Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T02:44:22.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Nemesis: A Mycenaean settlement near the Menidi Tholos Tomb

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2013

Abstract

The site to be described lies on a low hill a little to the north of the small village or suburb of Nemesis, about 150 metres to the west of the main road from Patisia to Koukouvaounes, and 1 kilometre to east-south-east of the Mycenaean tholos tomb at Λυκὸτρυπα, which was excavated by the German Institute in 1879, and is usually called the Menidi Tomb. The site at Nemesis is visible from the tholos tomb, and is separated from it by a gentle valley through which run, in a southerly direction, two streams with steep banks. The eastern stream is the river Kephissos, whose name goes back at least as far as the classical period.

The hill of Nemesis stands about 15 to 20 metres above the level of the surrounding land, and measures about 160 m. north-west to south-east × 120 m. north-east to south-west. The hill is an isolated outcrop of conglomerate rock, thinly covered with stony brown earth. It has been eroded over an area about 250 m. north-south × 50 m. east-west, so that its original size was considerably larger than at present, in all about 30,000 square metres. Mycenaean sherds were found over the whole of this area, though mainly in the eroded part, among the lumps of fallen earth and rock. Remains of rubble walling together with several Mycenaean sherds were found here, and also in the steep cliffs formed by the erosion on the west and south sides (this part of the hill has been undermined by recent excavation of the beds of grey clay, which here lie at between 2 and 3 metres below the original ground level). The ancient remains are particularly noticeable in the south-west angle of the cliffs (roughly in the centre of the part of the hill shown on Plate 71a), where there is a greater depth of earth above the rock than is visible elsewhere on the hill.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1959

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Excavation report in Lolling, , Das Kuppelgrab bei Menidi (1880).Google Scholar Description of pottery: Furtwaengler, and Loeschke, , Mykenische Vasen 39–40 and pl. 21Google Scholar; Wolters, , JdI xiv (1899) 114 ff.Google Scholar; Stubbings, , BSA xlii (1947) 24.Google Scholar

2 The site called Gerovouni by Lolling, op. cit. 3.

3 IG i2. 189.

4 Leake, , Athens and the Demi of Attica ii 2 (1841) 41 and 183Google Scholar; Loeper, , AM xvii (1892) 411–12Google Scholar; Milchhoefer, , Untersuchungen über die Demensordnung des Kleisthenes (1892) 30.Google Scholar

5 I am very grateful to Mr. C. W. J. Eliot for help and advice concerning the locations of the Attic demes herementioned.

6 Haley, , AJA xxxii (1928) 141–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar (the names being under Group B on his p. 144).

7 Now in the sherd collection of the British School at Athens.