The sanctuary at Keros in the Aegean Early Bronze Age: from centre of congregation to centre of power (original) (raw)
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The oldest maritime sanctuary? Dating the sanctuary at Keros and the Cycladic Early Bronze Age
Antiquity, 2012
The sanctuary on the island of Keros takes the form of deposits of broken marble vessels and figurines, probably brought severally for deposition from elsewhere in the Cyclades. These acts of devotion have now been accurately dated, thanks to Bayesian analyses of the contemporary stratigraphic sequence on the neighbouring islet of Dhaskalio. The period of use precedes any identified worship of gods in the Aegean and is among the earliest ritual destinations only accessible by sea. The authors offer some preliminary thoughts on the definition of these precocious acts of pilgrimage.
Between 2012 and 2018, the Keros Project undertook pedestrian survey of the islands of Keros and Kato Kouphonisi and the coast of southeast Naxos, as well as targeted excavation on Keros and in the Early Bronze Age maritime sanctuary at Dhaskalio and Kavos at the western end of Keros. This work has identified previously unrecognised later Neolithic activity in this part of the Cycladic archipelago. Secure evidence of Late to Final Neolithic activity has previously been recognised across only a handful of Cycladic Island contexts, most notably from LN Saliagos and FN Kephala on Kea, and as a result of more recent work at Strofilas on Andros and Ftelia on Mykonos.The micro-regional approach adopted by the Keros Project offers a complementary islandscape perspective to the evidence from these isolated site contexts, allowing us to recognise a previously hidden later Neolithic network, with significant implications for the connectedness of Neolithic settlements in the Cyclades, and perhaps a larger role for these Neolithic communities in the genesis of the ritual landscape of Dhaskalio. This paper explores the character and distribution of this Cycladic Neolithic activity and raises key questions about the definition of occupation in the archipelago in the fourth millennium BCE and at the traditionally fuzzy threshold of the Early Bronze Age.
Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2020
The Small Cycladic Islands Project (SCIP) is a diachronic archaeological survey of numerous small, uninhabited islands in the Cycladic archipelago. There is a rich history of archaeological survey and comparative island archaeology in the Aegean. SCIP narrows the size of an individual island survey, and at the same time expands the conceptual and comparative scope by surveying multiple islands with the same set of methods and in the context of the same project. All target islands are currently uninhabited, and many probably never sustained any habitation. We know from other cases, however, that such places were used for a variety of purposes in the past, including as goat islands, cemeteries, stopovers, and pirate hideaways. In its initial field season in 2019, SCIP carried out comprehensive surveys of 10 islets in the vicinity of Paros. This comparative program of research provides new insights concerning various types of human activities—habitation and non-habitation, diachronic and incidental—that took place in marginal island environments.
Keos and the Eastern Aegean the Cretan Connection
Hesperia, 1983
Cycladic Islands and the Eastern Aegean in the earlier part of the Late Bronze Age has hitherto been almost nonexistent. 1 The overseas commercial enterprises of those island settlements about which we know most (Ayia Irini on Keos, Phylakopi on Melos, Akrotiri on Thera) operated primarily, although not exclusively, along a line running roughly south-north, between Crete and the Greek mainland: the "Western String" route.2 The large numbers of imports in the Western Cyclades can generally be classed as Minoan, Helladic, or Cycladic (viz. Melian products in Keos, Theran at Phylakopi, etc.). The identification of Eastern Aegean artifacts at Ayia Irini may, therefore, at first seem surprising. The question of how they reached Keos is in some ways more interesting than the objects themselves. There is, as we shall see, no compelling evidence for direct commercial contact between these two areas, although we should not rule out occasional visits by fishermen or freelance traders, who must always have been on the lookout for new opportunities or for resources to fall back on in hard times. More plausibly, the material may have come indirectly via Crete, for the Minoans had been active in the Eastern Aegean from Middle Minoan II-III onward.3 The ceramic evidence from Ayia Irini comprises a rare but highly diagnostic class of pottery, found usually in levels of Late Cycladic (LC) I and II date (equivalent to Keos I The artifacts discussed below were identified in the course of studies for the publication of large bodies of material from the excavations conducted at Ayia Irini by the University of Cincinnati, under the direction of the late John L. Caskey. Support for these studies is provided by the Semple Fund of the University of Cincinnati and by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Torrence's work has been partially supported by the British Academy and by the University Research Fund, Sheffield University. Professor Caskey kindly permitted us to include the sherd from the Temple (5), for which he furnished the context; it was first identified as Eastern Aegean by Gerald Cadogan. Drawings of the pottery are by Rosemary Robertson (1) and Jack L. Davis. All photographs were taken by E. T. Blackburn. We also thank C. B. Mee, who examined drawings and brief descriptions of two of the sherds (3 and 4) and provided us with useful comments. In addition to the usual abbreviations, note the following: Cherry et al.-J. F. Cherry, R. Torrence, and S. Warren, "Archaeological Survey and Characterization of the Obsidian Source on Giali in the Dodecanese, Greece" (in preparation) 2 For a definition of this term, see J. L. Davis, "Minos and Dexithea: Crete and the Cyclades in the Later Bronze Age," Papers in Cycladic Prehistory (Monograph 14, Institute of Archaeology, UCLA), J. L. Davis and J. F. Cherry, edd., Los Angeles 1979, pp. 143-157. The concept has also been discussed at length by J. F.