Tracing the Cycladic Settled Landscape in Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine period (4th - 9th c. A.D.): the islands of Paros and Naxos (original) (raw)
Annual of the British School at Athens, 2006
The thirteenth-to-sixteenth-century ("Venetian") defended settlement of Kephalos on the island of Paros was surveyed by the Cyclades Research Project (CY.RE.P.). This article offers an archaeological case-study of the kastro by examining and interpreting its medieval material remains (defensive walls, chapels, cisterns, domestic structures and surface potsherds). Moreover, on the basis of combined information from written sources and comparable building projects in late medieval Italy and the Latin dominated Levant, more light can be shed on aspects of daily life in the Aegean. Archaeological evidence suggests that the first phase of Kephalos could be placed in the later thirteenth century but it was extended with the addition of an outer defensive wall in the late fourteenth century and was inhabited until the legendary besiege of the corsair Barbarossa in 1537. Domestic remains within the kastro suggest that the site must have been densely built, housing a large number of peasants in single-roomed two-storey houses. Architectural remains and ceramic finds on the highest point of the site testify to the existence of a strong Catholic/upper class element on the most prominent portion of the kastro, reserved for the Latin lords and their agricultural produce. Extensive survey (by CY.RE.P.) in the valley below Kephalos has shown that a number of contemporary satellite settlements existed and functioned around the kastro, suggesting an agriculturally intensified use of the rural landscape. Additionally, the study and interpretation of the surface ceramic finds offer a window to late medieval living standards and food preferences in the Aegean.
The Byzantine Fortress of Chlerinos (Florina) in NW Greece
10th International Symposium on the Conservation of Monuments in the Mediterranean Basin, 2018
The paper deals with the relatively unknown Byzantine fortress of Chlerinos (Chlerenon) situated at Florina, NW Greece. The aim of this study is to bring to the fore, document, promote and contextualise the history of this significant area in convergence with the rich archaeological heritage of the wider area of Florina. Furthermore, the present research aims at giving the perspective for a future archaeological research and at the same time at setting the basis for the creation of both an archaeological and natural park which covers specific parameters. As such, the study is based on three distinctive axes: the historical and archaeological data of the hill understood as testimony of the past, a mid-scale survey which takes place for the first time and locates the limited architectural remains, the design of a primary master plan focusing on focusing on the survey findings and the future archaeological research points.
Samos, a terra incognita? The byzantine landscape through cartographic and textual sources
17th ICA Conference Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage, 2023
The byzantine topography of Samos is being studied for the first time as a result and in the context of the ongoing archaeological research. Evidence so far indicates to a densely populated island heavily engaged in trade, equipped with fortifications. It also seems that the wealth and power the island enjoyed is linked to the geomorphology of not only Samos but also of the island complex that the latter belongs. The study is supported by maps created by travelers from the 15th to the 18th century. However, the relatively more crucial and significant information derives from more recent maps like the British Aegean Islands, developed for intelligence reasons before World War II. Reading those maps not only reaffirms the position of medieval sites, but also in some cases results in the discovery of new ones, based on the old, non-surviving nowadays, toponyms. They also contribute to the broader understanding of the landscape prior to the industrial revolution, since they point out to old water currents as well as agricultural areas, places of inhabitation, quarries, and ports. In addition to the symbols and depictions of various monuments, local archives, the imprinting of historical toponyms on old maps can provide useful information for historical and archaeological research. The entire work showcases how researchers can derive new data from old maps through the specific case study of the mapping of an entire island, that of Samos.
Journal of Greek Archaeology
In a review of the second volume of the Nemea Valley Archaeological Project Series, a significant contribution in the use of archaeological survey data to explore complex sociopolitical phenomena in the development of the medieval settlement pattern of the northeastern Peloponnese, Michael Given states the following: ‘This volume publishes valuable and interesting material on a period for which, even after some four decades of intensive archaeological survey, there is a striking lack of fully published survey results. This in itself is a major contribution, particularly when combined with the high quality of the original survey, the care with which the pottery and site descriptions are presented, the extensive historical background and the superb illustrations. The volume itself does not present a fully integrated archaeological, historical, and landscape analysis of this important material. Its real value, however, is that it allows us all to do our own integration and analysis.’ O...
The present study is an attempt to define which plant products found their way to table of the Chersonites, and to determine their origins. Over the last years, interdisciplinary studies including palaeobotanical analysis were continued in the central part of Chersonesos within the framework of the Ukrainian-Polish research project, “Topography and architecture of Tauric Chersonesos: An attempt to identify the development of agora – a center of the ancient city”. Four samples for palaeoethnobotanical investigation were selected from well-preserved plant material from the fire level in the quarter # 45 happened about AD 1252-1281. According to the palaeoethnobotanical analysis the diet of the population of Byzantine Cherson consisted of traditional products such as wheat and rye bread, wheat and barley cereals, soups with wheat and barley grains, and beans.
Tauric Chersonesus (Cherson in Byzantine sources) has been studied for over a hundred years. There are over 20 buildings of the Early Byzantine period (their chronology is approximate). Several hundred architectural details in Proconnesian marble date to the 5th and 6th centuries AD. The capitals found at Chersonesus include virtually all the types known in the Late Antique-Early Byzantine period. Those with fine-toothed acanthus decoration fall into distinct groups: Composite capitals, two-zone capitals and Ionic impost capitals. A group of Composite capitals is dated from the mid-5th century to the 470s-480s. Excavation at Chersonesus has yielded a series of two-zone capitals of the middle or second half of the 5th century. Ionic impost capitals from the Uvarov basilica date to the middle of the 5th century. Capitals with fine-toothed acanthus decoration are an important demonstration of the fact that basilicas were being constructed in Chersonesus in the second half of the 5th century. A significant number of the capitals date to the end of the 5th and the first half of the 6th century, including 'normal' Corinthian capitals and also 'lyre' and v-shaped ones. KIRIM'DAKİ KHERSONESSOS: İNCE İŞLENMİŞ AKHANTUS YAPRAKLI ERKEN BİZANS BAŞLIKLARI Özet: Eskiçağ bilimlerinde Khersonessos (Bizans kaynaklarında Kherson) 100 yıldır çalışılmaktadır. Burada 20'den fazla Erken Bizans binası bulunur (tarihleri yaklaşıktır). Yüzlerce Prokonnesos mermerinden yapılmış mimari öğe İ.S. 5. ve 6. yy.'lara tarihlenir. Khersonessos'ta bulunmuş başlıklar Geç Antik-Erken Bizans'ta bilinen tüm tipleri kapsamaktadır. İnce işlenmiş akhantus dekorasyonlular şu gruplara ayrılır: komposit başlıklar, iki bölümlü başlıklar ve impost Ionik başlıklar. Khersonessos'ta kazılar sırasında İ.S. 5. yy.'n ortasına ya da ikinci yarısına ait çift taraflı başlıklar ortaya çıkarılmıştır. Uvarov Bazilikası'nda bulunmuş impost Ionik başlıklar İ.S. 5. yy.'ın ortasına tarihlidir. İnce işlenmiş akhantus dekorasyonlu başlıklar Khersonessos'daki bazilikaların İ.S. 5. yy.'ın ikinci yarısında inşa edildiğini göstermektedir. 5. yy.'ın sonuna ve 6. yy.'ın başına tarihlenen çarpıcı miktarda başlık bulunur. Bunlar arasında "normal" Korinth başlıkları ve "lir" ya da v biçimli olanlar da vardır.