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Excavations at Stavros, Ithaca, in 1937

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Helen Waterhouse
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Extract

For three weeks of May–June 1937 excavations of limited extent were conducted at Stavros in northern Ithaca. The main site was a small area immediately below the village square to the south-west, where chance finds by the proprietor of the land, followed in 1936 by a trial excavation, had revealed the presence of Greek graves and a Bronze Age deposit.

Stavros lies on a narrow ridge commanding the bays of Phrikes to the east and Polis to the west. Along this ridge must at all times have run the route from the south of the island to Pelikata and the fertile valley of Kalamos. Below the ridge, to the south west, there is a good water-supply at Asprosykia, where late Helladic sherds are recorded. The existence of large dressed blocks lower down the slope at the head of the valley, and of other blocks and rock-cuttings farther westwards, towards Polis Bay, suggests that a not inconsiderable town stood here in classical times.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 47 , November 1952 , pp. 227 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1952

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References

1 The dig was conducted under the aegis of Miss Benton, to whose advice I have been constantly indebted during and since the excavation and to whose generosity I owe the opportunity of publishing its results.

2 BSA XXXV 1 ff.

3 Ibid. 15, 33–4, pl. VIII 126a.

4 BSA XXXIX 1.

5 Olynthus XI. 175 tile graves of this kind and 106 earth burials were excavated; types of tile graves are discussed in chap. 3 (especially p. 161) and illustrated on pl. LXI. Other sites: Rhitsona, Ure, Sixth and Fifth century Pottery from Rhitsona 4 f.; Corinth, , North Cemetery, AJA XXXIV (1930), 417Google Scholar; Kephallenia, , AE 1932, 4 and fig. 41Google Scholar, ibid. 1933, fig. 2. Another grave at Stavros, , BSA XL 2 f.Google Scholar

6 Plate 46. And compare Robinson, loc. cit. and AE 1932, fig. 41.

7 See Professor Robinson's remarks, loc. cit. 140, and table fig. 24.

8 The same size as the tiles of the Riza (Palaiokastro) grave, see n. 5, Kephallenia.

9 Clay was employed in Norwegian ship-burials as a preservative.

10 For superimposed nearly contemporary burials at Olynthus see Robinson, op. cit. 133 f., 139.

11 On a possible tombstone from Olynthus see op. cit. 133 f.

12 An iron nail was found in grave 5 at Camarina, , MA IX (1899), 256.Google Scholar

13 Bronzen der Sammlung Loeb, pl. 44, 2.

14 AE 1932, pl. 16.

15 Gräber der Hellenen, pl. LIV 1; also VII for dating and provenience.

16 Other parallels; Perachora I 165, pl. 66, 5; I am indebted to Miss Benton for this reference and for the following references to books not at present available to me; Ἠπειρωτικὰ Χρονικά 1935, pl. 20, 15, a handle from Dodona; Lee, , Arch XXXIII 49Google Scholar, from Ithaca, now in the B.M.; Catalogue of Bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 216 and refs. ad. loc.

17 I am indebted to Miss Talcott for this reference. See also Broneer, , Corinth IV 2.Google Scholar

18 Compare Olynthus V, pl. 139, nos. 393–9. Cf. also Patroni, La Ceramica nell' Italia meridionale 70 f, and fig. 42 (there called Paestan).

19 Cf. (i) from the Potters' Quarter, Corinth, Newhall, AJA XXXV 18, fig. 16; (ii) from Rhitsona, Sixth and Fifth Century Pottery, pl. 12, 83.

20 Four examples, of better quality, in the Agora Museum are dated to the third quarter of the fifth century; Olynthus V pl. 151, 537 is said to be fourth century.

21 Cf. for both shape and decoration AJA XXXV 19, fig. 17, r.

22 There are many small pots in this technique in Old Corinth museum; e.g. a published example is Corinth III 2, 62, fig. 45, from Cheliotomylos. Vases similar in shape and similarly semi-glazed also occur in Etruria in the fourth century, Magi, , La raccolta Benedetto Guglielmi nel Museo Gregoriano Etrusco I 121 and pl. 35.Google Scholar

23 E.g. Magi, op. cit. II, pl. 58, 42; in pottery, from Kephallenia, AE 1932, fig. 3 ‘late fifth century’; less bulgy and unpainted, Patroni, , La Ceramica nell' Italia meridionale, 70 f.Google Scholar

24 Black Glaze Pottery pl. XII, Grave 59, 24. See also pl. XVII, 12, from Grave 30, pp. 30 ff. and refs. ad. loc.

25 Benton, , BSA XXXIX 28.Google Scholar

26 Olynthus V, pl. 175, 874–7. Rhitsona, , Black Glaze Pottery pl. XII.Google Scholar

27 Catalogue of Bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 263 ff., nos. 761 and 765.

28 Lead and bronze-gilt stephanai were found in Roman children's graves in Siphnos, , BSA XLIV 84.Google Scholar

29 Op. cit. 181.

30 Cf. Necrocorinthia 336 and fig. 190 (= CVA Hague I, IIIc, pl. 3, 5). Another oenochoe of this group (NC 1548) was found with a vase by the Pistoxenos Painter.

31 Cf. from Kephallenia, AE 1932, 4, fig. 3, 2.Google Scholar

32 Ll.cc. There is similar ware from Metaxata, e.g. AE 1933, 88, fig. 35.

33 Cf. Heurtley, Prehistoric Macedonia, Catalogue 162 and fig. 137, ‘Tubular lugs with upturned ends’.

34 E.g. BSA XXXV, pl. 6, 40.

35 E.g. BMC Vases I 1, A 96, 2, p. 21 and fig. 28.

36 AE 1933, 87, fig. 34, B 8, 12.

37 BSA XXXIX, pl. 1, 28.

38 AE 1933, 88, fig. 35.

39 This is also clearly visible in Kephallenia, e.g. AE 1933, 87, fig. 34.

40 Also at Zygouries, op. cit. pl. IV 4–6, VI 5–6.

41 Cf. AE 1932, figs. 4 and 18, 6 from Oikopeda in Kephallenia.

42 See Furumark, Mycenaean Pottery, Analysis and Classification, motives 19, 43, 62.

43 BSA XXXIX pl. 6, 25–6, pl. 9 e (restored).

44 From the fifth-century tomb at Cheliotomylos and from the chamber tomb, Corinth III 2, figs. 45 and 241 respectively.

45 Sixth and Fifth Century Pottery from Rhitsona 74 f.

46 As Miss Benton rightly points out to me.

47 For these terms see BSA XXXIX 28 f.

48 Olynthus XI 160, and references ad. loc.

49 AJA XXXIV (1930), 403 ff.

50 Sixth and Fifth Century Pottery, 4 f., 81.

51 Op. cit. chap. 4.

52 Robertson in BSA XLIII, passim.

53 BSA XXXIX 22.