Early Lesbos between East and West: A 'Grey Area' of Aegean Archaeology

Early Lesbos between East and West: A 'Grey Area' of Aegean Archaeology Author(s): Nigel Spencer Source: The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 90, Centenary Volume (1995), pp. 269 -306 Published by: British School at Athens Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30104526 Accessed: 30/04/2010 11:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bsa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST: A 'GREY AREA' OF AEGEAN ARCHAEOLOGY1 (PLATE

33)

IT HAS LONG been recognized from literary sources that Lesbos was one of the leading East Greek states in the archaic period, but the wealth of literary information about the island has continually drawn attention away from the island's archaeology.2 The reliance on these unusually rich contemporary sources for the archaic period has meant that for Lesbos, unlike many other regions of East Greece, there has always been less need to resort to archaeological data in order to build up a picture of the archaic period,3 and with the additional problem of i Thanksare due to Prof.Hector Williamsand Dr Caroline Williamsfor their continued help with my researchin Lesbos, especiallyin always making availableto me even unpublished materialfrom theirexcavationsin Mytilene.Prof.GeraldSchaus generouslyprovideda draftof his studyof the importedarchaic fine ware potteryfrom the acropolisat Mytilene in advance of p)ublication.I have benefited from useful discussions with FedericoUtili who is continuinghis studyof the greywaresfrom JohannesBoehlau'sexcavationsat Pyrrha(Lesbos),and I am also especiallyindebtedto both Prof.Dr WolfgangSchieringand Dr ChristofBoehringerfor theirgenerosityin allowingme to publish material from the same excavations, stored in the Gottingen ArchaeologicalInstitute.Thanks are also due to the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens for permission to publishmaterialfrom the archivesin Athens, to Ian Morrisfor offeringa draftof his forthcomingarticle'The art of citizenship', and to Hector Williams,Gerald Schaus, Wolfgang Schiering, Christof Boehringer, Alan Johnston, Irene Lemos, Richard Catling,Donald Easton,SusanAlcock,JohnBarron,Lin Foxhall, GrahamShipley,Maria-ChristinaTzannes,and the anonymous reviewerswho all read earlierversionsof this paper.Dr Dimitris Plantzoskindly helped with translationof the abstract,Thalia Sini with the translationof the catalogue;Mrs Pam Schausdrew FIG.2. The researchwas carriedout during a BritishAcademy Major State Studentshipand a BritishAcademy Postdoctoral Fellowship(generouslyfundedby Swan Hellenic/P&O). All dates to which referenceis made are BCunless otherwise stated.The followingspecial abbreviationsare used:

Axiotis i-ii = M. Axiotis, Hepxardwvrag trlAua/o (Mytilene, 1992), 2 vols.

Anatoliain Bayne = N. P. Bayne, TheGreyWaresof JNorth-west theMiddleand LateBronzeAge and the Early IronAge and their RelationtotheEarlyGreek Settlements (diss.,Univ. of Oxford, 1963) Buchholz = H.-G. Buchholz, Methymna (Mainz, i975) Charitonidis 1960-5 = S. Charitonidis, "Apxaltt6rTeg xa Csvlrlsa vilotv Aiyaciov',A. Delt. 16-20 (1960-5), Chronika

Chatzi I97I-3 = D. Chatzi, "Apxsat6trrsgxaci gyvrislsa voiacvAiyaciov',A. Delt. 26-8 (1971-3), Chronika derInselLesbos Koldewey = R. Koldewey,Die antikenBaureste (Berlin, 1890)

Kontis, Lesbos= G. D. Kontis, ArIsoaoxal s7) xaataartsuxi TrtlareptoXf(Athens, 1978) = id., Aeopltacxb Kontis, Polyptycho (Athens, 1973) 3ro2iarrvxo Lamb, Antissa 193o-I (1930-I), 166-78

= W. Lamb,

'Antissa',

BSA 31

Lamb, Antissa1931-2 = ead., Antissa', BSA 32 (I931-2), 41-67

Lamb, Thermi = ead., Excavationsat Thermi in Lesbos (Cambridge, 1936)

Page = D. L. Page, SapphoandAlcaeus(Oxford, 1955) Paraskevaidis = M. Paraskevai'dis,"H eelidda trg oAyiag HapaaxEvUfg 'ElrErpov (Athens, 1970) Aba/Oov" Schiering = W. Schiering, 'Pyrrha auf Lesbos', AA (1989), 339-77 Williams and Williams

1985-91 = H. and C. Williams,

'Excavations at Mytilene (Lesbos), 1984-90', annual reports in Echos du mondeclassique,vols. 29-35, n.s.

4-I0

(1985-91)

2 The prominence of Lesbos (especially Mytilene) in the archaic period was recognized even in early accounts of Greek history. K. J. Beloch, Griechische i (Strasburg, Geschichte, 1912), 218-19 (the Penthilidai), 256 (the literary sources for

the Lesbian founding of Ainos), 351 (Pittakos'constitutional reforms), 374 and 388 (the tyrannies in Lesbos and the war for Sigeion). Unfortunately nearly all subsequent works have limited their discussions to almost exactly the same few historical events and given minimal consideration to archaeology. 3 A. R. Burn, TheLyricAgeof Greece (London, 1960), ch. 12, pp. 226-46, constructedhis own picture of archaic Lesbos (to which he devoted a whole chapter) simply from the literary sources, giving only five sentences of comment on archaeological data. Even more striking is the absence of archaeological comment on Lesbos in L. H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece:The City-statesc.7oo00-5ooBc (London, 1976): throughout

the book much space is devoted to the archaeologyof Greece and the Aegean islands, but for Lesbos it is considered sufficientto mention simply the events known throughliterary sources (pp. 47, 53, 89-90,

232, 237-41). Even the detailed

picture of archaicLesbospieced togethervery skilfullyby Page 149-243 contains only one sentence alluding to the archaeology of the island (p. 169, where the traces of worship of Dionysos in the island are mentioned). This ignorance of the materialculture has continued to the present day, and the recently published paper of H. J. Mason, 'Mytilene and Methymna: quarrels, borders and topography', Classical Views/Echos du mondeclassique, 37 (I993), 225-50, reconstructs

many events in archaic Lesbian history without recourse to material remains; once again, only lip-service is paid to the archaeologyof the island:pp. 239-40, where the commentary on the single site discussedin any detail throughoutthe whole paper is poor.

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the region's turbulent history in this century together with its continuing military role as a frontier island, little archaeological research has been carried out.4 Archaeologically the island has become a 'grey area' of the Aegean with very few scholarly publications over the last century,5 and consequently there is an understandable ignorance of the material from

Lesbos in recent major studies of Dark Age and archaic Greek archaeology. The island is either completely ignored or it is observed simply that the lack of obviously 'Greek' material visible during these early periods makes the task of interpreting the data more difficult.6 There remains today a serious problem resulting from the lack of previous archaeological research in Lesbos. Namely, that the emphasis upon only the more accessible 'history' as portrayed by Alkaios and Sappho and an ignorance of the material culture have led to studies of archaic Lesbos constructing a Hellenocentric picture of the island, grouping Lesbos with other islands in the Aegean and regions of mainland Greece for comparative analysis.7 The vast majority of previous studies have focused on aspects such as the early constitution of Mytilene, emphasizing the parallels to be drawn with other states in Greece which went

through similar processes:an archaic oligarchy (includingan early bolla( = bould,council) and agora(assembly)mentioned by Alkaios);a series of short-lived tyrannies (again testified to by Alkaios); and a lawgiver figure (in this case Pittakos as aisymnetes).8Such studies and comparisons are not necessarily invalid, since there are certainly important parallels to be made with the constitutions of other poleis in mainland Greece in the archaic period. If consideration had been given to the archaeology, however, it would have revealed two 4 In over a century there have been only four excavations that have been published in any detail. Messa: Koldewey, 47-61 and pls 18-26; Antissa: Lamb, Antissa 193o-I and Antissa193I-2; Thermi: Lamb, Thermi;Mytilene: Williams and Williams 1985, 225-33; 1986, 141-54, 247-62; 1987, 135-49; 1989, 167-81; 1990, 181-93; I991, 175-91. 5 The main works on the island's archaeology since the late I9th cent. number only six: Koldewey; Lamb, Thermi; and Lesbos;Axiotis i-ii. Of these Buchholz; Kontis, Polyptycho books, Buchholz carried out little new fieldwork, largely cataloguing the finds made by others previouslyin the island, and the archaeological comment in both works by Kontis is often vague and inconsistent. 6 This last problem of the interpretation of EIA 'nonGreek' material from Lesbos is illustrated in A. M. of Greece:The PresentStateandFuture Snodgrass, An Archaeology Scopeof a Discipline(Berkeley, 1987), 177 fig. 52. In recent syntheses of Greek dark age and archaic archaeology there is an acute lack of awarenessof the island'smaterial, and in the indices of many such books 'Lesbos' or 'Mytilene' rarely Definitionand Origin appear: M. B. Sakellariou, ThePolis-state: (Athens, I989), 403, wholly overlooksthe Protogeometricand Geometric archaeological record in Lesbos in his examination of the Dark Age migrations to Ionia, whereas that of other regions of E. Greece is discussed. In the whole book, only the historical questions raised by the mention in the literary sources of the Penthilidai (p. 120) and Alkaios' description of Pittakos as 'tyrannos' (p. 176)receive attention and archaeological data for Lesbos are ignored completely. Another example is the absence of the EIA sites in Lesbos from the discussion of dark age settlement development and contact with the east in A. J. M. Whitley, Styleand Societyin Dark Age Greece(Cambridge, 1991), 44-5. This lack of

awareness of the island's archaeology has not been helped in recent years by the lack of reports in the Chronika ofA. Delt. from 1976 until 1986. 7 The comparisons made are mostly with Kylonian or Solonian Athens and also Bacchiad Corinth: Page, 170, where comparison is made between the faction of Alkaios, including Pittakos, and the Kylonian conspiracy; A. Andrewes, The GreekTyrants(London, 1960), 92-9, where the comparison of the tyrannies in Mytilene is made largely with Athens; O. Murray,EarlyGreece (London, 1980), 155-8, where the only discussion of archaic Lesbos focuses on the tyrannies in Mytilene and how they compare to the Bacchiads in Corinth; A. M. Snodgrass, ArchaicGreece:The Age of Experiment (London, 1980), 94-5, where the settlement of the tyranny and stasis in archaic Mytilene by Pittakos is compared to the actions of Solon in Athens; G. Kordatou, H lasrqd[ xat o0xoovwvixoiaylCveSazrrlAopo (Athens, 1982), 31. This hellenocentric bias in the study of the early historical periods has recently been criticized by S. Morris, 'Introduction', in G. Kopcke and I. Tokumaru (eds), Greece BC (Papersof theMeeting East and West:ioth-8th Centuries between at theInstituteof FineArts,NJewYorkUniversity, 15-r6 Mar. 199Io) (Mainz, 1992),xv-xvi. 25-32; id., Lesbos,146-52; Murray (n. SKontis, Polyptycho, 7); Snodgrass (n. 7); Kordatou (n. 7), 29-45: Sakellariou(n. 6), 12o, 176;Page, 149-243. Page (ibid.) does indeed speak about the constitution of archaic Mytilene as portrayed in Alkaios (177-9) but is the only author to give due consideration to the eastern elements in the culture also. He discusses the very un-Greek nature of some of the armour and weaponry described by Alkaios (209-23), the issue of Pittakos' foreign ancestry (170 and n. 8), and the part played by Lydia in the history of archaic Lesbos (n. 9 below).

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

Lesbos'

GREECE

271

TURKEY

Chios

AEGEAN

SEA

FIG.I. Lesbos and the Aegean (dashed line representsmodern political boundary with Turkey).

features. Firstly (as one might expect), that despite general similarities between Lesbos and other regions of the East Greek world there are also subtle differences. And secondly, that Lesbos exhibits strong links to the east in the same period, and through the archaeological record one sees an island which in some respects is noticeably un-Greek in the Bronze Age and the early historical periods. The only enunciation made of these eastern links, however, again has tended to be limited to the fragments of the early literary sources in which the Lydians are occasionally mentioned by Alkaios and Sappho as external agents dabbling in the faction fighting in archaic Mytilene or as exportersof fineries to Lesbos.9 Apart from a lack of awareness of the island's archaeology, a further circumstance which has entrenched this disregard of the east (but probably also helped to create it) is modern 9 Page, 52-7, 88, 92-6, 132, 226-34.

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272

political geography, in which Lesbos lies on the very edge of Greece (FIG. I). The current national boundary which divides Greece and Turkey to the east of Lesbos leaves the island cut off from its most immediate neighbour, the coastline of Anatolia,'o and has imposed a break between two areas which were linked intimately from prehistory until the twentieth

century."lThis barrier has led to studies of Lesbos and the coastline of Anatolia to the east being carried out in almost total isolation from each other, even though they are integral parts of the same study area.'" The three main published studies of the island carried out in recent years have been by Greek authors'3 for whom there was even more difficulty in stressing the eastern (Turkish) material heavily.14 One of these studies specifically stated in its title to be including the coastal area of Turkey opposite the island (the Mytilenean peraea of antiquity),'5 but there was given only a brief geographical, geological and topographical outline (again based largely on literary sources) and the material remains of the peraea received almost no attention at all.16 The purpose of this paper, therefore, is threefold. First and foremost, the intention is to restore the archaeology of the region to the forefront of study, since it is only by doing this

that it becomes possible to produce a three-dimensional picture of Lesbos during the Early Iron Age. Secondly, by emphasizing the archaeology, the similarities and subtle differences between Lesbos and other regions of the East Greek world can be traced. And lastly, the examination of the archaeology will correct the previous 'Hellenocentric' bias of the literary picture, and it will be demonstrated that the island of Lesbos, lying as it does beside the mainland of Anatolia, was very much an extension of the Anatolian cultural tradition both before, and even after, the arrival of the Aiolian Greeks. The starting-point for the discussion, however, should not be the Iron Age when the Greeks were settled in Lesbos, but the Bronze Age, since it is only by a brief review of the latter that one can place what came later in its full context. 1o The coastline of Anatolia is much closer even than the nearest island (Chios), being only c.I8 km across the Mytilini strait, while Chios lies some 45 km to the s. 11The link to Anatolia from the EBA is examined below. Even in the late I9th and early 20th centuries, however, many families in Lesbos still had relatives living on the continent, others possessed lands there or went there for seasonal work, and some elements of the population on the coast of Asia Minor regularly made the journey over the narrow strait for important religious festivals on Lesbos. For families from Lesbos owning lands and working in Asia Minor see R. Siphnaiou, 'toLXEica yia t1v oixovoCla xcri lilv

Afopov to 190 atdLva',Aeoaltaxd, 12 (1989), 317; xotvovira tlg id. 'H Aiopog to 20 tlOO6 to 190 alt(va 0VQoa OtOg aci6 upoEEtVwig aknXloypagnieg',

Aea/taxid,

13 (1991),

289-90,

294.

For the

involvement of Greeks in Asia Minor in religious festivals in r v o~p', Lesbos see: Jacoby of Mytilene, 'Espil~ptan 5 (1952), 3; G. L. Parakseuaidis, Mtxpautartxa )povtxd, latter Mav6aidciog Adospov (Thessaloniki,

1987), 74-5 (the

notes that until 1922 Greeks living in Ayvalikand Moschonisi regularly crossed the Mytilini strait for the festival at the Taxiarchismonastery near Mandamados on 8 Nov., near the E coast of the island). 12 The one major study that both bridged the Greek-Turkish border and also considered the archaeological data in great detail (Bayne) was never published. The political schism has exaggerated the break

between the two halves of the study area, meaning that many finds from the island are today in museum collections in Turkey. 13Kontis, Polyptycho; id., Lesbos;Axiotis i-ii. 14 Kontis, Polyptycho, 5-14, and Lesbos, 136-7, begins his

respective studies of the Bronze Age by emphasizing strongly the cultural links of bronze age Lesbos to Anatolia, but at the same time (Polyptycho, 7) points out that Lesbos is to be seen as firmly within the bounds of the E. Greek world. The short article of S. Charitonidis, "H i6ro~toplpa tot3okheptaxo 5 (1966), 161-8 is AEOLtmaxd, orilYv pXa'ixio nyoXli', tono!loo also caught in this political minefield, since the author finds himself pushed into denying the eastern influences in archaic Lesbos (see esp. p. 167) despite arguing for a uniqueness of

Lesbian material culture in this period when compared to the rest of Greece. It is noteworthy that studies of other E. Aegean islands have managed to bridge this gap when they focus on the archaeology and have been carried out by scholars who had no political interest in denying the eastern (Turkish)material, e.g. G. Shipley,A Historyof Samos8oo-I8o BC(Oxford, 1987). 15Kontis, Lesbos.

16Kontis, Lesbos,58-87, in which only two pages (79-81) give somewhat sketchy comment on the archaeology of the peraea.A similar (more brief) review of the literary evidence for the Mytilenean

peraea (without

a single

mention

archaeological remains)appears in Kontis, Polyptycho, 24-5.

of

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN BRONZE

AGE

LESBOS:

EAST AND WEST

AN OUTPOST

273

OF ANATOLIA

In ceramic terms the Bronze Age settlements throughout Lesbos consist of uniform assemblages,indicating that culturallythe island was an extension of north-westAnatolia and the Troad.17The best-knownsite is at Thermi on the E side of the island which was excavated by Winifred Lamb from 1929 to 1933,18 and other scatters of Early Bronze Age pottery have been reported further N along the E coast at Kastro Kydonias19 and Sarakinas (FIG.2).20 It is

noteworthy,however, that even the other main concentration of Bronze Age sites in Lesbos (around the central Gulf of Kalloni) shows basically the same ceramic repertoire, indicating that it was not simply the E coast of the island which was dominated by this Anatolian cultural tradition.21The most spectacularsite of this central group is at Kourtirwhere Chatzi's surface inspection and trial trenches led to the conclusion that the site had been approximatelyfive times as extensive at Thernm'i,making the site potentially one of the most significant in the north-eastAegean.22 The recent publication of the results of chemical analyses of metalworkfrom Thermi also supportsthe indicationsfrom the ceramic record that the cultural sphere of Anatolia extended 17 For the comparanda of Lesbian bronze age material with that from Troy, Yortan, and Beycesultan see Bayne, 137-9; Buchholz,

121-4. There are finds at Thermi which

indicate contact with other areas in the Bronze Age. In towns I and II there are clear Cycladic elements in the culture: the broad, square house plans (not typically Anatolian), an assemblage of stone figurines and marble bowl fragments; see Lamb, Thermi, 8, 208-9; K. Lambrianides, 'Present-day Chora on Amorgos and prehistoric Thermi on Lesbos: alternative views of communities in transition',in N. Spencer (ed.), Time,Tradition and Societyin GreekArchaeology:Bridging the 'GreatDivide' (London, 1995).In the MBA Lamb noted echoes of MH and MM pottery in the local red and grey wares, and by the LBA there were imports (and local copies) of Mycenaean pottery, Mycenaean sword types and arrowheads;see Lamb, Thermi, 2II-I2. It remains true, however, that the overwhelmingbias in the culture throughout was still very much an eastern one. It is also worthy of note that, as with the EIA and archaic archaeological data, the bronze age material from Lesbos has also been largely ignored in previous studies; e.g. Lesbos does not even receive an entry in Hope Simpson and Dickinson, GAC,even though nearby eastern islands such as Samos, Chios, and Psara are catalogued. 18Lamb, Thermi. 19Axiotis i, 149-50 and pl. 31. oni AIolo', 'Mla vyoa Ypo'looptLx.il 0o Archaiologia,40 (i991), 79-80; Axiotis, i. 185 and pl. 35. 20 M. Axiotis,

21Around the central gulf of Kalloni the sites at Chalakies, Lisbori, Kourtir, Pyrrha, Arisbe, Prophitis Ilias (Agia Paraskevi),and Makara have all produced evidence of EBA or MBA activity, again of the same Anatolian' character as the bronze age sites on the E coast. Chalakies: Charitonidis 1960, 237; Buchholz,

122-3; Axiotis

ii, 580; BSA sherd

archive, unpublished; DAI sherd archive, unpublished. Lisbori: Charitonidis 1960, 489-90; Axiotis ii, 550-1. Kourtir:

M. Paraskeva'dis, 'Niteg tpatokoytLig EV6elEtLg ylt til Aopo', Aeaptaxi, 5 (1966), 208, 217; Paraskevai'dis (n. I), 259; Chatzi 1971, 457; M. Paraskevaidis, 'Ti v~ca popkiraa ~ Trig Epevvagc~tv

tpo'ooptxfiv

obxtogifv T1]g A~oPov', ArEu/Laxac,

6 (I973), 128-9; Buchholz, 122-3; M. Paraskevatdis, 'Lesbos'

in PECS 503; Axiotis ii. 566-7; BSA sherd archive, unpublished. Pyrrha: W Lamb, 'Grey wares from Lesbos', JHS 52 (1932), 1-12 (the sherds are stored in the Gottingen

Archaeological Institute); W. Schiering, 'ZweihundertJahre gbttinger archaologischeSammlungen',AA (1967), 432-3 and fig. 28; Paraskevai'dis, 262; Buchholz,

123, 136; Schiering,

344. Arisbe: Bayne, 246; D. H. French, Anatolia and the Aegeanin the ThirdMillenniumBc, i (unpublishedPh.D. thesis; Univ.

of Cambridge,

1968),

232 fig. 29 a, b I; Chatzi

1972,

594-5 and pl. 546 a, y. Prophitis Ilias: M. Paraskeva'dis, "O tpoLotoptxbg oLxto~bogto0 X6oov npopilt] 'Hkla 'Ayiag napao2xE ;gAIopov', AEaLt3axi, 7 (1978), 161-88; id., "O 'H"Ha 'Ayig stpo'iroptxbg otlxbtoob ' 64bov npoilTy napaoxe~vr g Aop3ov', To PIMa, 15 July I979; Axiotis, i. 340-I;

BSA sherd archive, unpublished. Makara: French, op. cit. 232 fig. 29 a, b I; BSA sherd archive, unpublished. 22 The report of Chatzi, dated 14 Sept. I970,

ran as

follows: 'An extent of more than 300 m is full of sherds, and a scarp approximatelyfive metres in height is being eroded by the sea to the north-west side where parallel walls of houses can be made out (there are at least three strata of settlement) many of which are found at sea-level and entering into it. Sherds were picked out from different parts of the scarp, the majority of which are of EBA date similar to those from Thermi, a few are definitely late Neolithic, and a fair number are of the MBA. From all over the ground [above], which is intensively cultivated, were picked up a mass of middle and late bronze age Lesbian red and grey wares, but also a large number of imported Mycenaean sherds.' (The whole report is quoted in Paraskeva'dis 1973 (n. 21), 128-9).

Chatzi's confidence that the Late Neolithic was represented at Kourtir remains to be justified, although the pattern burnished sherd from Lesbos published by R. C. S. Felsch, Samos,ii: Das KastroTigani:die spiitneolithische Siedlung(Bonn, 1988), lo05 "n.413, may come from Kourtir (or Chalakies, see

J. L. Davis, 'Review of Aegean prehistoryI: the islands of the Aegean',

AJA 96 (1992), 724). For Kontis's

conclusion

regarding the original size of the settlement at Kourtir see Kontis, Lesbos,359.

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274

10Km

100m

Lesbos Mytilene

527

Kydonias Thermi

Interval

0

Kastro

Contour

of GERAS GULF

\Perama\

Sarakinas

913

Schaus). (P text in to

referred

Pyrrha

968

isbe Ar

sites

GULF of

890

archaeological KALLONI

main

Kourt

and island of

Methymna 542 654

Map 2. FIG.

Makara 589'

Antissa 512

Ereso

EARLY LESBOS

BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

275

to the offshore islands. It is now known that the lead element in copper artefacts from Thermi towns III and IV possess similar lead-isotope signatures to finds at Troy and Yortan, and the latter are two sites with which the pottery of Thermi (and the other Bronze Age sites in Lesbos) find close parallels.23 A significant feature of the Late Bronze Age in the north-east Aegean is that the area not

only continues to show affinities with Anatolia, but also is clearly distinguished from other parts of the Mycenaean world in the Aegean and mainland Greece. Firstly,Lesbos is one of the very few areas of Greece to be mentioned in the Hittite texts.24 Furthermore, despite the local imitations of late Mycenaean pottery, imported vessels, and even Mycenaean-style metalwork at Antissa, Perama, Thermi and Kourtir25 (which led Bayne to suggest that Perama and Antissa were settlements of Mycenaean refugees in LH III B-c after the destructions in mainland Greece26), aspects of the culture are almost unparalleled in other regions during this period. At Makara on the w coast of the mouth of the Gulf of Kalloni (FIG.2) there are huge cist graves (suggested to be of LH III date) which were first noted by Charitonidis and are still visible today.27 Cist tombs are unusual this late in the Mycenaean sequence in mainland Greece and the Aegean,28 but graves similar to those at Makara appear nearby at Emporio on

Chios and on Psara, and this whole group has been seen as representingthe survivalof a preMycenaean, local tradition of burial in the north-east Aegean, thereby distinguishing the region from nearly all of the Mycenaean world.29 THE

COMING

OF THE

GREEKS?

Tradition held that at some point after the end of the Bronze Age there had been a colonization of the island by Aiolian Greek settlers from Boiotia and Thessaly,30 a claim which gains credence from the dialect of Greek later spoken by the Lesbians which is akin to that spoken in these two regions of mainland Greece.3'

23 E Begemann, D. Schmitt-Strecker, and E. Pernicka, 'The metal finds from Thermi III-IV: a chemical and lead-

LH III A Mycenaean imports: Lamb, Antissa 1930-I, 167-71;

isotope study', Studia Troica, 2 (1992), 237-8, cited in Davis (n. 22), 724 n. so6.

62 a.

24 Lesbos is usually assumed to be the 'Lazpas' of the Hittite documents. See G. E del Monte and J. Tischler, vi: Die Orts- und Ripertoiregiographiquedes textescundiformes, deshethitische Texte(Wiesbaden, 1978),245-6. Gewidssennamen 25 Buchholz,

135-7, catalogues

all the Mycenaean

finds

from the island, although no mention is made of the sherds at Kourtir, for which Chatzi's report (n. 22) is the only published account. The site Buchholz catalogues as 'Hiera' (cat. no. F 14 a.b/no.

G 3, pp. I23, 136) is that named

Perama by Cook and Bayne: J. M. Cook, 'Archaeology in Greece

139-40.

I949-50',

Details

JHS

71 (1949-50),

of more

unpublished

247;

Bayne,

I2-15,

late Mycenaean

sherds from Antissa are listed in the archive of the BSA, n. 26. 26 Bayne, 124, 139-40. The site at Perama has remained

unexplored since the visits of Cook and Bayne (n. 25), but some sherds were brought back to Athens where they were stored in the BSA. The LBA settlement found by Lamb at Antissa was especially significant, exhibiting impressive structural remains and ceramics which included copies of LH II wares in the local grey and red fabric together with

BSA W Lamb archive,Antissa 60. 27 Charitonidis

1961-62, 265; Axiotis, ii. 530-I and pl. 62,

280. Dickinson, 'Cist graves and chamber tombs', BSA 78 (1983), 61-2; id. The AegeanBronzeAge (Cambridge, 1994), 227,

231; M. S. E Hood, 'Mycenaeans in Chios', in J. Boardman and C. E. Vaphopoulou-Richardson(eds), Chios:A Conference at theHomereion in Chios,1984 (Oxford, 1986), I69. 29 Davis (n. 22) 725 n. Iio (cist graves at Emporio, Chios),

727 (Psara).For the use of cist graves in the NE Aegean as evidence for a pre-Mycenaean local burial tradition see Dickinson 1983 (n. 28), 62. It is perhaps also worthy of note that even in the Iliad Lesbos is grouped very much with Anatolia, since Achilles speaks of the island as the furthest outpost of Priam'skingdom, Hom. II. xxiv. 544-6. 30 The literary references are collected byJ. B6rard, 'La migration 0olienne',RA (1959),22-8. 31 See D. P. Mantzouranis, 01 arpciieg1yxaraarcaelg Tov 'Ellrvwv aulvAluoo (Mytilene, 1949), passim;C. D. Buck, The GreekDialects (Chicago, 1955), 147-54; Bayne, 158-62, 33I-40;

Kontis, Polyptycho, 16;J. M. Cook, 'Greek settlement in the eastern Aegean and Asia Minor', CAH ii. 2 (Cambridge, 1975), 777-8; Kontis, Lesbos, 116-24 (for the Lesbian dialect in

general).

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Cook believed that it was impossible to say even whether the Dark Age migrations to the island represented the first Greek or Aiolic settlement in Lesbos.32He proposed (with little supporting evidence) that the reason for the destruction of Thermi around the end of the fourteenth century and the abandonment of Perama in the twelfth century was the arrival of Greeks and the subsequent expansion of some sites such as Mytilene to the south which he described as 'flourishing'in the Late Bronze Age.33In conclusion he stated the following: 'we can only say that the Greek settlement there [in Lesbos] is not likely to have begun before 2300 BC or

later than IO1000 BC'.34

It may be true that one cannot be completely sure no Mycenaeans were visiting Lesbos in the Late Bronze Age (and perhaps even staying there for longer periods of time),35 but at all

the sites which have been explored in any detail there is no continuity between the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age (as Cook and Kontis had claimed there to be36).The sites which have been sufficientlyexamined to offer evidence for the transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age are those which developed into the polls centres of classical antiquity,and at all of these settlements there is a hiatus of varying length from Bronze Age occupation until the first signs of Iron Age activity (and the latter all seem to postdate Iooo). This hiatus at different sites suggests that there was certainly a period of colonization from Greece (either a renewal of a previous movement or a new initiative) after the end of the Bronze Age which started after 1000 and continued even as late as the Geometric period. As will be shown below in the examination of the data from the later polls centres, the

reason why it is difficult to prove exactly when the first Greek settlers arrived in Lesbos is because the new arrivals seem to have exerted little influence upon the pre-existing cultural (especiallyceramic) patterns in the island.37Bayne noted that at Antissa the earliest Iron Age pottery included very few painted wares (and possibly had been purely monochrome), thus making it especially difficult to pin down in terms of absolute chronology.38 Indeed, 32 Cook

(n. 31), 778. Mantzouranis

(n. 31),

22, and

Buchholz, 134 (and n. 338) also preferred to see the Greek arrival in the NE Aegean as predating the end of the LBA, for which the latter cited the graves on Psara and at Makara as evidence (despite the fact that such cist graves are extremely unusual when compared to mainland Greece in the LBA;see nn. 28-9 above). 33Cook, ibid.; Kontis, Polyptycho, i4, repeats this link of the destruction at Thermi to the arrival of the Aiolians. Cook's justification for the 'flourishing' of LBA Mytilene was the fact the 'Mycenaean sherds are said to have been found there' (ibid.). The sherds to which Cook refers, however, are those in the British Museum found by Newton in the I9th cent., and these may not even come from Mytilene itself, but could be from anywhere on the island. The island is often called 'Mytilene' (its medieval and early modern name) as well as 'Lesbos', and the sherds were labelled simply 'Mytilene' in the Museum's handwritten inventory. Some Mycenaean sherds are said to have been found recently in the building work for the new museum in Mytilini town (on the sw slope of the later acropolis; see n. 43 below), but to describe the site of Mytilene as 'flourishing' in the LBA on the current evidence is pure fiction. For the bibliography on the Mycenaean sherds from 'Mytilene' in the British Museum (and photographs of the sherds) see Buchholz, 136,

Foundation Lecture, Texas, 1984), 13-14, for the association

of an unexplored 'Cyclopean' acropolis site E of Methymna with the literary references by Homer and Parthenios to the raid of Achilles on Lesbos and the 'well-built' and 'highgated' cities of the island; Mantzouranis (n. 31), 28, for Brisa and Achilopigado; E. L. Shields, 'Lesbos and the Trojan war', CJ 13 (1917-I8),

673-4,

for the hypothesis

that the

Homeric figure 'Briseis' is to be understood as a 'girl from Brisa'. 36 Cook (n. 31), 778 (where the claim is made that there

was continuous occupation from the i4th cent. at Antissa); Kontis, Lesbos,139, repeats this mistaken interpretationof the finds at Antissa. Admittedly more work is required at all sites in the island before either continuity or a hiatus is proven, and the recent reports of PG material at Methymna (where previously only Geometric was known, see n. 40) indicate that one has to remain cautious. 37 Kontis, Polyptycho,16; Buchholz, 134; Cook (n. 31), 778.

pl. 14. d-i. 34 Cook

35See n. 25 for details of Mycenaean finds in Lesbos. The myths relating to the raid of Achilles on Lesbos during the Trojan war, his destruction of 'high-gated Methymna', together with place-names with Homeric echoes in the region s of Pyrrha (including Achilopigado' and the modern village of 'Brisa'),have been suggested to be further hints of Greek activity in the area at some point in the LBA. See P. Green, Lesbos and the Cities of Asia Minor (Dougherty

(n. 31), 778-9.

38 Bayne,

230, 238, 240, 330.

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

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277

throughout Lesbos recognizably 'Greek' material of Protogeometric and Geometric date is so rare that it is just as difficult to know whether the Early Iron Age material is representative of a Greek 'colonization' as the presence of Mycenaean wares previously.39 The earliest Iron Age material in Lesbos is to be found at Mytilene and Pyrrha where 'Protogeometric' material has been uncovered (of those pieces which are closely dateable, the phase represented is late in the Protogeometric sequence).40 New evidence from Methymna may also date the early Iron Age settlement there from the Protogeometric period (see n. 40), but at present the only published material (as at Antissa) is of Geometric date, whilst the two other settlements which became polis centres in the archaic period, Eresos and Arisbe, have produced nothing yet which can certainly predate the archaic period. If these first signs of post-Bronze Age activity at sites in Lesbos are representative of an influx of Aiolian Greek settlers to the island (and it is impossible to know this for certain), then the different periods to which material at each site dates suggests one of two possibilities. Either that the colonization, and the foundation of the sites in Lesbos, happened over a significant period of time, with many waves of movement from mainland Greece rather than a single voyage east by migrant groups.41 Alternatively, that after an initial, monolithic movement east to Lesbos and the west coast of mainland Anatolia, there was subsequently a period of further localized movement and colonization within the immediate area of Aiolis and to different areas of the island of Lesbos.42 (a) MYTILENE (FIG. 3)

The site of ancient Mytilene lies under the modern town of the same name, and the retrievalof remains of the ancient city has therefore been limited nearly exclusively to chance finds during construction work. Only the recent excavationsinside the Medieval kastrohave been able to progressunhindered by the limitations imposed by modern buildings or streets. Traces of Bronze Age occupation have been rare, and it was only recently during construction work for the new museum on the w slope of the ancient acropolis that finds of Bronze Age date were recovered.43Nevertheless, traces of settlement activity in the Protogeometricand Geometric periods have been known for many years, and these finds provide the earliestevidence of Iron Age occupation of the site. The most significant topographical feature of the ancient site which is no longer apparent is the narrow channel which ran between the north and south harbours.44This channel meant that in antiquity the area on which the Medieval kastro now stands was an islet separated slightly from the main shoreline of Lesbos. The modern Odos Ermou follows the approximate line of the ancient

39 This doubt regarding the interpretation of the (largely non-Greek) material in the E. Aegean in EIA Lesbos is clear in Snodgrass (n. 6).

the colonization was a long-drawn-out affair, see Bhrard (n.

accord well with the picture of extensive and continuous depopulation during the centuries after the Mycenaean collapse' (430); see also his fig. 52 (409) and the table (428) for details of the scale and duration of this depopulation throughout the EIA. 42 This possibility of a single movement is implied in Kontis, Polyptycho, 14-16, despite the literary traditions and archaeological record which both suggest that the Iron Age settlements in Lesbos were founded over a long period (see n.

30, esp. 8, 16-I7, and the account of Strabo xiii. I. 3 (582)

41).

40 Axiotis, i. 229 and ii. 740 n. 3, reports that in 1989 the

island's archaeological ephoreia may have located strata of PG date at Methymna, but these finds remain to be corroborated. 41 Bayne, 339-40.

The literary traditions also imply that

andPopulation quoted on p. 25) andJ. M. Fossey, Topography of Ancient Boiotia (Chicago, 1988), I, 428-9. Fossey, (pp. 424-31)

also notes that the discernable archaeological patterns in EIA Boiotia (from where some of the colonists to Lesbos are said to have come) supports the view that there was more than one wave of colonization: 'The extensive involvement of Boiotians in the various migrations and the length of time over which these movements took place

43Finds of EBA date were reported by the archaeological ephoreia in a report of their work in 1990: Axiotis, i. 19; Mycenaean sherds have been reported from the same excavation, but the precise chronology of both groups of pottery is still not published. 44 This feature was noted by A. Conze, Reiseauf derInsel Lesbos(Hanover, 1865), 4; Koldewey, 3, 12, and pls 1-2; Kontis, Polyptycho, 17-18 and fig. 12;Kontis, Lesbos,2II-I2.

NIGEL

278

SPENCE

400m

Mytide

40. fig.

intervals. m 20 Lesbos, at

<'Well 0

Kontis, Contours After tomb). period.

one =

Archaic (b) triangle

8 (each

periods;

3-6,tombs =

Figs. to

Geometric and finds

triangles

Key finds

pottery; of Geometric Protogeometric

400m

Protogeometric finds in = circles

O

settlement \Springs/ EPANSKALA

The (a)

remains;

structural Mytilene.= 3: FIG. Squares

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

279

watercourse, and beside this road the end of one of the ancient bridges (probably of hellenistic or Roman date) is still visible.45The channel (and the bridges) are referred to by Diodoros and Longus46 but the exact date when the passage later silted up has not been ascertained.47Presumably,this feature would have made the site especially attractive for two reasons. There were two natural, sheltered harbours at both ends of the offshore islet, and the channel also made the site strong defensively by offering a natural 'moat' around part of the settlement. The evidence for the Protogeometric and Geometric periods consists of two tombs (one Protogeometric, one Geometric), a deposit from what appears to have been a bothros of a nearby temple, scatteredpottery finds, and a recently discoveredbuilding of Protogeometricdate in the Epano Skala quarter of the modern town. The discovery of this building provides evidence to contradict the previously held hypothesis that the original iron age settlement was limited to the area where the Kastro now stands (the 'island' in antiquity separated from the mainland).48It is now clear that the settlementwas, at least in part, on the mainland also. The walls of the only known Protogeometric building are set in bedrock and constructed of small stones joined with mud (only the lowest elements of the walls were preserved).49The plan of the building cannot be restoredwith certainty because only the arc of an apse and part of one straightwall were preserved. In association with the wall of the building, in a hollow of the bedrock, a subProtogeometricamphora (stylisticallysimilar to Euboian and Thessalian examples) and bucchero vases were found.50 In the same excavationplot as this building were noted the remains of a temple bothros (the location of the temple is not yet known).5' Pottery, including black and red-figure sherds, animal bones, sea shells, and a mass of idols 'of different types' (period unspecified)were found.52The finds are said to span twelve centuries, from the tenth century BCto the second century AD, but no more details are yet provided of the finds.53 The only other find of Protogeometric pottery in the mainland area (apart from Protogeometric pottery which was found in a tomb, see below) was uncovered 200 m sw of the modern church of Agios Therapon. A street of the classical period was found, under the foundations of which lay an amalgam of pebbles and sherds from protogeometric to Roman times.54The pebbles and the mingling of these different sherds suggested that at one point in antiquity the area had been flooded by a river which entered the sea nearby.55 In the Epano Skala quarter of the modern town (which formed the shore of the mainland in antiquity) Ioo m SWof the north harbour a tomb of Protogeometric date was recently located.56The find is still unpublished, so the bare details of its location and date are all that is available at the present time. Further to the south, a burial of the Geometric period was found with a later archaic one in 1928 when the belfry of Agios Simeon was being constructed(the churchlies right in the centre of the modern town). The only finds from these tombs which have been mentioned in a brief published report are the following;grey ware amphorae, hydriae,a deep grey ware bowl with an incised wavy line pattern on the outside; a gold ring, and an 'earlier' fibula.57The deep bowl is labelled 'archaic' in the Mytilene museum, but Bayne thought that the shape probably came early in the Iron Age grey wares sequence,"58 45The bridge was found under house foundations on the w side of the former channel near the Geni Tjami. 46 Diod. xiii. 79. 8; Longus, I. I. 47The channel probably became impassable at some point during the Middle Ages, but no coring work has succeeded in determining the exact date of its disappearance. 48 Kontis, Polyptycho, i8; Kontis, Lesbos,211-12. 49 Archontidou-Argyri, 'XpovLxaK' e&opeiagcrpXaLtoriov 1tov;

I986-1987',

50 Ibid.

AeLtaxci,

12 (I989),

68.

51 This site has recently been proposed to represent the

temple of Apollo Maloeis, but there is not yet any proof for this identification. S. Balaska, 'Na xramloo0o6vTr apccia', E)ev~eporvania,18July I99252Archontidou-Argyri(n. 49), 57, 68. 53Ibid. 68. 54 Chatzi 1971, 449.

55Ibid. 56L. Acheilara, pers. comm. 57R. Herbig, 'Archaologische Funde in den Jahren 1927-28',

AA 1928, 620.

58 Bayne, i73-4.

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and notes made by Lamb during her visit to Lesbos in 1928 indicate that other pottery was found with the bowl (not mentioned in the published report)which also suggests an earlier date. Furthermore,two similar bowls were found both in Mytilene (see below) and also during Lamb's excavations at Antissa in 1932, the find contexts of which prove that the tomb in Mytilene from which the bowl came was in fact Geometric in date. Under a section in a 1928 notebook entitled 'Tombs at Mytilene', Lamb says that Euangelidis (the Ephor of Antiquities in Mytilene) had recently discovered some tombs in Mytilene town, and sketches are made of some of the pottery finds from these tombs.59From one tomb came the grey ware bowl (or lekane) which Herbig notes, but with it was also found a 'painted Protogeometric sherd' (Lamb's description)which is illustrated.60The sketch Lamb made of the Protogeometricsherd is unfortunately not detailed; the profile of the sherd is not given, and only its design of a set of concentric semicircles is clear. This piece need not be Protogeometricand could easily come from a (probably early) Geometric skyphos.61The identical two grey ware lekanai at Mytilene and Antissa probably date to the first half of the ninth century (see below, and sub-section (d)), and a similar date for the tomb with this lekane and the painted sherd at Mytilene is most likely. There were obviously other later tombs found here by Euangelidis; Herbig speaks of grey ware amphorae, hydriae, and a fibula,62and Lamb sketches an amphora, the fabric of which is described as dark grey bucchero.63The latter was also found amongst the tombs in 1928, and in shape resembles closely the early seventh-centurybulbous Lesbian bucchero amphorae which Lamb found at Antissa.64 The fibula to which Herbig refers (but gives no details)may be the large semicircularbossed fibula of Asian Minor type which is reported to be in Mytilene museum.65This type of bossed fibula is one of the more early in the series before the development of the three and five wheeled fibulae in the archaic period, and examples are found especially on the western plateau of Anatolia.66The dating of similar fibulae in Anatolia is put in the second half of the eighth century.An identical one appears on the Ivriz relief (dated to 738) and the mid/late eighth-centurytumuli at Gordion have also produced examples.67 The area of the modern town which formed the island in antiquity has yet to produce structural remains of the Protogeometricor Geometric settlements. There have been finds of stratifiedpottery of these periods, however,almost all concentrated near the north harbour and usually found at the lowest levels immediately above bedrock. The fragment of the Protogeometric Attic high-footed skyphos which Desborough noted was uncovered when the foundations of the Fifth Public School were dug in Epano Skala in an undisturbed stratum near bedrock.68Bayne reported finds from a 'recent' (in 1963) trial excavation 'in the centre of the modern town, presumably on the original island' which located a number of grey ware vessels.69 Amongst the finds were two grey ware beakers, a jug, and another two-handled lekane with incised wavy line decoration, and comparanda from Old Smyrna suggested that the deposit dated to the late Protogeometricor early Geometric periods.70From low down the west slope of the acropolis near to the north harbour (but still on the 'island'),came a single Protogeometricsherd found in a later context. Its design consists of painted concentric circles, and it probably comes from a high-footed skyphos of nonAttic origin.71In this same excavation near the north harbour Geometric sherds were also found at the 59BSA W. Lamb archive, Methymna I (dated 13 Nov. 1928). 60

Ibid.

61 R. Kearsley, The PendentSemi-circle Skyphos(BICS supp. 44; London, 1989),passim. 62

Herbig (n. 57), 620.

63BSA W Lamb archive, Methymna i. 64 Compare the Mytilene example, BSA W. Lamb archive, Methymna i, with those from Antissa ILamb, Antissa 193o--I, pl. 27. 6 The progression

of Lesbian grey

ware amphorae shapes is discussed by B. Clinkenbeard, 'Lesbian wine and storage amphoras: a progress report on

identification', Hesp. 51 (1982), 248-68, pls 69-72. 65J. M. Birmingham, 'The overland route across Anatolia in the eighth and seventh centuries BC',AnatolianStudies,ii (1961), 186. The present ephor, Mrs A. Archontidou-Argyri, was unable to locate this fibula in the apothiki of Mytilene museum. 66 Ibid. i86-8, fig. 11(188-9). 67 Ibid. 186. 68Desborough, PGP81, 217;cf. Kontis, Lesbos,21I. 69 Bayne, 241. 70Ibid. and fig. 25 b, 1-3. 71Williams and Williams 1988, 146.

EARLY LESBOS

BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

28I

lowest levels.72The strata here consist largely of pebbles and gravel, indicating that this area which today lies 140 m from the north harbour formed the shore of the 'island' in antiquity.73The distance from the present coastline is an indication of the silting of the channel at the innermost part of the ancient north harbour.The only evidence of early activity on the upper area of the acropolis (inside the modern Kastro)was a single Protogeometric(or Geometric)sherd with pendent semicircles.74 (b) PYRRHA(FIG.4) The ancient site of Pyrrhalies on an acropoliswhich rises on the E coast of the Gulf of Kalloni near the modern village of Achladeri. As at Mytilene, the earliest traces of post-prehistoricsettlement at Pyrrha are in the Protogeometric and Geometric periods. Structural remains of the Geometric period have been uncovered on the acropolis together with sherds of Protogeometric and Geometric date, and m sw of the acropolis a Protogeometrictomb was uncovered near Achladeri. approximately6oo00 The earliest of the Protogeometric and Geometric sherds from the acropolis date to the late Protogeometricperiod (end of the tenth century)and their closest links are to pottery from East Greece, the Cyclades, Thessaly, Boiotia, and Euboia (PLATE33 a I, 4).75 The Geometric fragments are not easy to date. An amphora neck (PLATE 33 b I) is representativeof the late Geometric period (eighth century), and the sherd from an open vessel with a swastikadesign (PLATE 33 b 6) finds parallelsat Lefkandiin the sub-ProtogeometricIII period (late ninth-early eighth centuries),76but the other (very small) sherds are not particularlydiagnostic. The exact context where these Protogeometricand Geometric sherds were discovered is not recorded, but presumably they come from Boehlau's unpublished excavations of 1906-7 on the acropolis.77No structuresof Protogeometricdate have been located on the acropolis, but the pottery may come from either a disturbed tomb or cult activity preceding the Geometric and archaic temple and altar complex found by Boehlau (see below). The other find of Protogeometricdate is the burial sw of the acropolis at the N foot of the hill named Geniotos, where Koldewey noted other ancient graves and sarcophagi, concluding that here was the necropolis of the ancient settlement (FIG. 4 a).78 The burial consists of a child deposited in a Protogeometric hydria, inside which were also found two parts of an iron spearhead, and bucchero sherdswere found nearby.79No pictures of the hydria are provided, and so it is impossible to determine its exact date or provenance. In Attica the practice of inhumation of children in pots began only in the late Protogeometric period at the end of the tenth century,80and if this custom was borrowed from Attica, the burial would probably be late in the Protogeometric sequence (matching the date of the Protogeometricsherds from the acropolis).At Lefkandi(where the sequence of Early Iron Age burialsis much better), burials in urns also begin in the late Protogeometricperiod,81but the burial at Pyrrha could be earlier than the late Protogeometricperiod if there was a local tradition for this style of burial in Lesbos at an earlier time. Unfortunately,the evidence for burial customs in Early Iron Age Lesbos is very limited, and one can only suggest possibilities for the dating here without being too dogmatic about which is the more likely. 72R. J. O.Millar, 'Mytilene 1990 excavation report: Epano Skala site' (unpublishedMS, 1990),I3-17. 73 Ibid. 14.

74Williams and Williams 1989, 177. 75 The earliest piece is probably the sherd shown in PLATE33 a 4 (Ioth cent.). Main stylistic links are as follows: PLATE 33 a, I find parallels in Thessaly and Euboia; PLATE 33 a, 4 is extremely similar to a late PG amphora found at Smyrna, see C. Ozgtinzel, 'Spaetgeometrische Keramik in de la Bayrakli (Alt-Smyrna)',in G. Vallet (ed.), Les C&ramiques Grice de l'Est et leur diffusion en Occident (Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 569: sciences humaines; Naples, 1978), 17 and figs. 2-2 a; PLATE33 b, I, 3, both find parallels in E. Greece.

The mica present in sherds PLATE 33 a, 2, 4 and b, 2, 4-6 is

most common in EIA pottery from the Cyclades, Smyrna, and inland sites in Thessaly. I am grateful to Dr Irene Lemos for discussing the probable provenance and date of these pieces. 76Dr Irene Lemos, pers. comm. 77Schiering, 344. 78Koldeway,28 and pl. II. 79Archontidou-Argyri(n. 49), 59; L. Acheilara,'Xpovtxd K'e1opla poLOcrToptxO)v A. Delt.41 xat xhaotxO)v apxaLtoTrliv', (1986), Chr. 203. Studies(Lund, 1967), I1i6.'A 80 C. G. Styrenius, Submycenaean new practice [in the late PG period] is the burial of infants in pots'. 81M. R. Popham, L. H. Sackett, and P. G. Themelis (eds), i: Text(Athens, 1980), 200, 202, 358. Lejkandi,

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60. fig. Lesbos,

Kontis,

400m

After

period.

0

Archaic (b)

periods;

Geometric I

and

harbour?

400m

Original

Protogeometric in

O

settlement The (a)

C Pyrrha

en

Pyrrha. 4: FIG.

finds

Achladeri finds

Geometric )Protogeometric

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

283

The earliest structuralremain on the acropolis is the sw curved wall of an apsidal or oval building (orientatedNW/SE)which lies on Boehlau's 'temple terrace', so-called after the discovery of an archaic cult building on the terrace.82The wall was constructed of small squared blocks which stand four courses high.83A column base was located inside the wall as if it formed one of a central row of pillars supportingthe roof.84The plan, the technique of wall construction, and the later archaic rooms which overlie the oval or apsidal original led Schiering to date the building to the eighth century.85 (c) METHYMNA (FIG. 5)

The polis centre at Methymna lies under the modern town of the same name at the northernmosttip of the island. After the abandonment of the prehistoric settlement in the late thirteenth or early twelfth century,86there is no evidence for renewed occupation until the Geometric period (but see n. 40), and even then the traces of habitation activity are very slight. The scant nature of the record may be because the modern town on and around the Medieval kastro overlies much of the ancient city; immediately beyond the modern conurbation there have been many finds of tombs, structuralremains and pottery from the ancient settlement, and when rescue work is carried out in the town area remains are readily found. In the Dabia area of the town, at the far w edge of the promontory on which Methymna lies, Buchholz found three stray finds of a painted Geometric sherd, a loomweight, and a spindlewhorl(the latter two finds datable either to the late Geometric or early archaic periods).87The sherd comes from a skyphos with pendent semicircles, dated by Kearsley to the late ninth century or the first half of the eighth century.88Kearsleyconsidered it to be an import and not of local manufacture.89 Further archaeologicalevidence in the Dabia area of the town which probably dates back to the late eighth century came from Lamb's trial trenches in 1928.90West from the modern graveyardof Agia Marina, Lamb opened a trench near the shore, and when bedrock was reached the pottery consisted almost completely of bucchero.91Amongst these bucchero sherds there was one piece which had a stamped design near the rim, identical to those pieces which were found by Lamb in the late/subGeometric strataat Antissa,92and also by Chatzi at Klopedi.93 To the s of the modern town at the foot of the kastro, there are remains of a street and associated buildings of the early seventh century (see below). Below these, there may also be structures of Protogeometric and Geometric date lying above prehistoric strata.94If these structuresdo date to the former two periods, they would be the first structuralremains of such an Early Iron Age settlement at Methymna. On the s, sw, and w slopes of the kastro,there have been other finds of Geometric date in disturbed strata.95One of these finds is a painted amphora which was found on the slopes of the kastro.96Its painted design consists of red/brown horizontal bands around a cream/buff body, with groups of vertical 'triglyph' lines around the shoulder. Similar painted motifs exist in the East Greek world at Smyrna, in Karia and at Kameiros in Rhodes in the ninth century.97With a relatively simple design 82 Schiering, figs. II-I2. 83 Ibid. 355, fig. 13. 84 Ibid. 351-2, fig. 14 (p. 355). 85 Ibid. 351 and pers. comm. 86 Buchholz, 87-9, 127. 87 Ibid. 78 (Cat. no. D2) for the spindle-whorl; 90-I and

fig. 25 a (Cat. no. Ei3) for the Geometric sherd. 88 Kearsley (n. 61), 128 (table 4), 141. 89 Ibid. I4I.

90 BSA W. Lamb archive, Methymna I, and plans 2-3. "' Ibid. Methymna I (dated 2 Nov. 1928), and trench B on plan 2.

92 Ibid. For similar pottery at Antissa see Lamb, Antissa fig. 6 b-c (p. 52) and pl. 22. 11-20. "" D. Chatzi, 'Ebinto Etgx Aiopou', AAA 5 (1972), 43. No

193i-2,

illustrations are provided, but the stamped and engraved designs were compared to Lamb, Antissa1931-2, 52 (fig. 6) and pl. 22. 94Eleni Bomboulaki,pers. comm. See also Axiotis (n. 40). 95Ibid. 96Methymna archaeologicalcollection, unpublished. 97 Smyrna (early Geometric, second or third quarter of 9th cent.): E. Akurgal, Alt Smyrna: Wohnschichtenund Athenatempel (Ankara, 1983), 26, pl. 15. c-d; Karia (early/late Geometric period, 9th and 8th centuries): C. Ozgtinel, Carian GeometricPottery (Ankara, 1979), plates, passim; Kameiros (middle Geometric, early/mid-8th cent.) G. Jacopi, ClaraRhodos,6-7 (Istituto Storico Archeologico di Rodi, 1932-9), fig. 235 (p. 196, no. LXXXII. 2). I thank Miss C. Dyer for these references.

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43. fig. a

Lesbos, Walled

Kontis, After 400m

period.

Archaic (b) 0

period;

Geometric in

ro

akas

settlement The (a)

Methymna. 5: FIG.

400m

O Methymna

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

285

such as this, however, the shape of the vessel is probably a more reliable indication of the date; using this criterion as a guide, the Methymna amphora would have to be late in the Geometric sequence, since very few Geometric amphorae progressto a similar shape even by the late eighth century.98 (d) ANTISSA (FIG. 6) Ancient Antissalies on the N coast of the island to the w of Methymnaat the promontoryof Obriokastro. The seawardend of the promontoryis crownedby a Genoesekastro,and Lamb found prehistoricstrataon the isthmusleadingto the promontory.99 The main tracesof the historicsettlementlie aroundthe hill a little furtherinland which formed the ancient acropolis,but this settlementwhich followedthe abandonmentof the prehistoricsite is probablynot as earlyas Lambfirstsuggestedafterthe excavationsof i93I-3.l00 There has been much debate over the date of the earlier of Lamb's two apsidal buildings at the N foot of the acropoliswhich represent the earliest Iron Age activity at the site. The discussion centres around the painted sherds which were found 'inside and below' the early apsidal building and therefore are important for the dating of the building's construction.101Desborough thought that none of these sherds were definitely of Protogeometricdate (as Lamb claimed'02),although the one in Lamb's fig. 9 a was most likely to be.'03Kearsley noted that the sherd in fig. 9 a was from a skyphos, along with that in The former has none of its semicirclesintersectingwith the neighbouring set; it may therefore fig. 9 C.104 be one of the earlier skyphoi to exhibit this design, which would place it in the first half of the ninth The early apsidal building also contained a grey ware lekane, the find context of which was century.'105 the same as the skyphossherd in Lamb'sfig. 9 a. A similar dating for the lekane (of the ninth century)is supported by the Rhodian late Geometric pottery which was found above it and the early Geometric context of the similar lekane noted by Bayne at Mytilene (see above).'06The apsidal building would thereforeseem to date from the early/middle Geometric period. Lamb proposedthat the second apsidalbuildingwhich exhibitsLesbianmasonrywalls was built in the eighth century.'07The lifespan of each of the two superimposedapsidal structuresis not clearly defined, however,and this has led to calls for Lamb'sdating scheme to be lowered.'08The Protocorinthiansherds found in the upper layersof the firstbuilding'09continuein the lowest levelsin the second, along with large amountsof bucchero,East Greekpottery (includingsome sherdsof the 'G2-3' ware probablylocally made in the north-eastAegean1o), and two late Geometric or early archaic fibulae of Phrygian type.111" The stratigraphythereforesuggeststhat the second structuremustbe placed at the very end of the eighth century (at the earliest).Although the evidence is unable to offer a precise chronologicalaccuracy,the later strata above the second apsidalbuilding(datedby Lamb to 'well before 6oo00'112) do seem to precludeplacing the constructionof the second edificemuch laterthan 700oounlessthe building'slife was remarkablyshort."3 More traces of settlement activity in the Geometric period were uncovered by Lamb in other trenches at the foot of the acropolis and on the isthmus. Both areas produced great amounts of archaic bucchero and earlier 'local products' of the Geometric period."4 Amongst the bucchero at the foot of 98 For the lack of similar shapes to the Methymna amphora even in the late Geometric era see J. N. Coldstream, GreekGeometric Pottery(London, 1968),pls Io a, II d, II g (Attic),28 b (Argive),37 d, 40 e (Theran). 99 Lamb, Antissa 1930o-1, 167-71, pl. 27. 2.

100The two main articles from the excavations are Lamb, Antissa 1930o-I1and Antissa 1931-2. 101Lamb, Antissa 1931-2, 56 and fig. 9 a-c (p. 57). 102 Ibid. 103 Desborough

(n. 68), 287. Bayne, 238 also expressed

doubt as to the early (PG) dating of the sherds, but did not propose any alternativechronology. 104Kearsley (n. 61), 15. 105Ibid. 112, 128 (table 4). 106Lamb, Antissa 1931-2, pl. 23. I and 23. 3; cf. Coldstream

(n. 98), pl. 61 d (Rhodian, late Geometric).

107 Lamb, Antissa 1931-2, 47. Greece '08J.N. Coldstream, Geometric (London, 1977), 262-3, followed by K. Fagerstrom, GreekIron Age Architecture: DevelopmentsthroughChangingTimes (SIMA 8i; G6teborg, 1988), 89.

109Lamb, Antissa g1931-2, 44-5110oIbid. 56 and pl. 23. 6, 8, and 13. For the distribution of

this ware see n. 216 below. 111 Ibid. 62. 112 Ibid. 47-8.

The argument in Coldstream (n. io8), 263, that the "113 building cannot be earlier than the 7th cent. because of the polygonal masonry employed is not wholly proven. It is also suggested, however, that the stratified pottery finds may imply a 7th-cent. date (ibid.). 114 Lamb,

Antissa g193o-I, 167-9.

NIGEL SPENCER

286

50. fig. 7.,.

Acropolis

Lesbos,

Kontis, After

200m

period.

Archaic (b)

0

period;

Mandra

Harbour

Geometric in

settlement

?r istoric

The (a)

Pr

Acropolis

Graber

Antissa. 6:

Antike

FIG.

Koldewey's 200m

O

Antissa

settlement

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN the acropolis

were some sherds stamped

EAST AND WEST

and incised with Geometric

287

designs.115" Similar bucchero

has

been found at Methymnaand Klopedi (see section (c)above)and also at Assos."6At Lefkandiin Euboia, the coarsewareswhich exhibit such designsare securelydated to the second half of the eighth century.117 There were three main areas where groups of tombs were investigatedby Lamb SEof the acropolis. Amongst these three groups were burialsof late Geometric date and also the beginning of what appears to be cult worship at the graves of two members of the early settlement at Antissa.ll8The earlierburials of Geometric date were largely cist graves or burials in large grey ware jars and incorporated more significantamounts of grey ware pottery and fibulae (of east Greek and Phrygiantype)."9 (e) ARISBE AND ERESOS

Of the polis centre at Arisbe (FIG.7), very little is known. The site lies on a rocky rise in the central Arisbe plain near modern Kalloni which conveniently forms a defensible acropolis. On this hill, the

Arisbe

Koldewey's sherd/tile sc

ByzaiineAnstry

O

200m

FIG.7: Arisbe. The settlement in Archaic period. After Kontis, Lesbos,fig. 47. Enclosurewall and house remains as drawn. Contours at 20 m intervals. "5 Lamb, Antissa 1931-2, fig. 6 (p. 52), pl. 22.

"116 J. Gebauer, 'Verschiedene graue Waren', in !U. in Assos1991 Serdaroglu and R. Stupperich (eds),Ausgrabungen (Bonn, i993), 83-4 and fig. 4 no. 25 (no precise dating is given from the context of the find). "117 Popham, Sackett, Themelis (n. 81), 72-3.

"8 For a detailed discussion of the three cemeteries and the ancestor cult see N. Spencer, 'Respecting your elders and

betters: ancestor cult at Antissa, Lesbos' (forthcoming in Echosdumondeclassique/Classical Views). "9 Ibid. A late Geometric or early archaic fibula of to the two Phrygian type was also found amongst the offerings worshipped ancestors in the cemetery nearest to the acropolis; Lamb, Antissa 193o-1, 176. See n. i44 below for the

link between this type of fibula (Blinkenberg'sXII. 5) and Phrygian workshops.

NIGEL SPENCER

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remains of buildings inside an enclosure wall which rings the acropolis were mapped by Koldewey,120 and both the outer wall and some of the houses were the subject of a survey by Kontis'21and a brief excavation by Chatzi in I972.122

Apart from sherds of Early Bronze Age date,123no finds have ever been made at the site which predate the archaic period and the most significant surviving feature is the large 2 m thick 'Lesbian' polygonal masonry wall which is presumed to be the archaic city enclosure.124Within this outer enclosure wall are traces of houses and a dense sherd scatter,but the dating of all these remains on the acropolis plateau is still unclear.125Herodotos stated that Arisbe was one of the original six poleis of Lesbos, but that Methymna enslaved the Arisbeans before his time.126It is still unclear, however, whether the remains visible today pre- or post-date this action, and whether the houses and enclosure wall are contemporary. The location of the site's cemeteries is not known, since not a single tomb has ever been found in the vicinity of the acropolis. Koldewey did note on his map two scatters of ancient tile and sherds to the N and NWof the acropolis respectively,127 but he gives no details of his finds in the text, and the intense cultivationin both these areas now makes it impossibleto corroboratethe earlier reports. Ancient Eresos (FIG.8) is located at the base of the most extensive coastal plain in south-west Lesbos. The ancient acropolis stands by the shore at the s edge of the plain near the modern skalasettlement of Eresos and, as at Arisbe, there are no traces of settlement activity before the archaic period. The site exhibits some stretches of archaic polygonal walling but has only been the subject of the surveys by Koldewey and Laskariswhich are still the main guides.128 LESBOS AND ANATOLIA IN THE EARLY IRON AGE One striking feature of the record at all the sites in the Protogeometric and Geometric periods is that of even the few remains that have been found the vast majority, especially the ceramics and metalwork, find their parallels in the east Aegean and (especially) in Anatolia rather than westwards in mainland Greece. By the eighth century the cultural ties to the east were evidently still strong, whilst those to the west, towards mainland Greece, were more tenuous, and if Aiolian Greeks had arrived in Lesbos at some point in the Early Iron Age it is pertinent to ask why this was the case. The introduction of a new element in the population from mainland Greece means that the geographical position of the island alone is no longer sufficient completely to explain such continued eastern bias in the material culture. It seems, in fact, that not only was Anatolia physically closer than mainland Greece, but in the Early Iron Age the cultures in the hinterland to the east were just as accessible as they had been in the Bronze Age when Lesbos had formed an outlying part of the Anatolian cultural lake. Various bodies of material evidence from Early Iron Age Anatolia have shown that the 120 Koldeway, 29-30, 121

pls 13. I, 14. 1-5. Kontis, Lesbos,288-91, figs. 464-8.

122Chatzi 1972, 593-5 and pls 543-7 a. 123French (n. 21).

124The plans drawn after the visits of Kiepert in 1841 and Koldewey in 1885 indicate that in the I9th cent. three gateways and a tower of polygonal masonry was visible. Koldewey's plan also seems to indicate that only the plateau to the E of the peak of the acropolis (now crowned by a small Byzantine kastro)was walled in antiquity; Koldewey, 29, 83 (excursion 38), pl. 13. I. Kontis, Lesbos, fig. 47 marks a 'bastion (end of 8th-beginning of 7th cent. BC)'on the w side of the acropolis, but Koldewey did not map these remains and no such 'bastion' is visible today.

125Not even Chatzi's brief excavation could determine absolutedates for the constructionof the enclosurewall or the chronological relationship of the wall to the houses within. Chatzi 1972,593-5. Kontis, Lesbos,289, suggesteda date of the second half of the 8th cent. or the early 7th cent. for the enclosurewall on accountof the 'early'styleof Lesbianmasonry employed,but such a suppositionremainsto be proven. 126 Hdt. i. 151. 2.

127Koldeway, pl. 13. I. 128Koldewey, 22-6 and pls 8-io; G. L. Laskaris,'Td

hilpava Tig &pxaonag 'Epoooi3',AeO/htaxd,3 (I960), passim.An updated synthesis of the finds at Eresos is given in N. Spencer, Asty and Chorain Early Lesbos,unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of London, I993, 56-8.

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

b

EAST AND WEST

289

Eresos

~Harbour

0

400m

Koldewey's sarcophagi

FIG. 8: Eresos. The settlement in Archaic period. After Koldewey,pl. 8.

flow of information, technology, material goods (and even groups of people) westwardsto the Aegean from as far east as the Anatolian plateau and as far south as northern Syria and Iran, which had begun as early as the sixth millennium,'29did not end with the collapse of the Hittite empire in the Late Bronze Age. Furthermore,the route used for this communication was not simply the often spoken about sea route from southern Anatolia and the Levant, because archaeological evidence indicates that corridors existed overland through Anatolia 129 Birmingham (n. 65),

93.

NIGEL SPENCER

290

which remained open through the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition and at least until the Cimmerian movement south in the early seventh century, at which point such routes probably became much less secure (FIG.9).130 Communication in the Early Iron Age between the west coast of Anatolia and the area further inland has been demonstrated at Gordion where the group of people (probably of Thracian origin) who introduced the so-called 'knobbed ware' into Troy VII B2 subsequently reached the Phrygian site. At Gordion, similar material overlay the early Phrygian strata and prompted Sams to suggest that the collapse of centralized authority in Late Bronze Age western Anatolia had opened up a route along which these newcomers had moved east.'3' Sams also proposed that this movement, dated by the deposit at Gordion to some point between the twelfth century and 900, may have opened up a permanent corridor to south-eastern Europe from Anatolia.'32 Slightly later, from the end of the ninth century, it is clear that further south-eastern avenues

overland between Phrygia and Syria were open and elements of different population groups were moving freely between different areas. One can trace an expansion northwards in the use of multi-lingual Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions even to non-Semitic regions beyond northern Syria and Cilicia from the late ninth century onwards.'"33Moreover, contact from this southern area further north to Phrygia had been established at least from the ninth century, from which point architecture, ceramics, bronze-working and furniture decoration at Gordion begin to show that the Phrygians had become 'active participants in the SyroAnatolian community that extended from the Halys region south-east into north Syria'.134 The further extension of this contact between central Anatolia and the Aegean coast existed from the eighth century (at least), since by this time Phrygian workshops were amongst those

exporting metallic products (and possibly metalworkers)westwardsto the Aegean on what has been suggested to be a formal 'supply and demand' basis for certain votive products destined for sanctuaries as far away as mainland Greece.l35 Muscarella proposed that contact overland 130See Endnote on p. 306. Even after the Cimmerian invasions the continuing contact between Phrygia and E. Greece has led to suggestions that the overland route was being exploited in the later 7th cent. See O. W Muscarella, (London, 1967),63. Morris (n. 7), PhrygianFibulaefrom Gordion xv, expresses doubts regarding the 'overland route' to the E. Aegean from Anatolia, but the detailed analyses presented here suggest that the links to the east in the archaic period concerned more than simply mercenaries (Morris, ibid., where Sappho and Alkaios are cited in support). This argument by Morris is another example of the lack of awareness of Lesbian material culture and the use of only literary sources as a basis for argument. 131G. K. Sams, 'Observationson westernAnatolia',in W. A. Ward and S. Joukowsky(eds), The Crisisrears:The I2th Century BCfrombeyond theDanubetotheTigris(Dubuque,1992), 59. 132Ibid.

Laroche, Recueil d'onomastiquehittite (Paris, 1952), I35; Huxley, op. cit. 40; Rollig, op. cit. Ioo (where the incorrect use of

Semitic syntax in the writing of the name Muwanannis in Phoenician-Aramaic script suggested to the author that the mother tongue of the 'scribe' was possibly Luvian);B. Umar, 'The close affinitybetween the Iron Age languages of Luvian origin in Anatolia and the first Iranian languages: the possible connection between the name "Ttirk" and the Anatolian name "Tarkhun" (ruler, sovereign, lord)', in A. gilingiroilu and D. H. French (eds), AnatolianIronAges:The heldat Izmir Proceedings of the2ndAnatolianIronAgesColloquium (4-8 May 1987) (BIAA monographs,

13; Oxford,

1991),

II3-16.

133 W. R6llig, 'Asia Minor as a bridge between east and west: the role of the Phoenicians and Aramaeans', in Kopcke and Tokumaru (n. 7),

'Mytilene' finds parallels in Hittite names, and the stem may be related to the Luvian muwa-('strength')and Muwanannis ('scribe'); the suffix -wana/-ana was commonly used in Luwian for historical and geographical names. See E.

97-o00

and figs. 12-13. It is noteworthy,

given these hypotheses of the widespread dissemination of Anatolian and Syrian languages through Anatolia in the EIA, that many place-names in Lesbos probably derive from eastern (especially Luwian) words. The ytv-suffix which appears in Lesbian toponymns (Methymna, Ordymnos, Lepetymnos) is traced to a Luwian origin by G. L. Huxley, Crete and the Luwians (London,

1961), 24-5. Also, the name

134G. K. Sams, 'The early Phrygian period at Gordion: towards a cultural identity', Source:Notesin theHistoryof Art, 7.3-4 (I988), 10-12.

135 0. W. Muscarella, 'Greek and oriental cauldron attachments: a review', in Kopcke and Tokumaru (n. 7), 35, 41, concludes that the 'normal route' for Phrygian material destined for East Greece would have been overland to the Aegean coast. For the idea that certain types of vessels were exported on a 'supply and demand' basis, see I. Strom, 'Evidence from the sanctuaries'(in the same volume), 52, 57.

EARLY

LESBOS

BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

291

ALTINTEPE CARCHEMISH 188-9). (pp.

II

SSYRIA

fig. 65), (n.

FOAZKOY ALISHARA

IVRIZ

HALYSRIVER

Birmingham After

GORDION

basin.

p-H1R Aegean the to YAZILIKAYA" iSKIS

East the from

FMAYi YME

$EP SMYRNA

routes

ROAD overland

SA

and LESBOS

Anatolia 9:

AEGEAN

FIG. MILES 100

SREECE

0

NIGEL SPENCER

292

between Phrygia, the Aegean and the Near East had existed even until the late eighth century since at this time he noted that Phrygian ceramics exhibit signs of influence from both Greece and the Near East, implying continued contact with both.136 Another possible sign of contact between Phrygia and the west coast of Anatolia is the appearance of tumulus burials among the Aiolian Greek colonies in the Troad in the archaic period, a type of burial which was used to the east in Phrygia in the eighth century, most famously at Gordion. Sams proposed that the appearance in central Anatolia of this type of burial (common in eastern Europe) had been due to the arrival of a second Thracian group moving to Gordion by the eighth century along the 'permanent corridor' which he had suggested had permanently opened up from south-eastern Europe after the Late Bronze Age

(see above).137Given the Greek contact with the east in the eighth century noted above, this style of burial may well have become known to the Aiolians through their contact with the Phrygians, contact which King Midas, who made dedications at Delphi and was said to have married a woman from Aiolic Kyme, was obviously encouraging.'38 The reason why the style of burial was employed only in certain areas of the Troad may not be accidental either, since those tumuli which can be securely dated to the archaic period are in the region near Sigeion and Troy, an area disputed for a significant period by the Athenians and the Mytileneans.139 It has been argued that the flourishing of some hero cults at Mycenaean tombs in mainland Greece during the archaic period was because they were employed in an appeal to legitimacy and possession of a disputed territory, and the adoption of a monumental style of burial monument in the Troad which recalled a royal, even heroic, past in the neighbouring culture to the east at Gordion may have had similar genesis.140 All this synthesis of finds from many disparate areas makes Birmingham's suggestion (based upon contemporary epigraphical texts) that political conditions in Anatolia particularly favoured the overland route to the Aegean coast from c.732 to 680 extremely plausible, although the analysis above indicates that contact existed from a much earlier time also.141 Moreover, the archaeological data seems to make two further indications. Firstly, that the communication was not a one-way process, since Phrygia received stimuli both from the Aegean and the Near East from the ninth century onwards. And secondly, that the various channels which existed in different regions of Anatolia formed a network which in effect linked the Aegean with areas as distant as northern Syria and Cilicia via the land-bridge of Phrygia. It is in this context of open and ready cultural exchange between very widely spread groups

in Anatolia throughout the Early Iron Age that it is most instructiveto see the appearance of Anatolian material in Lesbos and other islands of the east Aegean. The Heraion in Samos has produced the most spectacular array of offerings in the eastern Aegean, at least some of which were imported from Phrygian workshops (and for these products the most natural route would

136 Muscarella (n. 130), 66.

137Sams (n.'34),

138 Hdt. i. 14. 2-3; 13. Pollux, ix. 83.

139For the dating of the three tumuli near Yenisehir (Sigeion) to the late 6th or early 5th cent. seeJ. M. Cook, The Troad (Oxford,

1973), 159-65; for a similar dating of the

tumulus at Pasa Tepe s of Troy, ibid. io8. The dispute over the Sigeion area between the Athenians and the Mytileneans is reviewed by N. Spencer, 'Colonization and conflict in the

north-eastAegean: the struggle for Sigeion' (forthcoming). 140 For a review of the hero cult phenomenon see J. Whitley, 'Tomb cult and hero cult: the uses of the past in archaic Greece', in Spencer (n. I7). 141Birmingham (n. 65), 193-5. Birmingham also suggested

(ibid.) that the overland route had become popular after a period in the early 8th cent. when a sea route via Syria and Cyprus was employed, and before the Black Sea route subsequentlywas heavily used.

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

293

have been overland from the Anatolian plateau).142 The lack of an internationally renowned

sanctuary in Lesbos may have resulted in the number of finds in the island of eastern origin being smaller,but there are still traces of similarcontact if the record is examined in detail: the late Geometric fibula from Mytilene which is paralleled at Gordion and Alishar and as far south as Cilicia on the rock-cut relief at Ivriz dated to 738;143fibulae in tombs and inside the second apsidal building at Antissa which are 'genuinely Phrygian' in their typology;144 the predominance of the grey ware ceramics, some of which were closely linked to Phrygian wares in shape and production technique,145 and even where imported Greek late Geometric wares have been located (as at Methymna and Antissa), the styles exhibited find their closest parallels in east Greece and Asia Minor. The evidence for the Early Iron Age in Lesbos may be scanty and piecemeal, but a strong conservative element in the island's culture is clear, preserving the

links to the east visible in the Bronze Age, and this behaviour is still an element in the culture of Lesbos in the archaic period. ARCHAIC

LESBOS:

AN EAST

GREEK

CONSERVATIVE

SOCIETY

A greater quantity of archaeological remains is preserved from the archaic period, and these remains indicate that Lesbos mirrored other areas of the East Greek world in many aspects of its culture, including the way in which many poleis in the east Aegean showed strong links to the east. Lesbos is unique in some respects, however, showing subtle differences which set it apart even from some of the other neighbouring areas. The closest visible parallels with other

nearby Hellenized regions are to be found in aspects such as burial practice and also in the adoption of eastern deities, but contrasts with the other Greek poleis can be drawn in other aspects such as architecture and especially ceramics. (a) BURIAL

PRACTICE

The evidence for burial practice in Lesbos in the archaic period is still patchy and incomplete, and again it is the record at the polis centres which must be relied upon since only two archaic burials have been detected beyond the central settlements.146 It is clear from the current record, however, that the types of burial employed in archaic Lesbos were similar over the 142U. Jantzen, Samos,viii: A'gyptische undorientalische Bronzen aus dem Heraion von Samos (Bonn, 1972), esp. 48-55 for Phrygian bronzes; Strom (n. 135), 48-9; Muscarella (n. I30), 35; Birmingham (n. 65), 186 n. 3, fig. 7 (p. 187), fig. 1I (pp.

188-9), notes that both Samos and many other sites on the w coast of Asia Minor and in the E. Aegean islands have produced finds of Phrygian-style fibulae and bronze cauldrons, at least some of which are probably of Phrygian manufacture. 143 Birmingham (n. 65), fig. II (pp. 188-9). 144Strom (n. 135), 58. The types of fibulae represented at

Antissa

which

are

of

Phrygian

type

are

from

Blinkenberg's/Muscarella's sub-groups XII. 5, XII. 13, and XII. 14; see Lamb, Antissa 193o-I, 174, 176; ead., Antissa

1931--2,62; for the definitive features of Phrygian fibulae see K. Kilian, Fibeln in Thessalienvon der mykenischenbis zur archaischenZeit (PBF 14. 2; Munich, 1975), 151-4. 145 Bayne, 300-I, notes that not only was the fabric of

Phrygian pottery similar to the Aiolic grey wares by the start of the archaic period, but also that the two most common

Phrygian shapes, the incurved rim bowl and the carinated bowl, were found widely in Aiolic grey ware and hinted at earlier contact. In Lesbos these two shapes were found commonly in the Geometric and archaic levels. Antissa: Lamb, Antissa 1931-2, pls 21. 2, 5 (incurved rim bowls), 22. Io ibid. 241 and (carinated bowl); Bayne, 233, 235. Mytilene:

fig. 25 b 4-6 (a carinated bowl from Bayne's own surface collection).

Methymna:

Lamb (n. 21), fig. 2. 9 (carinated

bowl, Gottingen Archaeological Institute), 2. 19 (incurved rim bowl, GAI); Bayne, 243 (who notes more than one example of each). Pyrrha: ibid. 245 (carinated bowl fragment from Bayne's own surface collection). Arisbe: ibid. 246 (fragmentof incurved rim bowl). 146At 'Xiro' near Pyrrha: Charitonidis 1964, 398 (where one of the ceramic finds was compared to the inscribed 6th-cent. kantharos from Antissa, Lamb, Antissa

i93o-I,

pl.

28. 3); and secondly at Monastiraki on the w mouth of the Gulf of Gera: Charitonidis (ibid.), 396 (where finds from what seems to be a disturbed tomb included an Attic blackfigure lekythos dated to c.5oo).

NIGEL SPENCER

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whole island and mirrored those being used in the other islands of the east Aegean and the Greek settlements on the west coast of Asia Minor. The latter two areas seem to have been dominated in the archaic period by cemeteries of sarcophagus burials together with inhumations or cremations in pithoi or large jars, sometimes with the former covered by mounds (much as in mainland Greece in the archaic period'47).'148

At both Methymna and Antissa, where the largest numbers of archaic burials have been discovered and one has what might purport to be a representativeselection of burial types, sarcophagus burials together with inhumations (and occasionally cremations) in large jars seem to have been the most popular form of interment. The archaic burials found at Methymna were scattered over a large area (approximately 2 sq. km) consisting of two (or Both the two (or all three) possibly three) small groups and two single burials (FIG. 5 b).'149 of tombs included burials and one of the single burials was also a groups sarcophagus The alternative of burial was another single tomb, a 'rock-chamber sarcophagus.'50 only style tomb' (Felskammergrab) reported by Buchholz which dated to the later archaic period (c.53o).151 At Methymna two archaic burialsin largejars were also uncovered recently,apparentlydating to early in the archaic period to judge from the fibulae visible in the photograph of the vessels in situ.152 At Antissa the balance seems to have been nearly equal in respect of the burials in sarcophagi and large jars uncovered in the three small cemeteries excavated by Lamb from 1931 to 1932.153 In the only cemetery for which Lamb provides a plan (FIG. IO) and the

numbers of burials are clear the totals are equal (eleven burials of each type, together with two apparently older cist graves).154The general chronological pattern again suggests that most of the sarcophagi date to the sixth century or early fifth century (as at Methymna) 147For the use of mounds to cover groups of tombs in the archaic Athens and Attica see S. C. Humphreys, TheFamily, Womenand Death (2nd edn, Ann Arbor, Mich., I993), 94-1o0 and figs. I-2 (pp. 96-7, moo).

148The comparativeevidence for E. Greek burial practices in the archaic period has been collated recently by M.-C. at theArchaicCemetery Tzannes, GreekExcavations ofKlazomenai (forthcoming),passim. 149It is difficult to be certain of the exact position of some of the tombs, and thereforewhether or not they are from the same groups of burials. The problem of relating the position of the sarcophagi found by Lamb in I928 with those found by the Greek Archaeological Service in 1986 (which seem to have lain in approximately the same area) is especially difficult (n. 15o0,burial areas 'D' and 'E').

sarcophagi lying side by side). The tombs in three of the burial areas are dated to the second half of the 6th cent., the Clazomenian sarcophagus found by Evangelidis NE of the modern kastro (A), although Evangelidis originally dated the sealstone found inside the sarcophagus, to the late 7th cent. (Evangelidis,

153-4).

For comparanda

of the seals see

Buchholz, 64; the five archaic sarcophagi in the Dabia area m s of the of the town (B); and the disturbed tomb 8oo00 modern town (C). The exact location of the archaic burials found recently 'north-eastof the town' (D) is not specified, so one cannot be sure whether these tombs are part of the same group of which Lamb found two sarcophagiin I928 (E). 151 Buchholz, tomb E on fig. I (p. 21), 64 (cat. no. A43),

A. Delt. 42 40opeta TpoLotoptLx v xcst xcaot~xv apXatotil.ov', (1987), Chr. 482, pl. 289 y (five clay archaic sarcophagi).

lo4-5 (cat. nos. E 78-9). A cist grave was also found in the same plot as the five archaic sarcophagi of group 'B' in I987, but no chronological details or illustrations of its only associated find (a bronze mirror) are given; Acheilara (n. 482. I5O), 152Burial area 'D' (n. o50). In the brief report the fibulae are said to be to be of 'Asia Minor' type, and they appear from the photograph to be two of Blinkenberg's sub-group

Burial area C (the rock-chambertomb): Buchholz, tomb E

XII. 5 which have also been found at Antissa (see nn. III, 144

on fig. I (p. 2I), 64 (Cat. no. A 43), lo04-5 (Cat. nos. E 78-9),

above). 153Spencer (n. 118). It is impossible to give precise numbers for all three cemeteries because the notes made by Lamb are not sufficientlydetailed. 154Ibid. fig. 2 (another burial in a large jar was made a short distance to the N beyond the area represented on the plan).

150Burial

area A: D. Evangelidis, "Avaoxawtxai E"pevvcL

kvAiofkp 2: Mle0ivvy', PAE (1925-6), 150-4; Buchholz, 63-4 (cat. no. A 42) (a single sarcophagusburial). Burial area B: Archontidou-Argyri (n. 49), 72; L. Acheilara, 'Xpovx~d K'

pls 18, 19. a, b. Burial area D: Archontidou-Argyri(n. 49), 58-9; Acheilara (n. 79), 202-3, pl. 142 Y (two large jars which

contained ash, and presumably therefore are to be understood as cremations, were found among four later sarcophagusburials of 4th-cent. date). Burial area E: BSA W. Lamb archive,

Methymna

I (two Clazomenian-style

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

XH

XGo

VA

EAST AND WEST

295

Os

oWG VD

GXA XB

GVC(

VR o XE

VP

Jar/pithos burial

WA

XC WD

VEX WF

0

6m

FIG.Io: Antissa. Spatial distributionof late Geometric, Archaic, and Classical cemetery focused on the two older cist graves. (BSA W. Lamb archive.)

whereas some of the inhumations (and cremations) inside the large pots date to the earlier archaic period.'55 Elsewhere in the island many fewer archaic burials have been found, and although one should clearly not necessarily assume that all the poleis adopted the same practices the general pattern of sarcophagus and inhumations/cremations in pots is maintained where evidence has been forthcoming.156 The modern town of Mytilene presumably overlies the archaic burial grounds since the only tombs which have ever been found of this date (probably numbering only two) have come to light during building work (FIG.3 b). One lies far to the s of any other settlement remains, even beyond the modern south harbour, and consists of a box-shaped cutting in the bedrock, inside which were found grey ware amphorae fragments dating to the first half of the sixth century. 157The other archaic tomb (or group of tombs) was found in the centre of the modern town in 1928 along with the Geometric burial mentioned above. How many tombs were grouped together is unclear because the notes made by Lamb and Herbig are so brief.'158Lamb catalogues two grey ware amphorae and provides a sketch of one which is described as being 'outside a tomb'.'159A hole had been drilled in the base of this amphora, suggesting that the pot served as a grave marker.'60 The other associated ceramics were grey ware pieces, one of which looks like a late sixth century kantharos.161 It is noteworthy, therefore, that at Mytilene no archaic sarcophagi have been located yet. Pyrrha and Eresos (FIGS. 4 b, 8) are similar in two respects. At both sites only one archaic tomb has been discovered (a pithos burial in each case), but also interesting is the fact that the early investigators of both sites also reported fragments of sarcophagi scattered nearby. At Pyrrha 55 Lamb, Antissa 1930o-1, 174-8; Antissa 1931-2, 63-7. 156Forthisinter-polisvariationin termsof lite investmentand

expressionin the archaicperiodsee Spencer(n. 128),85-200. '57 Archontidou-Argyri

(n. 49), 69-70; Acheilara (n. 150),

479. This type of grave may be what Buchholz means by his term 'Felskammergrab'for the grave at Methymna (n. I5I). 158W. Lamb BSA archive, Methymna I (notes dated 13

Nov. 1928); Herbig (n. 57), 620.

'5YW. Lamb BSA archive, ibid. 160Ibid. Forthis practiceof drillingholes in the bases of large vesselsused as gravemarkers,see D. C. KurtzandJ. Boardman, Greek BurialCustoms (London,I97i),57-8; Whitley(n. 6), 116. W. Lamb BSA archive, Methymna I (for sketches of the 16'1 pottery from the tomb, or tombs).

NIGEL SPENCER

296

the archaic tomb was found close to the Protogeometric burial noted above and consisted of a pithos containing bucchero vases, painted fine wares (of which no details are given), parts of an iron comb, and a large bronze fibula.162In the nineteenth century Koldewey noted the remains of a monumental grave monument of isodomic blocks in the same area and fragments of sarcophagi (which he does not distinguish).163At Eresos a pithos was found which contained pottery with 'Orientalizing style representations' at a depth of 2 m, 150 m NWof the acropolis.164 Koldewey also noted, however, that at four points around the acropolis of Eresos fragments of sarcophagi were visible (two to the N, and two at the SE foot of the acropolis),165but no date is offered for these finds, and whilst they could be archaic, they certainly need not be. In terms of burial practice, therefore, Lesbos appears to follow the practices which were adopted in other areas of Greek settlement in the east Aegean, and recent discoveries in the island indicate another parallel with the neighbouring Hellenized areas in the archaic period was the adoption of eastern deities among the gods of the Lesbian pantheon. (b) CULT PRACTICE

This last link did not become apparent until the last twenty-five years and it had been thought previously that Greek gods and goddesses had dominated cult practice in Aiolis. In 1975 Cook noted that Aiolis seemed to exhibit a large number of early Apollo cults in the Iron Age and despite the large number of cults of the Anatolian goddess Kybele in Ionia (even as close as the island of Chios),166 Cook concluded 'presumably the region [Aiolis] lay outside the sphere of the Anatolian mother-goddess'.167 In Lesbos alone there was the important cult of Apollo Maloeis at Mytilene,168 and another named Apollo Napaios' is referred to by Stephanus of Byzantium (its exact location and date is unknown).169 It has even been suggested by Schiering that the archaic cult building on the acropolis at Pyrrha in Lesbos first discovered by Boehlau in 1906-7 may have been devoted to the same god.'70 More recently published finds, however,

have shown that this view is again only part of the picture, the 'Greek'part, and that there was indeed a significant Anatolian element in cults of patron deities in archaic Lesbos. In 1973 Chatzi carried out an excavation (published later in 1977) in the Epano Skala quarter of Mytilene near to the harbour of the ancient settlement and uncovered remains of a small oval archaic structure which had three successive phases of construction (FIG. II). The area around the harbour seems to have been a major focus of the archaic settlement (FIG.3 b), and there have subsequently been found traces of significant early harbour works.171 The 162Charitonidis 1964, 398; it is impossible to be precise areprovided. regardingthe datingof the findssinceno illustrations 163Koldeway, 28.

164Laskaris(n. 128),73 (again no pictures were provided of any of the finds). 165

Koldeway, pl. 8.

166E Naumann, Die Ikonographie derKybelein derphrygischen unddergriechischen Kunst(Ist. Mitt. supp. 28; Tiubingen, 1983),

and the north room; Millar (n. 72) 9, 12, 13-15 respectively.

table 3 (P. 125). 167 Cook

(n. 31),

170Schiering,365 n. 47. The position of the altar at the w end of the temple was suggested to signify the possibilitythat this structurehad been a cult of either Apollo or Artemis,with SchieringpreferringApollo who was 'favouredin Aiolis' (ibid.). 171These well-built walls of harbour installationsunderlie later structureson the SEshorelineof the harbour.Sections of six polygonal walls have been found: three constructed with massive blocks lie in the west room I, south hellenisticroom,

782.

168The significance of the cult of Apollo Maloeis is clear from Thucydides, who speaks of 'the whole city' of Mytilene celebratingthe festivalin the 5th cent. (iii. 3. 3); for the recent claim that the site of this cult has been found see n. 51. 169Steph. Byz. s.v.Ndrn. This cult has sometimesbeen linked with the archaictemple of Klopedi in Lesbos,but as was noted (Princeton,1977), by P.P. Betancourt,TheAeolicStyleinArchitecture 82, thereis no positiveevidencefor this association.

Two large-scalewalls are very crude in style, and all three lie at the lowest levels near the sterilebeach stratumwhich underlies the whole site; ibid. fig. 2. One of the crude examples is securelydated by stratifiedceramic finds to the second half of the 6th cent., and the finer one is also securelydated to the 6th cent.; ibid. 9, 12, 13-15. A more synoptic account of these finds

is presentedin Williamsand Williams1991,i8i, where it is also suggested that the walls could be associated with the archaic sanctuaryfound by Chatzi in 1973(see below).

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

oldest structures in Chatzi's excavation (approximately30 m s of the ancient harbour'72) were the remains of two archaic buildings and a terrace/periboloswall.'73 In association with one of these two, an oval building, were small finds significantboth in their number and quality,and it was these finds, the oval plan of the building, and a polygonal masonry wall nearby suggested to be a peribolos which led Chatzi to the conclusion that the structure represented a centre of worship.174Although the plan of the building may not be a sound basis for determining its function, the high quality finds and two archaic reliefs of a deity stronglysuggest that the edifice was a centre of cult practice. The

297 SOriginal

building

SLater Archaic temple

WALL

PERBOLOS/YERRACE

oval building measured 8.3 m N-S X 5.5 m E-W,

with an entrance on the E side. Chatzi proposed two phases of building distinguished by the different techniques employed in the wall 0 2m construction,'75but in fact there appears to be a third (earlier)period in the life of the structure. FIG.II: Mytilene. Archaic temple of Kybele (and The first of Chatzi's two phases of building is Apollo?).After Mazarakis-Ainian(n. I78), visible in the w wall, with two outer faces of fig. 12 (p. 29). small stones joined with clay filled between with a mixture of small stones and mud.176The second phase is representedin the E wall by a fine polygonal style of masonry with a string course' of regular blocks in its uppermost preserved level (1.5-1.6 m high).177The reconstructionof the building'splan made by Mazarakis-Ainian indicated, however, that the E wall has a curious change of direction near its s end,178 and evidence from the excavation ignored by Chatzi suggests that this kink in the wall was caused by her two later phases of the building succeeding an earlier oval structure which had a slightly different orientation. Approximately I m Nw of the N apse of the oval building Chatzi found another part of an apsidal wall.179Chatzi thought that this was the oldest wall in the entire site,180but failed to explore its possible association with the nearby building. If one 172The building would have only been c.30 m from the ancient shoreline and harbour, even though today the sea has receded and is now a further Ioo m distant:Williams and Williams '99', 18i. Chatzi I973, 515-17 and pls 481-6. 1'73 174Ibid. 517. The lower courses of the supposed 'peribolos' wall close to the E side of the structure were constructed of polygonal masonry almost identical to that of the E wall of the 'temple' (and it may therefore not be a coincidence that the entrance to the oval building was on the side of this decorative enclosure/terrace wall). It was conceded by the excavator, however, that the wall could in fact be merely a terrace to 'correct' the natural E-W slope of the ground in this area of the town. Chatzi 1973, 517 and pl. 483 a. Whether an entire temenos wall did once exist will never be known because any trace of the wall to the w of the building

seems to have been destroyed by building work later in antiquity,and the limitation of the excavation to the N and s allowed no furtherinvestigation(ibid. fig. io). 175Ibid. 515-I6. 176Ibid. 516. 177Ibid. Chatzi classifies this masonry as being 'in the Lesbian style' (ibid. 515-17), but the edges of the blocks are and very regular, straight polygonal stones (ibid., pl. 483 P3) not curved as is prevalent in true 'Lesbian'style masonry.For a full discussion of the Lesbian style of polygonal masonry see Spencer (n. 128), 121-51.

178A. Mazarakis-Ainian,'L'architecturereligieuse grecque des ages obscurs',AC54 (1985),fig. 12(p. 29). 179Chatzi 1973,wall 'X' on fig. Io and clearly visible on pl. 482 y. o80Ibid. 516.

298

NIGEL SPENCER

reconstructs the original w wall of the building here, the apparent kink in the E wall can be explained: when the first rebuilding of the edifice was carried out (Chatzi's 'first' phase), a slightly more true N-s orientation was adopted. Thus, because the E wall was founded on its predecessor, it became crooked. Fragments of mud brick found on the floor indicate that the building was not wholly of stone, and areas of the floor also exhibited traces of fire which Chatzi took as evidence of the violent destruction of the building.'8' The dating of the building was problematic, and relied largely on the artefacts found in association with the structure. These associated finds are interesting for another reason, however, because they indicate the continuing dichotomy between east and west in the island's culture.'82 The most notable finds were the two archaic statuettes which were representations of the goddess Kybele. One of the statuettes (from which the goddess's head was missing) had been built into a later wall nearby and showed the deity sitting, taming a lion in her lap, while the findspot of the other is not recorded.183 There were a high proportion of fine bucchero wares among the pottery associated with the building but also a significant number of imported Greek (especially Attic black-figure) vases, largely of sixth-century date and including one with a graffito which seemed to spell "AIIOAA['.184Of course it is impossible to be certain whether the graffito is the name of the owner, producer, dedicator, or the name of a god, but given Cook's observation on the prevalence of cults of Apollo in Aiolis (see above) and one of Apollo's roles as a god who was used to validate colonizing movements (such as that which had taken place from mainland Greece to Aiolis),185 it is tempting to suggest that the temple here in Mytilene is a further example of duality of worship in one building. Alkaios speaks of such duality in worship at the pan-Lesbian shrine at Messa in central Lesbos in the archaic period,186 and in the Geometric period at Amyklai the cult there seemed to have had a dual identity as one of both Apollo and Hyakinthos for different Achaean and Lakonian elements of the population.'87 In Lesbos a similar scenario could be imagined, with the temple being used by both Greeks and natives within the settlement, each to their own patron god. Chatzi dated the building from the 'early archaic' period on account of the votive statuettes of Kybele.188 The dating of the statuettes, however, does not support the 'early archaic' proposal of Chatzi. The style of the headless statuette taming the lion corresponds very closely to similar votive statuettes of the goddess from Kyme and Izmir, placed in the sixth century by Naumann.189 The other votive statuette from the excavation (which receives no comment in 181 Ibid.

concept of an oval plan for the building is another feature inherited from the east is difficult to say. Oval and apsidal structurescertainly seem to have been the fashion in EIA Lesbos given the 8th-cent. apsidal building at Pyrrha (Schiering, fig. II (p. 349), fig. 12 (p. 350); fig. 13(p. 355)),the Geometric (or possibly PG) buildings at Methymna (see n. 40), and the two superimposed apsidal buildings at Antissa (Lamb,Antissa1931-2, pls 18-19). At Antissa the first apsidal building (at least) was noted as being unique when compared to the rest of Greece, in respect of having wholly stone walls rather than merely a stone socle with a mudbrick superstructure: Fagerstriom (n. io8), 90. There are also, however, a large number of other EIA apsidal and oval buildings throughout Greece and the coast of Asia Minor (ibid., passim),and the origins of the form may simply be due to the practical advantage in terms of making the roofing of the structuremore easy. 182 Whether the

183Chatzi 1973, 517. For a photograph of the headless von statuette of Kybele see F. Bodenstedt, Die Elektronmiinzen PhokaiaundMytilene(Tiubingen,1981),pl. 5. I1I;for the other statuette see Chatzi 1973,pl. 485 a. 184 Ibid.517.The graffitoAIOAA is illustratedon pl. 484 y. 185OCD2s.v.Apollo. 186Alkaios fr. 129 (Campbell),where three deities share the shrine. Two of these are named as Zeus and Dionysos, and a third is termed 'the glorious Aiolian goddess, mother of all'. D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric (Loeb Classical Texts; Cambridge, Mass., and London), i (1982),299 n. 2, takes this reference to be to Hera, but this 'Mother' goddess could equally be Kybele. 187E de Polignac, La Naissancede la citigrecque(Paris, 1984), 71-2. 188Ibid. 189Naumann (n. 166),nos. 57, 60 (p. 302),pls 17. 3 and 18. 2.

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

299

Chatzi's report) also finds parallels in the sixth century, as does much of the associated pottery.190At present, therefore, the evidence can only support worship of the goddess in the mid/late archaic period. It is also worthy of note here that there is evidence to suggest that, as with the Bronze Age Anatolian' influence in the material culture, the Anatolian mother goddess Kybele was also worshipped all over the island and not just on the east coast. Two reliefs of the goddess (one specifically called 'early') have been found recently near to the acropolis of Eresos.191 Obviously there were elements of the population throughout the island who were still keen to follow this eastern tradition. At Mytilene in the archaic period the worship of Kybele is not the only trace of the eastern tradition because even in the more 'mainstream' religious architecture which has been found at the site there are elements which are peculiarly eastern. On the acropolis of Mytilene archaic architectural elements made of local andesite were uncovered at the lowest levels immediately above bedrock in a mid-sixth century context.192 The majority of the fragments are from fluted Ionic column drums (although there are some Doric fragments), and all had been broken up into very small pieces and used as fill in the second century.'193From the same context on the acropolis there were also found parts of an Ionic column base,194and a section of bead and reel moulding.195 The column base was very large; one torus fragment was reconstructed to a diameter of 0.83 m and must be representative of a significant structure.196 One of the most interesting finds, however, were parts of a square base which were recovered along with the torus. The square bases had been employed instead of the more usual spira element below the torus and the best parallels for this practice are again to be found in the east. Such bases were employed in the archaic Artemisium at Ephesus'97 and also more than 1,6o00miles to the east in south-western Iran at the sixth-century palace of Kyros the Great at Pasargadae.198 (c) CULTIC

ARCHITECTURE

The most complete record of Lesbian religious architecture in the archaic period is at the temple of Klopedi in the centre of the island, and it is often forgotten that this temple also is fundamentally un-Greek in the style of architecture which was employed, the so-called Aiolic' style of architecture. The main characteristic of the Aiolic style, which flourished in large-scale architecture in the archaic period in Aiolis,199was the vertically-voluted column capitals, often accompanied by another element of a ring of pendent leaves.200 Previous studies of the Aiolic style have considered the origins of the style (which seems to have lain in the Near East201)but failed to give attention to the possible reasons for the employment of what was a peculiarly eastern motif. The main question asked about Aiolic architecture has always been a straightforward stylistic one, namely whether these column capitals with the vertical volutes were forerunners 190Ibid. pls 16-18.

191Archontidou-Argyri(n. 49), 6i (for the 'early' relief), 73; Acheilara (n. 79), 205; ead. (n. 150), 482, 192 Williams and Williams 1990, i85-6 and pl. 2; lid. 1991, 178.

193H. Williams, 'Mytilene: the 1989 season', Bulletinof the Canadian Mediterranean Institute,ii. 4 (1989),2. Ibid. 195 Williams and Williams 1990, 178. 194

196E. B. French, Archaeology in Greece I989-90', AR 36 (1990),

65.

197D. Hogarth, Excavationsat Ephesus(London, 1908),

pl. 15. 198D. Stronach, Pasargadae (Oxford, 1978), figs. 42-3 (PP. 83-5), pls 72-5. 199Betancourt (n. 169), 58-98.

200Ibid. In Lesbos recent finds of more archaic Aiolic-style pendent leaf elements have been made at Eresos (Sophoklis Roumeliotis, pers. comm.), and Pyrrha (Schiering,367-74). 201Betancourt (n. 169), 17-49.

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300

of the Ionic style, especially

since there seemed

to be intermediate

stages in the

development.202Although the two styles were known to have been used concurrently (and clearly therefore it was not simply a case of diachronic stylistic development),203the question was not asked of why this particulartype of architecturewas chosen in the first place for use in large-scale architecture or funerary monuments. Most critically, there was never any contextualized discussion to elucidate how the style related to other aspects of archaic Lesbos and Aiolis and fitted into the wider picture of society as a whole. The earliest use of the Aiolic'-style motif in the island was in the ninth or eighth centuries when a terracotta ornament from the first apsidal building at Antissa (suggested originally by the excavator to be an altar decoration)had just such vertical volutes.204The Aiolic style then began to be used in large-scale architecturein the archaic period. In Lesbos the sixth-century temple of Klopedi employed Aiolic-style capitals205and the motif was also used in archaic funerary architecture in the island.206Pendent leaf-drum elements were also employed on columns at Eresos and on the acropolis of Pyrrha, although in both cases their exact context is unclear.207Similar Aiolic-style buildings appear at the same time in many areas of Aiolis and in regions to which Aiolian colonists were sent out from Lesbos in the Troad and further north in Thrace throughout the archaic period.208 The use of the Aiolic motif was obviously widespread in the island, but to explain why one has to do more than ask whether the style was a forerunnerof the Ionic order. It is more easy to understand the adoption of this peculiar eastern motif in Lesbos if one considers the eastern contact visible in other aspects of the island's culture in the archaic period. I have traced already 'eastern' features such as the Phrygian artefacts imported into the island and the worship of the Anatolian mother goddess, and both these features can be seen in many other East Greek states at a similar time. There was also one way in which Lesbos differed even from some of these other neighbouring hellenized regions of the eastern Aegean, 202 Ibid. 3, 106-08, I22-33. The preoccupation with such angles is clear from the various terminologies for the style by scholarswho considered the theme in detail: Aeolic, 0oliqueionique, aolisch-ionisch (and ionisch-aolisch),Proto-Aeolian, Proto-Aeolic, and Proto-Ionic (ibid. 4). 203Betancourt (n. 169), 93-8, 122-33. 204BSA, W. Lamb archive, Antissa 5 (cat. no. 33/42). 205 Evangelidis (n. i49), 41-4; id. "Avaoxac4 Afopoov', PAE (1927), 57-9; id. "'Avaoxaui Khonte4g A\opov', PAE (1928),

126-37; Chatzi (n. 93), 43-5; Kontis, Lesbos,295-9. 206An Aiolic capital found on the acropolis of Mytilene at the end of the I9th cent. comes from a funerary or votive grecques, statuary context; G. Mendel, Cataloguedes sculptures romaines et byzantines (Constantinople,

1914), ii, no. 276 (p.

36). See also W. H. D. Rouse, 'Lesbos', BSA 2 (1895-6), 148, who seems to refer to the original finding of this capital which was subsequently lost, rediscovered by Paton, and taken to Istanbul in Aug. 1898 (Mendel, ibid.). Schefold and Betancourt proposed that this capital had come from a large-scale building, perhaps even from Klopedi: K. Schefold, 'Das aolische Kapitell', OJh 31 (1938-9), 46; Betancourt (n. 169), 87. Mendel clearly states, however, that there were cuttings in both its upper and lower surfaces, which strongly suggest that the piece is from a funerary or statuary monument. The cuttings in the upper surface are square,

measuring

0.05 X 0.05 X 0.06 m; the circular

dowel-hole in the base is 0.06 in diam. and 0.065 deep

(Mendel, ibid.). Furthermore, the double edges to the volutes of the capital clearly distinguish it from the capitals of Klopedi and are paralleled in fragments of two similar Aiolic capitals found in the Athenian Agora and the Kerameikos (both of which exhibit double edges to their volutes and have cuttings). Betancourt (n. 169), 10oo,fig. 47 (p.

ioi)

and

pl.

52

(Agora

fragment);

K.

Kibler,

'Ausgrabungenim Kerameikos I', AA (1938), fig. I6 (pp. 6oi0, 605) (Kerameikos fragment). The fragment of an Aiolic capital from Eresos seems to be from a funerary or statuary monument, but its dating is unclear: see J. D. Kontis, 'Capitello eolico di Eresso', ASA 24-6 (1946-8), 25-36; Betancourt (n. 169), 88. 207See n. 200 above.

208The use of the style in Aiolis was considered in detail by Betancourt (n. 169), ch. 4: 'Aiolis,northern Ionia and the North Aegean', which included treatment of the finds at Old Smyrna, Neandria, Larisa, Klopedi, Mytilene, Eresos, and Thasos (pp. 58-68). Recently four Aiolic-style capitals have been found also at Ainos in Thrace, another site which literary sources cite as an 'Aiolic' colony: A. Erzen and S. Basaran, '1988 yili enez kazxsi alhsmalari', Symposium,II (1989), 112 and fig. 25 (p. 122); for the literary references to

Ainos as an Aiolic, or specifically Mytilenean, colony see Hdt. vii. 58; Thuc. vii. 57; Scymn. 696; Strab. vii. 51 (52); Steph. Byz. s.v. Aivog.

EARLY LESBOS

BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

30o

however, and displayed still more conservative, 'Anatolian' trends. This element was the archaic pottery which recalls that used in Lesbos and north-west Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age and shows Lesbos to be on the periphery of the areas which were producing East Greek painted wares.209 (d) CERAMICS

The ceramic repertoirein the island throughout the archaic period continues to be dominated by Aiolic grey wares (FIG. 12) which obviously were still highly prized.210 The high quality of the production of much of the grey ware,211together with the number of different contexts in which it appears, are strong indicators that within the island at least the value attached to the pottery could be considerable. It has been noted many times above that in archaic Lesbos the grey wares were popular in domestic and burial contexts and one large grey ware amphora in Mytilene seems to have served as a grave marker. Grey ware amphoras also became almost a trade mark for the transport of Lesbian products overseas, reaching ports from the Black Sea to Sicily and North Africa,212and large grey ware vessels were employed as votives in sanctuaries both at home and abroad.213 Another point which emphasizes this conservatism in the archaic ceramics in Lesbos, distinguishing the island even from neighbouring regions such as Chios,214is that none of the cities (not even one as famed in the archaic period as FIG.12:Antissa. Archaic grey ware amphora Mytilene) seem to have been producers of any of (7th-early 6th centuries).(BSA W. Lamb archive, the East Greek painted wares. Sherds from Antissa 56.) 209Bayne, 328-31, concluded that there were a large number of basic features of the Iron Age grey wares (including colour, shape, design, and production technique) which were inherited from those of the LBA. It was only at a late stage in the development (from c.700ooonwards)that other influences began to be exerted on the development of the grey wares from sources such as Phrygian metalwork and Greek painted pottery (ibid.). For possible imports of Aiolian grey wares to Lefkandi in the first half of the Ioth cent. (including sherds from a kantharos, a popular grey ware shape in Aiolis from the 8th cent. at least), see R. W. V. ii: TheProtogeometric Catling and I. S. Lemos, LeJkandi, Building at Toumnba, i: ThePottery(London, I990), 55-6 and pls 5j, 39, and 73 (kantharos = cat. no. 781). For examples of similar sherds from Methymna see Lamb (n. 21),fig. i. 1-2. 210Bayne, 33I, came to the conclusion that even at the end of the archaic period the local grey wares were as highly valued as the imported E. Greek painted ceramics. 211The care taken to burnish and polish many Iron Age

grey wares shows the trouble taken during the production of vessels, possibly as part of a desire to make the ceramic vessels appear similar in finish to their metal prototypes. See e.g. Lamb, Antissa193o-1, pl. 28. 3 a-b. 212Wine and oil would have been two of these products carried in the amphorae; see Clinkenbeard (n. 64) and P. Dupont, 'Amphorescommerciales archai'quesde la Grace de l'Esto,PP 37 (1982),193-208. 213The grey wares are commonly found in sanctuary contexts in Lesbos in the archaic period; outside the island the grey wares were used as dedicatory offerings to Aphrodite (and possibly Apollo) by Mytileneans at Naukratis in the second quarter of the 6th cent.: W. H. F. Petrie, Naukratis,i (London, 1886), pl. 32 no. 185; E. A. Gardner, Naukratis,ii (London, 1888), 65 and pl. 21 (nos. 786, 788, 790o). For the dating of the inscriptionssee LSAG2360. 214For a recent survey of archaic Chiote wares see A. Lemos, ArchaicPotteryof Chios:The DecoratedStyles(Oxford, 199I)-

302

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imported East Greek pottery have been found in the Canadian excavations at Mytilene which reached archaic levels,215 but not even any of those wares which do seem to have had production centres in Aiolis (such as Wild Goat style) appear to have been made in the island.216This point needs emphasizing because sometimes the publications of the excavations do not make clear this conservatism in the continued use of the grey wares in the archaic period. Lamb devoted as much space to the imported fine wares in the reports for Antissa,217 and at Pyrrha again there is little explicit mention of the large amount of grey wares from

The recent excavation reports from Mytilene, however,together with Boehlau's excavations.218 the notes which Lamb kept from her trial trenches at Methymna in November 1928 make the dominance at these sites clear, especially at the latter site where Lamb records that at the lowest levels nearest to bedrock the strata were almost pure grey ware with the merest sprinkling of imported pottery.219 215 Williams and Williams 1987, 258 (E. Greek plates); iid. 1988, I43 (Wild Goat, Clazomenian, and E. Greek bowls); iid. 1989, 177-8 (Milesian, Clazomenian, Fikellura, Chiote);

iid. 1990, 189 (Wild Goat); G. P. Schaus, 'Archaic imported wares from the acropolis, Mytilene', Hesp. 61 (1992), 355-72

(Wild Goat, Chiote, Clazomenian, Fikellura, and 'Ionian', the last of which may be of Samian origin). 216G. Schaus, pers. comm. A corpus of Wild Goat pottery with its own peculiar characteristics seems to come from a mainland source in Aiolis, possibly Larisa, but there is no group which can be attributed to Mytilene or Lesbos as a whole (ibid.). Another style of late/sub-Geometric pottery apparently being produced in the NE Aegean was the socalled 'G2-3' ware found at Troy, Antissa, Hephaistia on Limnos, Samothrace, Thasos, and recently at Assos, but the production centre(s) of this corpus is/are still unclear. For a review of this whole corpus see P. Bernard, 'Cframique de la premiire moiti6 du VIIe siacle AThasos', BCH 88 (1964), 88-Io9; for the recent finds at Assos see K. Iren, 'Archaische ostgriechische Keramik 1991', in Serdaroglu and Stupperich

(n. II6), 47, fig. i. 4 (= pl. 15. 1), and F. Utili, 'OstgriechischerTeller' (in the same volume), 58 (cat. no. 4)

fig. 2.4 ( = pl. 17. 2), 64 (cat. no. 24) fig. 4. 24 (= pl. 17. 1). So

far even the ceramic analysis work on grey ware sherds from Lesbos has failed to establish secure links to any clay sources known in the island today. This seems to be because there has been a break in the ceramic tradition in the island, and the modern potters now working in Lesbos returned from Asia Minor and the Dardanelles in the I9th and 20th centuries, at which point they began using clay sources which presumablywere not those employed in antiquity.For the modern production centres of ceramics in Lesbos see R. Hampe and A. Winter, Bei Tipfernand Zieglernin Siiditalien, SizilienundGriechenland (Mainz, 1965), 147-51; for the failure of analysis work to match the ancient clays to the modern clay sources see Buchholz, 93 (citing the neutron activation analysis of A. M. Bieber et al., 'Compositional groupings of some ancient Aegean and eastern Mediterranean pottery' (BrookhavenNational LaboratoryAbstract 18604; 1973), 17); to theStudy I. K. Whitbread, TheApplication of Ceramic Petrology of AncientGreekTransportAmphorae,with SpecialReferenceto Corinthian Production, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Univ. Amphora of Southampton, 1986, i. 234-44; G. Basiakos and A. Archontidou-Argyri, 'Aiop3og: i~pva yta Epyaorilpta

ap0op~ov', A. Delt. 41 (1986), Chr. 207-12

(esp. 211-12 for the

break in the ceramic tradition).Recent petrographic analyses carried out on archaic Lesbian amphorae have found that the clays include a large proportion of volcanic material, as one might expect from the volcanic geology of the centre and west of the island: I. Whitbread, pers. comm. 217Lamb devoted approximately the same amount of space to the grey wares and the imported wares in her (more detailed) report on the ceramics at Antissa: Lamb, Antissa 1931-2,

51-60

(c.3.5 sides

of text

to each).

The

true

proportion of finds is only clear from the comments such as 'the majority of our finds consisted of the native Lesbian Grey Ware . . . Amongst thousands of sherds . . .' (pp. 51-2),

while it is clear that for nearly all the imported wares reference is being made to a small number of sherds: 'the earliest [imported] sherds are protogeometric . . . there are four or five of them' (pp. 56); (Rhodian Geometric) 'a few fragments'; (Rhodian Bird bowls) 'nine fragments'; mention is made of approximately lo Attic black-figure and 5 redfigure fragments (pp. 59-60). Only Protocorinthianis said to be represented by a 'large number' of fragments (p. 58), but this still cannot be on anything approaching the scale of the local grey wares. Lamb saved her more detailed synthesis of the grey wares for the article in JHS 1932 (n. 21).

218Schiering'sreport of the Boehlau excavations at Pyrrha again almost takes for granted the knowledge that the grey wares formed the bulk of the ceramic material on the socalled 'temple terrace' of the acropolis (and probably the majority of the pottery from the whole site): Schiering, 348 and C. Boehringer, pers. comm.; some of these grey wares were discussed in the preliminary study of Lamb (n. 2I), 1-12; see also Bayne, 245-6. Williams and Williams 1988, 139, 146-7; 219 Mytilene: 1989, 175, 177-8; 1990, 189-90; 1991, I8I, 184-8 (for the large

amounts of grey ware on the acropolis, almost the sole ceramic evidence for the late archaic and early classical periods in this part of the town, and for the archaic and classical levels on the lower town site including large amounts of grey ware). Methymna: BSA, W. Lamb archive, Methymna I and plans 2-3; the rarity of imported archaic pottery at the site is also noted by Buchholz, 93-4, 102-5 (and pl. 17 Is-f, who published the few late Protocorinthian, E. Greek, and Attic sherds from Lamb's excavations together with his own surface finds.

EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN

EAST AND WEST

303

The predominant use of the grey wares may be uniform throughout the island in the archaic period, but the date at which this long tradition finally ended is not the same at every site. At Mytilene and Antissa where detailed excavation reports are available, there is interesting variation regarding the period at which the local grey wares began to be dominated by imports of (especially Attic) fine wares. At the former site the Aiolic grey fabrics continued to dominate as late as the classical period whereas at Antissa the transition to Attic

black-glazewares was occuring alreadyin the fifth century.220 CONCLUSIONS

The material remains of the Early Iron Age and archaic periods in Lesbos are admittedly very scanty, but their analysis presented above paints a much more three-dimensional picture of the island in these periods than has previously been offered from the reconstructions based upon the selective use of the literary sources. The material evidence demonstrates that the collapse of the Late Bronze Age empires to the east did not end the eastern link of the island's culture visible in the Bronze Age, and its continuation into the Early Iron Age has been traced through a number of different bodies of material evidence. Until even the Geometric and archaic periods Lesbos was a place where there was a meeting of influences from the east and west. The island was at the western end of the channels which brought metals, ceramics, and perhaps even craftsmen, overland from Anatolia in a two-way communication process which resulted in the growth of eastern traditions in cult practice and architectural styles, yet in other respects (such as burial practice) the Lesbians were fully integrated into the world of the eastern Greeks. For a significant period one sphere of influence does not seem to have dominated the other, and the two traditions existed side-by-side even into the archaic period: both Greek and Anatolian deities were worshipped in close proximity to one another (possibly even in the same building); styles of temple and funerary architecture with their origin in the east were employed alongside more mainstream 'Greek' styles, and votives at these cult places were from both east and west. To return briefly to the literary sources, however, if the texts are used less selectively they show not just that the island can be compared with aspects of archaic Greek culture such as the political constitutions, but also that there are more traces of this blend of influences from both east and west in society itself. It is clear, for example, that from the Geometric and early archaic periods there were already two parallel myths of descent among the (presumably similarly divided, and coexisting) population groups in Lesbos, one representing the pre-Greek, native tradition, the other a more recognizably 'Greek' version. The former of these traditions was linked to a nonGreek figure named Makar, who was ruler of Lesbos in the Iliad221 and was said to have colonized the island also.222 Another completely separate myth developed, however, which 220For the high proportion of grey wares in the classical strata at Mytilene (even higher than the proportion in the archaic levels) see Williams and Williams 1988, 146; 1989, 178; 1991, i8i; for the Geometric and archaic sequences at Antissa see Lamb, Antissa 1931-2, 51. 221Hom. II. xxiv. 544.

222 Diod. v. 57. 2; 81. 3. The traditions of Makar's colonization of Lesbos seem to be deliberately distinguished in the sources from the first 'Greek' presence in the island (the latter was achieved by Lesbos, son of Lapithes, after

whom the island was named, v. 81. 5-6). Instead, Makar is associated with the (non-Greek) place names Mytilene and Methymna, who are his only two named daughters in the version preserved by Diodorus (v. 81. 7). This evidence suggests that Makar was a figure whose origins were vague even to the Greeks when they arrived in the island, and that they later used him in myth to explain features such as toponyms which also predated their arrival and were incomprehensibleto them, distinguishinghim in legend from any Greek activity in the island.

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304

linked the colonization of the island to Penthilos and Gras, the descendants of Orestes.223This last myth may be known largely through later source material, but its significance even by the early archaic period is clear from the name adopted by one of the aristocraticgenein seventhcentury Mytilene, the 'Penthilidai'or 'Descendants of Penthilos'.224It was this genosinto which Pittakos was said to have married,225and in Mytilene at this time the society seems to have been a very cosmopolitan one and obviously still in a great state of flux. Even Pittakos'family were recent arrivals (his father Hyrrhas was a Thracian226),and the verses of Alkaios and Sappho indicate clearly the exchange taking place on many levels between Lesbos and the coastal cities of the Greeks and Lydia to the east.227 Morris has highlighted a feature ofAlkaios and Sappho's archaic poetry first noted by Page some 40 years ago, regardingthe desire to flaunt one's links to the East in order to emphasize one's privileged position in society.228Alkaios and Sappho were part of what Morris termed the 'elitist tradition', emphasizing luxury and heroic ideals which 'collapsed the distances between the aristocracyand the gods, the heroes and the great rulers of Lydia'.229The ideals of a past heroic world and a desire for all things eastern are visible, however, not only in the textual evidence with Alkaios' epic-style description of Lesbian armour,230the lament of Sappho (possibly from exile) at the lack of availability of Lydian fineries,231and even the alleged heroic-style duel in the the Troad between Pittakos and Phrynon over Sigeion.232The inclusion of eastern material in archaic tombs in Lesbos is another clear example of this hankering,and there may well be a similar intention behind the use of tumulus burials by the Aiolic colonists in the Troad in the archaic period mentioned above. The use of such tumuli in the area around Sigeion and Troy may have had additional relevance in the struggle against the Athenians (see above), but the more general appeal to the East and the heroic world is obviously relevant too.233The name in the archaic (sixth-century)inscription on the tumulus at Dardanos (inscribedin the Aiolic dialect) named the figure interred within as none other than a 'Skamander,the son of Makaris',234and this last name is one which has more than passing significance in the myths current in archaic Lesbos as has been noted above. Those who left Lesbos to live in the Troad from the end of the eighth century were no doubt well aware of the similar sumptuous style of burial recently employed at Gordion, and dlite members of the colonies may well have attempted to emulate the royal line of Phrygia and 223The references for this tradition in the literary sources are collected by Bhrard(n. 30), 22-8. 224 Campbell (n. 186), Sappho fr. 71, Alkaios frs. 7o, 75, 302; Arist. Pol. 1311 b 23-31. jv 225 Diog. Laert. i. 81 .i yvvil [Tofl nlttaxoa] .. Apdxovrog T a0croi. ao6pacl xatreoop3capE3e1o 16ekj InEoOovoxo,

226 Ibid. i. 74 nlttaxbg'YppacLov 6 Mv1JLkXIvacog. 4llo Aoipt;g tv xa3zipa actoi Opixca eIvalt; Suid. s.v. It~traxbg i ~Yppa6tov Opax6g; J. M. MvtLklvagog clbg Ka'ixoi

Bremer, A. M. van Erp Taalman Kip, and S. R. Slings, Some Recently Found GreekPoems (Mnemosyne supp. 99; Leiden,

1987), ioi (Cologne

Papyrus 202I col. ii 1. 47).

or Tradition held that Pittakos' father had been caotLhXeg ndpavvogin Mytilene (Herodian, Gr. ii. 858. 28), and if Hyrrhas had already attained such an eminent position, on Pittakos (Arist. Pol. 1285 Alkaios' slur of xacxocnarpLb6ag

a 39) must therefore be a reference to his foreign ancestry rather than any idea that he was of low birth: see Page, I69-7I.

227Page (n. 9); Campbell (n. 186), Sappho frs. 39 (imports of Lydian leatherwork),96 (freedom of movement between

Lesbos and Lydia);Alkaios fr. 69 (and 306, a commentary on fr. 69, concerning Lydian interference in the factional disputes at Mytilene). For imports of Lydian ceramics to Mytilene see G. P Schaus, 'Imported west Anatolian pottery at Gordian', Anatolian Studies,42 (1992), 154 n. 9. 228Morris, pers. comm. (1993); Page 230. 229Morris, ibid. 230 Page 209-23.

231Campbell (n. I86), Sappho fr. 94 a, b. 232Strabo, xiii. 6oo00; Diog. Laert. i. 74.

233K. DeVries, 'Greeks and Phrygians in the early iron ThePapersof a age', in K. DeVries (ed.), FromAthensto Gordion: Symposiumfor R. S. YoungHeld at the UniversityMuseum, Pennsylvania (3 May 1975) (Pennsylvania,

1980), 40-2, made

the interesting observation that some features of Phrygian culture were very similar to those portrayed in the world of Homer. For the idea that funerary complexes in archaic Attica were deliberate evocations of the burials of Homeric heroes see Whitley (n. 14o). 234I. Aksik, 'Recent archaeological research in Turkey', Anatolian Studies, 21 (I971), 49-50.

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305

become a 'Midas' in their own right, emphasizing their privileged 'Oriental' links in as permanent and conspicuous a manner as possible with a burial tumulus. I end by returning to where I began with the literary picture of the archaic period in Lesbos. As Page and Morris have noted, there are hints in the verses of Alkaios and Sappho that the fashion was to look eastwards to Anatolia where the civilizations ancient even to the Greeks of the archaic period carried a mystique and appeal which the dlite could emphasize in their struggle for supremacy in the early years of the archaic period. The previous studies which drew comparisons with other Greek states (especially their similar political constitutions) are not invalid, but the material evidence has emphasized not only the strong links to the East in the Early Iron Age and archaic periods (in some cases the relics of close ties with Bronze Age Anatolia) but also the distinctions between Lesbos and the Greek settlements in the East Aegean and on the coast of Asia Minor. In short, the literary sources for the archaic period do indeed reveal Lesbos to be a flourishing island in the East Aegean with an Aiolian Greek element in the population and culture, but it is an element which one would hardly have believed existed at all if the literary sources had not survived and one was making a judgement from the material record alone.

InstituteofArchaeology, Oxford APPENDIX:

CATALOGUE

NIGEL

OF THE PROTOGEOMETRIC FROM PYRRHA

SPENCER

AND GEOMETRIC

SHERDS

The ten sherds presented on PLATE33 (a-b) and discussed above (p. 281) from the excavations of Johannes Boehlau at Pyrrha in 1906-7 (now stored in the G6ttingen ArchaeologicalInstitute)represent the first publication of any truly Protogeometric material from Lesbos. Their great importance therefore warrants a more detailed catalogue of the pottery,which is provided below. The descriptions were generouslyoffered by Prof. Dr Wolfgang Schiering and Dr Christof Boehringer. The ceramic colour-scale used was that of the C. E. C. Shade Guide FTderationEurop~enne des Fabricantsde Carreaux C~ramiques, S. Jakobsstr.25, Basel. The code letters represent the following colours: A = black to light grey; D/E = beige to brown; F/G = reddish to true red; H = with a shade of violet. In the following descriptions of the sherds Ht = height, Br = breadth, Th = thickness. The measurementsgiven are in mm. PLATE 33 (A) i. (farleft) Sherd from open vessel (skyphos). H. = IoI; Br. = 82; Th. = 2.4-5. Clay (in the break):light-brown(E Io). Background(outside):beige-brown (E Io, a little more dull). Decoration: mid/dark-brown (H II). Pattern:Remains of two circulararches. Inside: towards the thick edge a dissimilar colour to the decoration. 2. (middle, above) Sherd from open vessel. H. = 52; Br. = 40; Th. = 5-6.

Clay (in the break): light-brown, reddish (F Io); fine mica. Background(outside):light-beige (D io). Decoration: dark/mid-brown (E

II).

Pattern:Remains of three circulararches. Inside:light-red('Oxblood')coloureddecoration(GIO). 3. (middle, below) Sherd from thick-walled closed vessel (an amphora?). H. = 47; Br. = 64; Th. = 9Clay (in the break):mid-brown (E Io), on the surface reddish (F Io). Background(outside):reddish-brown(E/F IO). Decoration: mid/red-brown (H/F Ii). Pattern:remains of two concentric semicirclepatterns. Inside: reddish clay colour (F Io). 4. (right) Sherd from thick-walled closed vessel (an amphora?). H. = 79; Br. = 59; Th. = 8-Io. The somewhatcoarserclay is a beige-redcolour (E/F9); fine mica.

306

NIGEL SPENCER

Background(outside):light-beige (D8). Decoration: matt black (A II).

Pattern: 'Hour-glass' with remains of concentric semicircles;clear compass prick. Inside: colour of clay. PLATE 33 (B) I. (top left) Sherd from neck of an amphora (or jug); protrudingneck, handle base. H. = 87; Br. (below the neck) = 75; Th. = c.6 (on the neck protrusion = 8-Io). Clay (in the break):mid-brown (E II). Background(outside):mid-brown (E IO). Decoration: black (A II).

Pattern:band of zig-zagsand (below)band of meanders. Inside: mid-brown, greyish (D/E IO). 2. (left, below) Sherd from closed vessel. H. = 43; Br. = c.62; Th. = c.6. Clay (in the break):reddish-brown(F Io); fine mica. Background(outside):mid-brown (EIO/II). Decoration: black-brown(AIO). Pattern:Remains of concentric circles. Inside: colour of clay (F Io). 3. (middle, above) Sherd from neck-base of an amphora or jug (sherdupside down). H. = 55; Br. = 58; Th. = c.6. Clay (in the break and inside):mid-brown (E IO).

Background(outside):mid-brown, shiny (E II). Decoration: black/dark-brown(A II). Pattern: Remains of a lying, hatched, 'Hour Glass' motif in a gridded, vertical band. Inside: colour of clay (as in the break:E Io). 4. (middle,below)Sherdfroma thick-walled,closedvessel. H. = c.5i; Br. = 52; Th. = 7-o10. Clay (in the break):beige (D II);slightly micaceous. Background(outside):mid-brown (E II). Decoration: black/dark-brown(A 12). Pattern:Remains of concentric three-quartercircles. Inside: colour of clay (as in the break:D II). 5. (right, above) Sherd from closed vessel (possibly from the same vessel as B 2). H. = 40; Br. = 48; Th. = 8. Clay (in break):red-brown(F Io); micaceous. Background(outside):mid-brown (D/E IO). Decoration: dark-brown(H9-11). Pattern:Remains of two groups of concentric circles. Inside: colour of clay (as in the break:F Io). 6. (right,below) Sherd from open vessel. H. = 45; Br. = 53; Th. = 6. Clay (in break):mid-brown (E Io); fine mica. Background(outside):dark-brown(A9). Decoration: dark-brown(AIO). Pattern:Swastika,three-corners. Inside: Same as decoration (AIO). N.S.

ENDNOTE (see n. 130 on p. 290) Recently published Mycenaean and Protogeometricsherds from Sardis (the latter of early Ioth-century date) indicated to their publisher (Ramage) the 'close relations [of Sardis] with the Aegean world in the very late Bronze Age, relations that continue into the Early Iron Age across that period of collapse that looms so large in accounts of the period in peninsular Greece'; A. Ramage, 'Early iron age Sardis and its neighbours', in A. Cilingiroglu and D. H. French (eds),AnatolianIronAges3: TheProceedings of the3rd AnatolianIronAgesColloquium heldat Van(6-12 August199go) (BIAA Monographs, 16; Oxford, I994), 164 and pl. 14. 2. 2.

PLATE 33

(a)

(b) SPENCER EARLY LESBOS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST (a-b) Protogeometricand Geometric sherds from Pyrrha.(CourtesyGottingen ArchaeologicalInstitute.)