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Excavations at Pindakas in Chios

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2013

John Boardman
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Extract

Pindakas is a small and low hill lying about 1·5 km. from the harbour at Emporio in South Chios. It is at the foot of the hills which divide the modern town of Pyrgi from the Emporio valley, but it also commands access to the adjacent valley to the north, that leading to modern Kalamoti (see Figs, 1 and 2). The position is, however, one which is better called convenient than strategic. The name must derive from πίδαξ, ‘spring’ or ‘fountain’, and, although there is no water on the hill itself, an excellent well lies close to its slopes on the west. Ano- and Kato-Pindakas have been distinguished, but the distinction is lost today, and Ano-Pindakas, rather nearer Emporio, is as bare of human habitation as Kato-Pindakas, which is our site.

Today the flat top of the hill is bare and rocky with scattered olive trees, though the fields around are rich in corn and mastika. Zolotas had noted antiquities there but it is the great polygonal walls at the west which make two terraces of the hill-top that are the most conspicuous remains (Plate 72a–b). It was on these two terraces that excavations were conducted by the writer in July 1954, in the course of the British School at Athens' excavations at Emporio. Sections were cut east–west through the upper and lower terraces, and north–south through the upper terrace (Figs. 3 and 4, AA and BB) and these, with minor trenches and some ground observation, tell a clear story of the site's history and buildings.

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Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 53 , November 1959 , pp. 295 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1959

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References

1 ῾Ιστορὶα τῆς Χὶου i. 1, 460.

2 The survey of the area on which Figs. 1–3 are based was prepared by the late Dr. M. G. F. Ventris with the assistance of his wife.

3 On the dating of Chian wine amphorae see Anderson, J. K., BSA xlix (1954) 168–70Google Scholar, and for the amphorae with bulging necks in mid-fifth-century contexts, Hesperia xxii (1953) 105.

4 Jones, J. E., Sackett, L. H., and Eliot, C. W. J., BSA lii (1957) 181, pls. 31–35.Google Scholar

5 Delphinion: Boardman, J., BSA li (1956) 41–54Google Scholar; Viki: ibid. 45.

6 Preliminary reports of the British School's excavations here appear in JHS lxxiv (1954) 163; lxxv (1955), Suppl. 23.

7 Apart from wine amphorae and pithoi there were fragments of fifth-fourth-century B.C. black painted fishplates, cups (impressed ovules and rouletting), kantharoi (fourth century), and a plate with impressed palmettes. The late pottery comprised fragments of Late Roman C bowls, spiral-incised amphorae, and a cooking-pot; also part of a glass lamp.

8 Num. Chron. xv (1915) 426, pl. 19, 14–16.

9 For the restoration of the names Αθηνα[γορας ]Απολ- λω[νιδης ] and σχιμα[χος ] ibid. 422, 426 f.

10 Ibid. 384 f.

11 He has also a variety (his no. 46a): a solitary specimen with the sphinx to the right. In studying the worn examples in our hoard I was more than once erroneously led to think that we had parallels for this, but the worn outline of a sickle-wing is much the same as that of the sphinx's body inverted.

12 Ibid, 393.

13 See also Gardner, P., JHS xl (1920) 160 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘The Financial History of Ancient Chios’.

14 Zeit. f. Num. xiv (1887) 148 has a drawing of the jug (it does not exactly correspond with the measurements quoted in the text). The type cannot be closely enough dated as yet to be relevant to the discussion.

15 He miscounts the total of bronze coins (ibid. 157); cf. also Noe, S. P., Bibliography of Greek Coin Hoards 274, no. 240Google Scholar; Mavrogordato, , Num. Chron. xv (1915) 431 f.Google Scholar

16 Op. cit. 52. Her general account of the development of the silver coinage in Chios is convincing, but the arguments about dating seem often muddled. Mavrogordato takes pains to relate the coinage to the history of the island.

17 One might add the absence of any restruck coins such as are found in many collections of Chian fourth–third-century bronze, and the open forms of the letters Σ, Μ.

18 Mavrogordato, op. cit. 394, 403.

19 B.M.C. Ionia, passim. For a more recent study see Milne, J. G., Kolophon and its Coinage 49–59Google Scholar, where it is suggested that the bronze coinage may have begun after the Peace of Antalkidas in 387/6 B.C. Possibly the same event occasioned the resumption of bronze coinage in Chios.

20 A plausible explanation for the retention of the incuse squares is given by Benson, I. in Num. Review xiii (iv. 1) Jan. 1947, 26Google Scholar, for which see also Schol. Ar. Av. 158.

21 See above, p. 300, n. 3. Miss V. Grace is preparing a detailed study of the development of the amphora shape and its relationship to the representations on coins.

22 For the coins, Baldwin-Brett, op. cit. pl. 3. On the dating of the bulbous-necked amphorae see above, p. 300, n. 3. On the currency decree see Robinson, E. S. G., Hesperia Suppl. viii. 324 ff.Google Scholar; Mattingly, H. B., Proc. Class. Ass. 1957, 31 f.Google Scholar, prefers a later date.

23 The odd number of Chian silver drachms (489) recorded in the accounts of the Treasurers of the Other Gods at Athens for 429/8 B.C. (IG i2 310, 112) could not have been made up with the tetrobols issued with the didrachms, and proves that the drachm and tetradrachm issue was already current. The unique electrum stater in Berlin (Baldwin-Brett, op. cit. pl. 4, 11; Mavrogordato, op. cit. pl. 18, 5) seems to belong to the intermediate period, both from the shape of the amphora on it and from the wreath and sphinx's wing, which are treated in the earlier manner, while the creature's general build is closer to the later tetradrachms. This supports the view that the Athenian currency decree did stop the Chian silver, though not for long. Robinson, op. cit. 330, proposes this date for the coin, but the existence of silver coinage at the same time is also implied.

24 Mavrogordato reports examples of this type with Α and Σ on either side of the amphora (op. cit., 385, no. 47). If this implies contemporaneity with the drachms with monograms, it is a striking confirmation for the dating of this bronze so early. The name Ασμενος occurs on a tetradrachm of this period (Baldwin-Brett, op. cit., pl. 5, 3).

25 Ibid. pl. 6, 1–8.

26 Ibid. pl. 6, 9–26.

27 Of course we cannot be sure that the names are of the same person or that the coins are of the same period of office.

28 Ibid. pl. 6, 9–12.

29 Ibid. pl. 6, 13–26.

30 Ibid. pl. 6, 18–20, 22–25 and pp. 34 f., figs. 14, 15. The end feathers begin to separate and a straight line of feathers across the wing replaces the lengthwise triple division. The new arrangement recalls that of the archaic didrachms.

31 Mavrogordato, op. cit. pl. 19, 17–19.

32 Num. Chron. xvi (1916), pl. 10, 1–4.

33 Ibid. pl. 10, 5–7. They might begin even earlier. I am not sure that the small bronze coins ibid. pl. 10, 8–9, need be dissociated from those like our Group B, despite their apparent crudity.

34 For example, Noe records other hoards of bronze from Chios in Athens, unpublished. A number of additions can also be made to the magistrates' names listed by Mavrogordato.