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The Eurotas Valley and the Helos Plain in the Early Helladic Period Addressing Some Key Issues on the Basis of Topography and Pottery

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The Eurotas Valley and the Helos Plain in the Early Helladic Period Addressing Some Key Issues on the Basis of Topography and Pottery The Eurotas valley and the Helos plain in the Early Helladic period Addressing some key issues on the basis of topography and pottery EMILY BANOU Abstract In comparison with other regions of the mainland, Early Helladic Laconia is not well known or understood. In this paper an attempt is made to clarify the situation in Laconia in the Early Helladic period, by asking some important questions, arising from research in other, better explored regions. Such questions relate to issues such as the beginning of the Early Helladic period, with special reference to the Early Helladic I ceramic phase, the emergence of settlement patterns during the Early Helladic II period, the existence of an Early Helladic III ceramic phase and the comparison of the Early Helladic picture of Laconia gained so far, with the situation in the Late Helladic period. The paper focuses on the Eurotas valley and the Helos plain, the two Laconian areas most densely occupied throughout the Bronze Age. In addition to data made available through publication, it is based on data gained through extensive survey undertaken by the author, as well as on some preliminary remarks from the current study — in collaboration with Louise Hitchcock and Anne Chapin — of sherd material kept in the collections of the British School and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Keywords Paliopyrgi – Asteri Karayousi – Ayios Nikolaos (Souroukla) – ‘Faience Ware’ – Dark-on- Light Patterned Ware. Introduction First of all, I would like to thank the organizers of this Round Table for kindly inviting me to participate, and also to congratulate them for their initiative in choosing Laconia as the topic of this meeting. By doing so, they contributed significantly to its recent emergence out of a kind of scientific isolation, to which it was, say, ‘condemned’ for the last three decades, despite the insistent efforts of a few distinguished scholars — some of whom are among us today — not to lose Pharos 18(1), 39-52. doi: 10.2143/PHA.18.1.2179603 © 2012 by Pharos. All rights reserved. 995715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd5715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd 3939 221/11/121/11/12 113:513:51 40 EMILY BANOU Laconia totally from sight. It is only to be hoped that it is not too late, as evidence is constantly being destroyed and the study of important sites does not seem to yield what was expected. Nevertheless, surface research and excavations, like the Laconia Survey, the Geraki and the Kouphovouno projects, have shed a fresh light on Early Helladic (EH) Laconia, allowing us to ask, at least, some questions about what it has in common with other, better known regions, what new information it has to bring out or what, if any, it has of its own. Such questions, arising from research in other areas, include: i) the beginning of the Early Helladic period, with special reference to the EH I ceramic phase; ii) the emergence of settlement patterns during the EH II period; iii) the existence of an EH III ceramic phase and iv) the comparison of the EH picture of Laconia gained so far, with the situation in the Late Helladic (LH) period. In doing so, I will focus on the Eurotas valley — and by this I mean the land crossed by the middle course of the river Eurotas — and the Helos plain, which have been at the centre of my interest too. The aforementioned questions will be addressed on the basis of the topography of EH sites known so far in these two Laconian areas, as well as on the basis of ceramic evidence, including the study — in collaboration with Louise Hitchcock and Anne Chapin — of sherd material from the collections of the British School, the American School of Classical Studies and the German Institute of Athens, as well as my own extensive survey of these areas. The sites The pioneering work of Helen Waterhouse and Richard Hope Simpson before and after the Second World War resulted, inter alia, in the discovery or the recognition of four EH sites at the Eurotas valley: Kouphovouno, Amykles, Paliopyrgi and Ayios Vassileios.1 Also, the systematic excavation of the Menelaion by the British School from 1974 to 1980, under the direction of Hector Catling, revealed modest traces of EH date.2 In the 1980s, the Laconia Survey, which covered a total area of 70 km2 on the northeastern borders of the Eurotas valley, an area admittedly not best suited for habitation or exploitation, added the impres- sive number of 30 entirely new EH sites.3 Two more EH sites, Ayios Yeoryios and Vouno Panayias to the east and southeast of the modern village of Skoura, were 1 Waterhouse & Hope Simpson 1960, 72-81. 2 The evidence concerns 11 sherds of EH II date, found on the Aetos South Slope, on the southern- most end of the Menelaion ridge; see Catling 2009, 194-195, fig. 244, AM 1-11. 3 Cavanagh et al. 2002, 263-313. 995715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd5715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd 4040 221/11/121/11/12 113:513:51 THE EUROTAS VALLEY AND THE HELOS PLAIN 41 discovered during my extensive investigation of the area in the beginning of the 1990s,4 while one EH sherd, coming from the wider area of the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, was recognized in the sherd collection of the German Archaeo- logical Institute. Re-examination of old material deriving from rescue excavations by Christou in the early 1960s, and a new rescue excavation by the local Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities a few years ago, resulted in the location of an EH site around the church of Metamorphosi at Anthochori.5 Finally, the recent discovery of an apparently important EH site at Ayia Irini, by the stream of Magoulitsa, on the southwestern outskirts of modern Sparta, by the Ephoreia, raised the total number of EH sites in the Eurotas valley to 40 (Figure 1).6 Apart from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, where the evidence is too slight to be discussed in the present context, and the sites from the Laconia Survey, on which the directors of the project are the most appropriate to speak and which lie at the periphery of the valley and therefore could not be considered as typical, all other sites seem to have had a long history of occupation. Although, with the exception of the Menelaion, none of them has been thoroughly excavated and most are known from surface finds alone, they do show considerable traces of occupation throughout the Bronze Age. Curiously enough, the slightest evidence comes from the Menelaion, where only eleven sherds have been recognized and dated in the EH II period.7 Kouphovouno8 and Anthochori9 have yielded traces of occupation from the EH I-II period and this also holds for Paliopyrgi10, Ayios Yeoryios and Vouno Panayias.11 The best represented phase is EH II, with Paliopyrgi, Vouno Panayias and Ayios Yeoryios having yielded a few sherds of EH II-III date as well, as will be shown below. What is more important is the fact that all these sites seem to have been inhabited, during some time at least, in the Middle Helleadic (MH) period too.12 4 Banou 1999, 63-66, 70-73. 5 Zavvou 2009, 28-42. 6 Zavvou & Themos 2009, 106-110. 7 See n. 2. 8 Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2002, 587; Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2003, 562; Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2004, 94 fig. 23; Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2006, 725; Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2007, 978; Mee 2009, 45. 9 Zavvou 2009, 39. 10 Study in progress in the ASCSA and the BSA sherd collections, in collaboration with L. Hitchcock and A. Chapin. 11 Banou 1999, 70-73. 12 Waterhouse & Hope Simpson 1960, 75 (Amyklaion), 78 (Paliopyrgi), 81 (Ayios Vassileios); Banou 2000, 177-183 and 189-194 (Kouphovouno, Ayios Yeoryios, Vouno Panayias); Cavanagh, Mee & Renard 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 (Kouphovouno); Zavvou 2009, 28-31 (Anthochori); Catling 2009, esp. 319-323 (discussion of the MH pottery) and 324-335. 995715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd5715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd 4141 221/11/121/11/12 113:513:51 42 EMILY BANOU Figure 1. Map of Laconia with Early Helladic sites in the Eurotas valley (except sites of the Laconia Survey) and the Helos plain: 1. Artemis Orthia; 2. Sparta Magoula; 3. Menelaion; 4. Kouphovouno; 5. Amyklaion; 6. Paliopyrgi; 7. Ayios Yeoryios; 8. Vouno Panayias; 9. Ayios Vassileios; 10. Anthochori; 11. Ayios Stephanos; 12. Panayiotis Lekas; 13. Panayiotis Lekas South; 14. Xeronissi; 15. Souroukla (Ayios Nikolaos); 16. Peristeri; 17. Kokkinada; 18. Filissi; 19. Vlahioti Lakka; 20. Vlahioti Anemomylos; 21. Asteri Karayousi; 22. Asteri Dragatsoula; 23. Ayios Strategos 995715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd5715_Pharos_18/1_02.indd 4242 221/11/121/11/12 113:513:51 THE EUROTAS VALLEY AND THE HELOS PLAIN 43 Figure 2. Vouno Panayias, from Paliopyrgi This applies not only to sites that could be classified as being at the top of a four-level hierarchy of settlement in the EH period, such as Paliopyrgi and Vouno Panayias (Figure 2), but also to second-rank sites like Kouphovouno, Ayios Yeoryios and Anthochori.13 The implication is that conditions dictating establish- ment of settlements in the lower Eurotas valley, such as oversight and control both of arable land and communication routes, were already in operation in the 3rd millennium BC and remained so throughout the Bronze Age. In the Helos plain the research of Waterhouse and Hope Simpson brought to light nine EH sites: Ayios Stephanos, Panayiotis Lekas, Panayiotis Lekas South (another small site about 200 m to the south of the previous site) and Xeronissi on the west side of the plain, Peristeri, Kokkinada, Karayousi on the western outskirts of modern Asteri, Dragatsoula, about 200 m to the southeast of the same 13 A four-rank settlement hierarchy, comprising towns, villages, farms and hamlets, has been applied to LH Laconia (Banou 1996, 100-102).
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