Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T21:34:00.856Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rescue Excavations at Servia 1971–1973: A Preliminary Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Cressida Ridley  and
K. A. Wardle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Until 1974, the site known to archaeologists as Servia, and discovered by A. J. B. Wace in 1909, about 6 km. north of the town of the same name, was to be found on the right bank of the Haliakmon, immediately downstream from the bridge carrying the main road from Larissa to Kozani (Plate 26a). The bridge shown in the frontispiece to ‘Prehistoric Macedonia’ was blown up by the retreating British Army in the last war; the Bailey bridge which replaced it and the site itself now lie over 30 m. below the surface of a great artificial lake, Limni Polyphytou, which fills the valley of the Middle Haliakmon, Plate 26b. The new bridge is the largest in Greece, and its impressive length emphasizes the importance of the crossing. Over it passes the highway, once the only practicable route connecting Thessaly, and ultimately central Greece, with Macedonia, while the bridges, past and present, marked the only convenient fording-place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 74 , November 1979 , pp. 185 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1979

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 Reported by Wace, A. J. B. in ‘The Mounds of Macedonia’ BSA xx (1913–1914) 123.Google Scholar Excavation by Heurtley, W. A.: ‘Excavations at Servia in Western Macedonia’ AJ xvii 227Google Scholar; Prehistoric Macedonia.

2 e.g. A. J. B. Wace and M. S. Thompson, Prehistoric Thessaly: D. H. French, Index of Prehistoric Sites in Central Macedonia.

3 Rodden, R. J., ‘Excavations at the Early Neolithic site at Nea Nikomedeia, Greek Macedonia’, PPS xxviii (1962) 267.Google Scholar

4 Financial assistance towards the expenses of the excavation was also given by the British Academy, the Marc Fitch Fund, the Craven Fund of Oxford University, and the Russell Trust. The excavation was jointly directed by Katerina Rhomiopoulou, Cressida Ridley, and K. A. Wardle and thanks are due in particular to Yiannis Touratsoglou, Epimeletis at Verria, who was one of the site supervisors each season and Ian Morrison who acted as architect and photographer. Drawings of finds in this article were made by Zillah Pettit and Diana Wardle, while Harry Buglass prepared the plans and section.

5 Athens Annals of Archaeology (hereafter AAA) v (1972) 27.

6 AAA vi (1973) 419.

7 AAA vii (1974) 351.

8 See Appendices with preliminary account of specialist studies. Sitagroi: Renfrew, A. C.AJA lxxiv (1970) 273Google Scholar; Antiquity xliv (1970) 131; PPS xxxvi (1970) 296. Nea Nikomedeia see n. 3.

9 It must be emphasized that this is a preliminary report only. Mies Wijnen had time to study only a limited, though representative, sample of the pottery.

10 Milojčić, V., ‘Hauptergebnisse der deutschen Ausgrabungen in Thessalien 1953–58’, JRGZM vi (1959) 9.Google Scholar

11 Milojčić, V., ‘Hauptergebnisse der deutschen Ausgrabungen in Thessalien 1953–58’, JRGZM vi (1959) 10.Google ScholarHourmouziadis, G.ADelt xxiv (1969) 223Google Scholar; AAA ii (1969) 169; BCH xciv (1970) 1052.

12 M. R. Popham and L. S. Sackett, Excavations at Lefkandi. Euboea 1964–6. Fig. 16.

13 G. Hourmouziadis, Neolithika Eidolia tis Thessalias.

14 Evans, J. D., ‘Excavations in the Neolithic Settlement of Knossos, 1957–60. Part I’, BSA lix (1964) 176.Google Scholar

15 See Appendix 2.

16 JRGZM vi (1959) 24. V. Milojčić and H. Hauptmann, Die Funde der frühen Dimini-Zeit aus der Arapi-Magula, Thessalien.

17 Wace and Thompson, loc. cit.

18 Rippled decoration, including curvilinear and spiral motifs, is well represented in fine burnished pottery, grey as well as black, from the Drama plain, (Photolivos-Sitagroi and surface collections). Stray rippled sherds occur at Vardina and at Nea Nikomedeia in L.N. levels. In Thessaly it is best known from the Larissa region while it is rare in the black burnished pottery of central and southern Greece.

19 Studia Albanica ix (1972) fig. 8 and F. Schachermeyr, Die Ägäische Frühzeit taf. 10d.

20 Milojčić and Hauptmann, loc. cit.

21 ADelt, xxi (1966) Chr. 377.

22 Rodden, R. J., ‘Recent discoveries from prehistoric Macedonia’, Balkan Studies v (1964) 109.Google Scholar

23 E. Hanschmann, V. Milojcić, Die deutschen Ausgrabungen auf der Argissa-Magula, 3.

24 Caskey, J. L., ‘Excavations at Lerna, 1957’, Hesperia xxvii, 144Google Scholar; ‘The Early Helladic Period in the Argolid’, Hesperia xxix, 289. D. H. French, Notes on Prehistoric Pottery Groups from central Greece, xix.

25 Grundmann, Kimon, Ath. Mitt, lvii (1932) 102Google Scholar; lix (1934) 123; lxii (1937) 56.

26 Biesantz, H., ‘Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Thessalien 1958: II. Die Ausgrabung bei der Soufli-Magoula’, AA 1959, 56.Google Scholar

27 Personal information from Phelps, W. W.. See also his unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Neolithic pottery sequence in southern Greece, University of London 1975.Google Scholar

28 Simoska, D., Acta Archaeologica Macedoniae, i (1975) 25.Google Scholar M. Gimbutas, Neolithic Macedonia, Excavations at Anza. Monumenta Archaeologica 1.

29 D. Theocharis, Neolithic Greece 119.

30 Hopf, M., ‘Fruhe Kulturpflanzen aus Bulgarien’, JRGZM xx (1973) 1.Google Scholar

31 J. M. Renfrew in A. C. Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilization 276.

32 Liener in G. Norton, Plant Proteins.

33 Renfrew, J. M., ‘A report on recent findes [sic] of carbonised cereal grains and seeds from prehistoric Thessaly’, Thessalika v. 21.Google Scholar

34 van Zeist, W. and Bottema, S., ‘Plant Husbandry in Early Neolithic Nea Nikomedeia, Greece’, Acta Botanica Neerlandica xx (1971) 524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 S. Bottema, Late Quaternary vegetational history of North-Western Greece.

36 A fuller account can be found in Nature cclvii, 122–3.

37 Hall, E. T., Schweitzer, F. and Toller, P. A., ‘X-ray analysis of museum objects; a new instrument’, Archaeometry xv (1973) 53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 ‘The occurrence of metallic iron in ancient copper’, Journal of Field Archaeology ii (1975) 251.

39 Craddock, P. T., ‘The composition of the copper alloys used by the Greek, Etruscan and Roman civilizations. 1, The Greeks before the Archaic period’, Journal of Archaeological Science iii (1976) 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 BSA xxviii (1926–7) 195.