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Pavlopetri: an Underwater Bronze Age Town in Laconia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Anthony Harding ,
Gerald Cadogan  and
Roger Howell
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Extract

In 1967 N. C. Flemming of the Institute of Oceanography discovered a submerged settlement, probably of the Bronze Age, off the south coast of Laconia opposite Elaphonisos Island. The following year the Cambridge Underwater Exploration Group formed an expedition to investigate the site. The main aims of the expedition were:

1. To survey the visible remains of the site in order to produce the plan of a prehistoric town on a larger scale than is possible on land, where the time and cost of excavation are normally prohibitive.

2. To investigate sea- and land-level changes in the area, in particular by seeking traces of old shore-lines or of harbour-works.

3. To experiment with methods of planning extensive remains underwater, and especially with photography from a balloon.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 64 , November 1969 , pp. 113 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1969

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References

1 Science Journal (April 1968) 51 ff.

2 The project was sponsored by the British School at Athens, and financed by generous grants from the Faculty Board of Classics at Cambridge University, the Exploration Funds Committee, the Royal Geographical Society and other bodies, to all of whom we are deeply indebted. We must also thank S. Marinatos and the Greek Archaeological Service for allowing the work to take place, and especially A. Dhelivorias, Acting Ephor of Antiquities for Laconia, who visited us at the site and gave us much kind help.

Among the many individuals to whom thanks are due, Messrs. Gerald Cadogan and Roger Howell deserve special mention: they both spent a week at the site, and their findings are included in this report. R. Hope Simpson also visited us, and gave us the benefit of his invaluable local knowledge. Much help and advice has also been received from Flemming, and from Miss D. Kurtz, J. N. Coldstream, O. T. P. K. Dickinson, F. H. Stubbings, Lord William Taylour, and P. M. Warren.

Harding wrote the first draft of the report. Cadogan is responsible for the section dealing with the cemetery on the shore and Howell for the description of the pottery. Cadogan rewrote the first draft and is mainly responsible for its present form. David Gubbins took and processed most of the photographs; Michael Walton drew the text-figures.

3 Str. viii. 5. 1: εἰς δὲ Μαλέας πρὸς ἕω ἑξακοσίων ἑβδομήκοντα κατακολπίӡοντι εἰς δὲ Ὂνου γνάθον ταπεινὴν χερρόνησον ἐνδοτέρω τῶν Μαλεῶν, πεντακοσίων εἲκοσι (πρόκειται δὲ κατὰ τούτου Κύθηρα ἐν τετταράκοντα σταδίοις.…)…(measured from Tainaron).…εἶτα ἡ Ὂνου γνάθος, λιμένα ἒχουσα εἷτα Βοία πόλις εἶτα Μαλέαι στάδιοι δ᾿εἰς αὐτὰς ἀπὸ τῆς Ὂνου γνάθου πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατόν.

Ptol. iii. 16. 9: Ὂνου γνάθος ἂκρα….

Paus. iii. 22. 10: Ἂκρα δὲ ἀνέχουσα ἐς θάλασσαν ἀφέστηκεν Ἀσωποῦ διακόσια στάδια καλοῦσι δὲ Ὂνου γνάθον τὴν ἂκραν.

A pun on Ὂνου γνάθος in Aristophanes, Ran. 186 f. has been kindly mentioned to us by P. H. J. Lloyd-Jones. Charon is speaking:

Τίς εἰς τὸ Λὴθης πεδίον, ἤ ᾿ς Ὀνουπόκας,

ἢ ᾿ς Κερβερίους, ἢ ᾿ς κόρακας, ἢ ᾿πὶ Ταίναρον;

Ταíναρον makes the joke certain. It is the other side of the Laconian Gulf and was known as a place of descent to Hades, perhaps from as early as the sixth century in an epic tradition (cf. Apollod. ii. 5. 12, discussed by Lloyd-Jones, , Maia N.s. xix (1967) 218 f.)Google Scholar. Editors of The Frogs, such as L. Radermacher (2nd ed. (1954) 163 f.) or W. B. Stanford ((1958) 189), have only hinted at the pun.

4 Covel, cited in BSA xiv (1907–8) 167 n. 2.

5 Travels in the Morea i (1830) 509.

6 Ibid. 508; BSA lvi (1961) 144 ff., fig. 14.

7 Ibid. 141 ff., for a full account of the prehistoric antiquities of the Vatika plain and around, and of Elaphonisos.

Hope Simpson gave much help with the local geography, and made several corrections to his 1961 map, which was based on a wartime R.A.F. map of limited reliability. Thus the salt lake and its entrances, and the beach in general, are shown there rather inaccurately. Pavlopetri Island is shown (out of scale) but not named. The ‘? tomb’, described in ibid. 146, is misplaced on the map: it is one of the tombs of the shore cemetery (the others were then apparently covered by the dunes, which are constantly shifting). The sites shown by crosses and called ‘Raisi’ should be rather ‘Alikies’, while the name ‘Raisi’ refers in fact to a large and impressive cave higher up in the hills.

8 BCH lxxxv (1961) 697. A large capstone was shown us in a photograph by H. W. Catling.

9 As, for example, at Kirrha, (Kirrha pl. 18)Google Scholar, where the slab-lined cist-graves run from M.H. to L.H. IIB (ibid. 46 ff.), or in the Submycenaean Kerameikos (Kerameikos i, pl. 1), or in PG at Mycenae, (BSA li (1956) 129, pl. 33b).Google Scholar

10 Slab-lined cist-graves, assigned to L.H. IIIC and said to be intramural, cut into E.H. house walls (Aghios Kosmas 60 ff.); and PG graves cut into L.H. IIIB house walls (BSA, loc. cit.).

11 A little evidence for burning associated with the dead: Schliemann, H., Mykenae (1878) 99 f.Google Scholar, 104 (First Grave Circle).

12 Alt-Ithaka ii, Beill. 42 ff., Taf. 13.

13 Some tombs have since been excavated by Dhelivorias. The notebook with details of the tombs, their positions and the numbers assigned them has been deposited in the library of the British School at Athens.

14 As, for example, at Manika, E.H. (Papavasileiou, G. A., Περί τῶν ἐν Εὐβοίᾳ ᾈρχαίων Τάφων (1910–1913)Google Scholar or L.H. Mycenae (CT 124).

15 G. A. Papavasileiou, op. cit. 2 ff., pis. 1 ff.

16 Ibid. 11, pl. 6. Manika Group III has recently been assigned to E.H. III (BSA lxi (1966) 87).

17 Giorgios, A.: BSA lvi (1961) 145Google Scholar; Epidaurus Limera, near Monemvasia: PAE (1956) 208, fig. 1Google Scholar; Metaxata, : AE (1933) 74Google Scholar ff., figs. 13, 17, 19, 95; Mycenae, : CT 125Google Scholar; AE (1888) 128; Knossos: PTK 4 f., fig. 1, 28, figs. 24, 25, 45 f.; Ialysos, : Ann 6–7 (1923–1924) 168Google Scholar, fig. 96, 184, 237, fig. 152; etc.

18 AE (1898) pls. 9, 17 and 40; 10, 8–9; (1899) pl. 9, 12 and 17; ADelt xxii (1967) A 74, fig. 5, 5. A dish from Syros, exactly similar to these in shape and fabric, is in the museum of the British School at Athens (A 161): BSA iii (1896–7) 62, fig. 6, pl. 5, 1.

19 Phylakopi 85 f., pl. 34, 2.

20 Coldstream and G. L. Huxley, the excavators, have kindly let us mention these and other parallels from Kythera. The definitive report is being prepared.

21 Phylakopi 86; AE (1898) 174, pl. 9, 37; ADelt 20 (1965) A 46, pl. 33b. Mrs. D. Shaw, of Rhodes University, South Africa, informs us that this type of handle occurs with sauceboat fragments on a Syros culture site on Ios.

22 W. A. McDonald has kindly let us mention a handle of this type among sherds collected by him and Hope Simpson at Ellenika: cf. AJA lxv (1961) 250 no. 78; BSA lii (1957) 243 ff.

23 A. Khoremis has kindly let us mention that he has found a similar ware on the island of Nisakouli (Methone) in late M.H. levels.

24 Phylakopi 116 f., pl. 25.

25 Cf. PM i, 414, fig. 299, and (in faience) 499, fig. 357.

26 Phylakopi 108.

27 Ibid. 114 f., pl. 16.

28 BSA lxi (1966) 166 f.; lxii (1967) 50, 259 n. 10; Phylakopi 84, 157, pl. 35, 17; Marinatos, S., Excavations at Thera—First Preliminary Report (1967 Season) (1968) 27Google Scholar f., figs. 34, 36.

29 Cf. Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae ser. A. xx (1966) 169 f., pl. 23b.

30 ADelt xxi (1966) B. 428.

31 AE (1957) 42, pl. 12; ADelt xvi (1960) B. 126.

32 BCH viii (1884) 188 ff., pl. 13b; Cuadernos de Historia Primitiva iii (1948) 37 ff., pl. 13b. Doubts about their context: Bossert, E.-M. in Festschrift für P. Goessler (1954) 33 f.Google Scholar

33 Korakou pl. 8—cf. too Asine 64, figs. 42–3; BSA lx (1965) pl. 65 (Palaikastro); Phylakopi, pl. 2.

34 Dickinson notes growth by agglomeration at Ayios Kosmas (Aghios Kosmas, drawing 1), and suggests that its layout and architectural history are similar to Pavlopetri's.

35 Symbolae Osloenses ix (1930) 31.

36 A judicious and recent review of the history of slablined cist-graves and of earth-cut pits: Desborough, V. R. d'A., PPS xxxi (1965) 221 f.Google Scholar

37 Mycenae, Cyclopean Terrace Building (L.H. IIIC): BSA xxv (1921–3) 403 ff., fig. 92, pl. 62 (cited in PPS xxxi (1965) 220 n. 5); Lefkandi (L.H. IIIC): ed. Popham, M. R. and Sackett, L. H., Excavations at Lefkandi, Euboea, 1964–66 (1968) 4 ff.Google Scholar, and especially 6, fig. 6; Ayios Kosmas (assigned to L.H. IIIC): Aghios Kosmas 60 ff.; and perhaps Stefanos, Ayios: Archaeological Reports for 1950–1, 32 f.Google Scholar: for 1963–4, 9.

38 Symbolae Osloenses ix (1930) 32.

39 Ibid. 31.

40 Nature ccxvii (1968) 1031 f.

41 Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae ser. A xx (1966) 165 ff.