Category: Greece

Roxane’s Tomb Redux

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

In case you missed the Blogosphere post, there have been developments in the possible identification of Roxane’s tomb. Long time readers of rogueclassicism will recall that we first heard of this claim back in October (Roxane’s Tomb?) and a recent announcement is currently working its way through the various Greek newspapers — most seem based on/derive from an item in Proto Thema (Μέρος του τάφου της Ρωξάνης και του Αλέξανδρου Δ’ ο Λέων της Αμφίπολης ;) and several also include a video from back in November:

On this side of the continent, Dorothy King has broken the story very capably (The Tomb of Roxane, Amphipolis) and I urge folks to go read it and the associated clippings and photos from the City Paper). The skinny is that the famous Lion of Amphipolis once stood on a large mound marking the tomb of some female (since the lion is actually female) and the suggestion continues that this was Roxane’s tomb. An inscription referencing Deinocrates (an architect associated with Alexander the Great) lends some weight to this suggestion.

For my part, the current claim raises some more questions … the monument was trashed, apparently, in the second century A.D. and I’m continuing to search for some reason for this (perhaps we’ll be hearing more in the future on that score). The other issue I have is that the murder of Roxane and Alexander IV (according to Diodorus … quoted in DK’s post) resulted in the ‘concealment’ of the bodies … it doesn’t sound like they were given a royal burial at all and I can’t recall any mention of such in any other ancient source. On the other hand, if it *is* associated with Roxane, is it just hers or for both of them, and if the latter, the single lion seems somewhat incongruous. If not, there should be a similarly-large tomb nearby for Alexander IV, no? Dr King informs us that there will be more announcements in the coming months, and hopefully some of these questions will be cleared up.

UPDATE (a day or so later): See Dorothy King’s latest update; note that the inscriptional reference to Dinocrates apparently isn’t there ~ Roxanne Tomb, Amphipolis – more details

Repurposing a Theatre at Corinth?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Wow … the AIA shindig is getting some good press coverage (primarily by Stephanie Pappas of LiveScience) … the latest coverage relates to the work of Michael MacKinnon (UWinnipeg) who has excavated a pile of cattle bones — a bit out of our period — from a theatre in Corinth. Here’s the incipit:

A metric ton of cattle bones found in an abandoned theater in the ancient city of Corinth may mark years of lavish feasting, a new study finds.

The huge amount of bones — more than 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds) — likely represent only a tenth of those tossed out at the site in Peloponnese, Greece, said study researcher Michael MacKinnon, an archaeologist at the University of Winnipeg.

“What I think that they’re related to are episodes of big feasting in which the theater was reused to process carcasses of hundreds of cattle,” MacKinnon told LiveScience. He presented his research Friday (Jan. 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle.

From theater to butcher shop

A theater may seem an odd place for a butchery operation, MacKinnon said, but this particular structure fell into disuse between A.D. 300 A.D. and A.D. 400. Once the theater was no longer being used for shows, it was a large empty space that could have been easily repurposed, he said.

The cattle bones were unearthed in an excavation directed by Charles Williams of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. They’d been discarded in that spot and rested there until they were found, rather than being dragged to the theater later with other trash, MacKinnon said.

“Some of the skeletal materials were even partially articulated [connected], suggesting bulk processing and discard,” MacKinnon said.

MacKinnon and his colleagues analyzed and catalogued more than 100,000 individual bones, most cattle with some goat and sheep. The bones of at least 516 individual cows were pulled from the theater. Most were adults, and maturity patterns in the bones and wear patterns on the teeth showed them all to have been culled in the fall or early winter.

“These do not appear to be tired old work cattle, but quality prime stock,” MacKinnon said. […]

Plenty of Neolithic Figures from Koutroulou Magoula

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

From a University of Southampton press release:

Archaeologists from the University of Southampton studying a Neolithic archaeological site in central Greece have helped unearth over 300 clay figurines, one of the highest density for such finds in south-eastern Europe.

The Southampton team, working in collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service and the British School at Athens, is studying the site of Koutroulou Magoula near the Greek village of Neo Monastiri, around 160 miles from Athens.

Koutroulou Magoula was occupied during the Middle Neolithic period (c. 5800 – 5300 BC) by a community of a few hundred people who made architecturally sophisticated houses from stone and mud-bricks. The figurines were found all over the site, with some located on wall foundations. It’s believed the purpose of figurines was not only as aesthetic art, but also to convey and reflect ideas about a community’s culture, society and identity.

“Figurines were thought to typically depict the female form, but our find is not only extraordinary in terms of quantity, but also quite diverse – male, female and non-gender specific ones have been found and several depict a hybrid human-bird figure,” says Professor Yannis Hamilakis, Co-Director of the Koutroulou Magoula Archaeology and Archaeological Ethnography project.

He continues, “We still have a lot of work to do studying the figurines, but they should be able to give us an enormous amount of information about how Neolithic people interpreted the human body, their own gender and social identity and experience.”

Excavations at Koutroulou Magoula were started in 2001 by Dr Nina Kyparissi (formerly Greek Archaeological Service) and this latest project began in 2010. The site is roughly four times the area of a football pitch and consists of a mound up to 18 feet high featuring at least three terraces surrounded by ditches. The people who lived in the settlement appear to have rebuilt their homes on the same building footprint generation after generation, and there is also evidence that some of the houses were unusual in their construction.

Professor Hamilakis comments, “This type of home would normally have stone foundations with mud-bricks on top, but our investigations at Koutroulou Magoula have found some preserved with stone walls up to a metre in height, suggesting that the walls may have been built entirely of stone, something not typical of the period.

“The people would have been farmers who kept domestic animals, used flint or obsidian1 tools and had connections with settlements in the nearby area. The construction of parts of the settlement suggests they worked communally, for example, to construct the concentric ditches surrounding their homes.

“There is no evidence of a central authority to date, yet large numbers of people were able to come together and carry out large communal and possibly socially beneficial projects.”

In later centuries, the settlement mount became an important memory place. For example, at the end of the Bronze Age, a ‘tholos’ or beehive-shaped tomb was constructed at the top and in Medieval times (12-13th c. AD) at least one person (a young woman) was buried amongst the Neolithic houses.

In addition to excavation, the project has conducted ethnography amongst the local communities, exploring their customs and culture and their relationship to the site. It has engaged in a series of community and public archaeology events, including the production and staging of site-specific theatrical performances, which turn into communal celebrations with food, drink and dance. In part, this aims to examine the importance of Koutroulou Magoula to contemporary communities and make the site an important feature in the social and cultural life of the area.

The project team will carry out two study seasons in 2013 and 2014.