora is a declared archaeological site, its protection area is (for some reason) limited to a 200 m radius. An environmental assessment carried out by the developers failed to recognize either the cultural significance of the whole of the Paliochora region beyond the 200 m radius or the major environmental implications to the surrounding coastal settlements that would be caused by raw sewage flowing into the sea. The Ministry of Culture rejected the developer’s report and the project was put on hold. Members of the APKAS project, however, as stakeholders in this part of the Greek word, continue to consult with both local people and the officials of the island (including the mayor [δήμαρχος]), and we hope that this potential disaster has been put to rest, at least for the moment.

countries, no less): surely we could do something to help them get government permission to fix the roof of their church. The government authorities had their own agenda in this regard and the result often was that churches were simply locked up or even, in some unfortunate cases, allowed to collapse into ruins. The Archaeological Service, for reasons mentioned above, simply does not have the necessary financial and human resources to conserve, protect, and maintain all the sites, structures, and objects under its control. Another example from Kythera concerns the Medieval site of Paliochora (the Byzantine settlement of Ayios Demetrios), the ‘capital’ of the island in the Middle Ages, archaeologically comparable to Mystras, and also in an area of the island characterized by remarkable physical beauty (Ince and Ballantyne 2007). The site is located on a narrow piece of land, high above the meeting point of three wild and deep gorges, reminiscent of the Samaria or Vikos gorges elsewhere in Greece. Archaeological and environmental characteristics would seem to converge at Paliochora to create a place of considerable significance. Further, the importance of Paliochora to the contemporary local population is tremendous. In 1537, by treachery and/or surprise, the settlement was sacked by the Ottoman pirate/admiral Khayr ad din Barbarossa. It is claimed that 7,000 people were taken away as slaves. This was a tremendous loss, as a 1545 census has the island’s remaining population standing at 1850 (Patramani et al. 1997). According to local living tradition, the site has been abandoned ever since that terrible event. Today, many family names from the north of the island can be traced back to the time when Paliochora existed as a thriving centre. These families take pride in the claim that they are the direct descendents of those few who survived the massacre at Paliochora and founded the villages nearby. Most of the legends and traditions relating to Paliochora and its destruction have been passed on through generations of story-telling from the people of these villages (Κασιμάτης 1957). These legends form part of the cultural heritage of these people. In August each year they hold a festival and church service in honour of the fall of the old city in the grounds of one of the surviving churches within Paliochora itself.

Unfortunately, the same result cannot be claimed in the issue of access to the site of Paliochora and the protection and conservation of its monuments. As mentioned, the protection of Paliochora and its physical environment in the past was largely a factor of its isolation. No one can reasonably oppose the creation of access to important archaeological sites, but this must (we think) be done in conjunction with efforts of protection, for the archaeological and the physical environment, as well as for the safety of the visitor. Therefore, in 1999 we were surprised to see bulldozers and other machines at work, building a wide, modern road to the site of Paliochora, when we knew that there were no measures in place to provide appropriate protection. We immediately reported this to the responsible Eforeia in Athens and were told that all that was known to the Eforeia and that the roadbuilding had been stopped. The next year we returned to find the road nearly completed and when we again informed the officials in Athens we were told we must be mistaken. After photographs were produced, an official inquiry was promised. It is uncertain as to whether this promised investigation by the Ministry of Culture ever took place. In any case, it is clear that this enormous road, one of the two widest roads on the island, was in fact built. As a direct result, the looting of the site has increased rapidly, as slate roofing material, marble architectural elements, and other parts of buildings are carried off for use in modern construction.

Thus, the site of Paliochora would seem to be significant from a variety of perspectives: archaeological, historical, environmental, and in terms of local sentiment. Preservation of the site until the present was largely a result of its remoteness: access was possible only by foot or donkey or along a difficult and unmarked road that could, with difficulty, be negotiated by sturdy motorized vehicles. Now, in the past decade, the isolation of the site has been challenged, without any significant attempt at conservation of the many houses, churches, fortifications, and other structures there.

Ironically, although access to Paliochora is today easily achieved by motor vehicle, the Archaeological Service has now closed the site to visitors and blocked the entryway (although looters have found ways to get around the fence). This was not done in order to protect the antiquities but as a result of safety concerns resulting from the earthquake of January 2006, which also caused damage to the site. At present, the public cannot visit the site, and there are no immediate plans to restore and conserve it. So, the site is sitting there, easy to access for the αρχαιοκάπηλοι (looters) but unavailable for the tourists, the local residents, those who wish to go to honour the victims of the slaughter of 1537, and those who wish to appreciate the area’s physical beauty.

First, in the 1990s proposals were launched for the construction of a sewerage outlet in the gorge of Paliochora (i.e., right below the Medieval site, leading out to the sea beyond). These resulted in considerable

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An issue raised in this study, but not fully developed, is the current contrast between ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ heritage, reflected not only in the contemporary imagination but also in the funding priorities of the European Union and other administrative bodies. Such a differentiation seems reasonable and a natural result of distinctions and oppositions that have become common in our society: on one hand we should seek to preserve a pristine and ‘pure’ natural environment, removed from human intervention, and on the other, we should preserve elements from the human past that tell us something significant about who we are and where we ‘came from’. Conservation budgeting generally promotes such a dichotomy and, inherent in this, is the idea that ‘nature’ is set apart as something that we should maintain, the best we can, without human contact. Such an approach, it seems to me, is wrongly conceived, since it fails to understand the essential connection between the ‘natural’ and the ‘humanly modified’ landscape, something that has been a reality from the time humans first set foot on earth. Indeed, even animals had/have their impact on the environment and we need to take this also into consideration not only in our research, but also in the presentation of our research to the broader public. Thus, we suggest a broader view that does not distinguish between different kinds of heritage but seeks to deal with all aspects of places and objects that are perceived to be important to society.

As a result of a collaborative relationship between the APKAS and the local Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities (then Β΄, now ΚΣΤ΄), during our 1999 field-season, the APKAS field team was invited to carry out a thorough archaeological investigation of an area in our survey area that was under immediate threat from new road construction. A pedestrian survey located only two sites of considerable archaeological significance and these were outside the impact zone. The area was thus determined to have little archaeological significance and recommendations were made for construction to take place. Our assessment of the area also involved consultation with the owners of the fields that were to be impacted upon by the road construction. Although in favour of the new by-pass, these individuals expressed considerable concern with regard to their fields and, in particular, the numerous threshing floors (αλώνια-alonia) found in them. Our report to the Archaeological Service was positive in terms of the development but recommendations were made to secure the preservation of these currently out of use yet culturally significant features. Nine years later, the road is yet to be constructed, but we are confident that our contribution will assist in the preservation of the threshing floors in the face of any future threat. Unlike Kythera, the Korinthia is a rapidly developing region, and one of the main priorities of EKAS was to target for investigation areas that were regarded as being under direct and immediate threat. This, of course, could only be achieved with the assistance of the local representatives of the Greek Archaeological Service. During the 1999 field season it became apparent that the Service was in a difficult position in terms of monitoring and managing the vastness of the archaeological material in the Korinthia. The lack of personnel and resources such as computers made it difficult for the three regional archaeologists at the time to keep track of all the sites in the area. One suggestion put forward to them was the creation of an electronic register of sites with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) capabilities for the whole of the Korinthia. The register would serve as a storage facility for information and it would also allow for the fast retrieval and processing of information which at present is available in hard copy only. This would be a starting point for more efficient management of the sites and EKAS was in a position to provide the expertise and the necessary resources. Although there was much interest in our proposal from the local Service representatives, unfortunately the central administration (Ministry of Culture) had no interest in such collaboration. In fact, we were told that we had no business to participate in what was regarded as the Ministry’s territory.

CONCLUSION

These are only a few examples and thoughts, showing how academic archaeologists can contribute to issues of CRM through involvement and consultation with local communities, heritage management authorities, other government departments and the private sector. In theory, regional studies involving individuals and communities could be accomplished in close collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service. Such collaboration could result in a range of possibilities for the use, management, and conservation of sites, which can then be submitted to the Ministry for consideration. Approaches that place heritage studies as a focus of attention can be included as part of the scientific design of archaeological projects. Doing this, of course, may prove to be rather complicated, as relationships among all groups involved often are. A major challenge facing this particular aspect of the research is establishing a firm basis for communication at a level of mutual trust and respect. Government legislation and international agreements and policies on conservation are necessary in providing the framework within which modern development can operate. But it is only through active representation and involvement at the community and regional levels that results can be achieved. If we as archaeologists can make the first step in this process, it will be a great contribution to the community and the public image of our discipline. Then perhaps developers will begin to seek the advice of professionals and, with adequate community consultation, there is a significant potential of a positive outcome for everyone involved.

On a more positive note, EKAS contributed through its field investigations in assisting the Service to schedule three main archaeological sites: Kromna, areas of the Oneion Mountains, and Kalamianos-Korphos, as protected archaeological areas, ensuring, one hopes, their protection into the future (Tartaron et al. 2006).

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Hewison, R. 1987, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline, London: Methuen. Ince, G. and Ballantyne, A., 2007, Paliochora on Kythera: Survey and Interpretation. Studies in Medieval and Post-Medieval Settlements, BAR International Series S1704, Oxford. Ingold, T., 1992, ‘Culture and the perception of the environment’, in E. Croll and D. Parkin (eds), Bush Base: Forest Farm, London: Routledge, 39-56. Ingold, T., 1993, ‘The temporality of landscape’, World Archaeology 25 (2), 152-174. Κασιμάτης, Ι.Π. 1957, Απο την παλαιά και σύγχρονη Κυθηραïκή ζωή. Μέρος Α΄: θρύλλοι, παραδόσεις, και χρονικά του Κυθηραïκού λαού, Athens. Kerr, J., 1985, The Conservation Plan: A Guide to the Preparation of Conservation Plans for Places of European Cultural Significance, National Trust of Australia (NSW). Lowenthal, D. 1985, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lowenthal, D., 1998, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patramani, M.G., Marmareli, A.K and Drakakis, E.G. (eds), 1997, Population Censuses of Kythera, 18th Century (in Greek), 3 Vols., Athens: Society of Kytherian Studies. Pearson, M. and Sullivan, S., 1995, Looking after Heritage Places: The Basics of Heritage Planning for Managers, Landowners and Administrators, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Penning-Rosewell, E. and Lowenthal, D., (eds), 1986, Landscape Meanings and Values, London: Allen and Unwin. Raza, M., 1990, ‘Time, place and culture: An Indian profile’, in J. Domicelj and S. Domicelj (eds), A Sense of Place: A Conversation in Three Cultures, Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra, 92-96. Stripe, R.E. and Lee, A.J. (eds), 1987, The American Mosaic: Preserving a Nation's Heritage, Washington DC: US/ICOMOS. Tartaron, T.F., Gregory, T.E., Pullen, D.J. et al., 2006, ‘The Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey: Integrated methods for a dynamic landscape’, Hesperia 75, 453–523. UNESCO, 1985, Conventions and Recommendations of UNESCO Concerning the Protection of Cultural Heritage, Paris: UNESCO. Yalouri, E., 2001, The Acropolis: Global Fame, Local Claim, Oxford: Berg.

NOTES 1 For more information on EU Structural Funds see the European Commission regional policy website: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/objective1/ Index_en.htm. For further information on European and international heritage conventions ratified and incorporated into Greek heritage law see: http://whc.unesco.org/archive/periodicreporting/ EUR/cycle01/section1/gr-summary-en.pdf (accessed 09122008).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory Department of Archaeology La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia Email: [email protected]

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