¹ The project was directed by the present author. Team members included W. Barry Gray, surveyor, Letitia Kaminski, draughtsman and artist, Russell B. Adams, photographer, and students Elizabeth Alder, Rod Crocker, Linda Glenn, and Les White, as well as Virginia Stephanopoulou from the University of Athens. Research assistants P. Gail Fenwick and Penny Pearson were also of great help. The project was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and by Wilfrid Laurier University. The author would like to thank both for their confidence in the project. In addition, thanks are due to Dr Susan Young and her staff at the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens, and Dr Angelike Andreiomenou, Ephor of Boiotia, and her staff at the Thebes Museum; without the encouragement of both of these individuals the project would have been impossible. The survey was authorized by a permit issued by the Greek Archaeological Service to the Canadian Archaeological Institute.

Special appreciation is due to the team members themselves, who worked enthusiastically in the field in May and June of 1985 (and many of whom who continued active during the publication phase). Field conditions were difficult topographically and adverse entomologically, yet the enthusiasm and vigour of the team never waned.

A report on the project was delivered at the 87th General Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Washington, DC December 1985 (see AJA 90 (1986) 199); a preliminary report is in Echoes du monde classique 30 NS 5 (1986) 160–72.

² On the name Grimadha (variously spelt Graimadha, Grimala, Grimathi, or Grematha) see Fossey, John M., ‘The Identification of Graia’, Euphrosyne NS 4 (1970) 6.Google Scholar

³ The physical geography of Boiotia and its mountains is discussed by Buck, Robert J., A History of Boeotia (Edmonton 1979) 1–5.Google Scholar

⁴ Leake, William Martin, Travels in Northern Greece (London 1835) 2.454–5.Google Scholar

⁵ Kaphisos or Kephisos, a known Boiotian and Attic river name, is the fifth most common personal name at Tanagra. The Tanagrans had many personal names derived from the Asopos River. See the prosopography in the present author's Sources and Documents on Tanagra in Boiotia (forthcoming; hereinafter cited as SD). On the Kaphisos as a Boiotian river, see Buck (n. 3 above) 2–5 (cited as Cephissus).

⁶ A good summary of these early investigations appears in Frazer, James G., Pausanias's Description of Greece (reprint, New York 1965) 5.81–2.Google Scholar

⁷ For recent work in the Bali nekropolis, see Andreiomenou, Angeliki, ‘La necropole classique de Tanagra’, La Béotie Antique (Paris 1985) 109–30Google Scholar and ‘La necropoli arcaica e classica di Tanagra’, Magna Graecia 20. 5–6 (1985) 1–2.

Since the late 1960s Greek archaeologists have also been active in Mycenaean cemeteries about 5 km west of Grimadha, near the village of Vratsi, which has unfortunately been renamed Tanagra. The cemeteries are impressive, having produced the well-known larnakes showing mourning women which are now in the Thebes Museum. Publication of this and subsequent material under the name of ‘Tanagra’, however, has led to the belief that there was an extensive Mycenaean settlement at ancient Tanagra. This is not the case; the Mycenaean material cannot be associated with Grimadha, but belongs to a Bronze Age settlement to the west, perhaps Homeric Eilesion or another of the numerous Boiotian towns mentioned in the Iliad (see Hope-Simpson, R. and Lazenby, J. F., The Catalogue of the Ships in Homer's Iliad (Oxford 1970) 19–37Google Scholar, esp. p. 23). On the Mycenaean cemetery at Vratsi, see Spyropoulos, Theodores, ‘Excavations in the Mycenaean Cemetery of Tanagra in Boeotia’, AAA 3 (1970) 184–97Google Scholar, as tne numerous other reports listed in Dorothy Leekley and Efstratiou, Nicholas, Archaeological Excavations in Central and Northern Greece (Park Ridge, NJ 1980) 34–5Google Scholar (regrettably cited under ‘Tanagra’).

⁸ Strabo 9.2. 10–12; Pausanias 9. 19. 8.

⁹ A barricade had been constructed at Skolos, up the Asopos from Tanagra, by 377 BC (Xenophon, , Hellenika 5. 4. 49Google Scholar). This had the effect of separating the Tanagraia from the rest of Boiotia. By 330 Bc Demosthenes (On the Crown 56) could distinguish between ‘Tanagra’ and ‘all Boiotia’.

¹⁰ The evidence for this policy is widespread; see especially SD, nos. 44–60.

¹¹ Kendrick Pritchett, W., Studies in Ancient Greek Topography, Part III: Roads (Berkeley 1980) 203–5.Google Scholar

¹² Wheler and Spon in 1675 noted ruins at a site called Scamino, probably modern Sykaminos near the mouth of the Asopos, and suggested that this was ancient Tanagra (A Jour ney Into Greece (London 1682) 456). This seems to have been the only attempt before the nineteenth century to consider the location of Tanagra.

¹³ ‘Besides there were medals of cities, … two which particularly interested us at the moment, from the present unknown situation of the city, namely of Tanagra … The peasants … referred us … to some Ruins that did not appear to us to be of much importance … (Travels in Various Countries, 4th edn. (London 1818) 7. 54–5).

¹⁴ ‘Three miles to the southward of it [Skimatari] is Grimadha, or Grimala, once perhaps the name of a modern village, but now attached only to the ruins of a Hellenic city which was certainly Tanagra…’ (Leake (see n. 4 above) 2.455). A local monk had told Leake that the ruins were called ‘Tenegra’, which strengthened Leake's conviction that the site was indeed ancient Tanagra (p. 464). Although the monk seems to have been correct, this probably does not represent any survival from antiquity, since Clarke's visit of five years previously and the discovery of Tanagran coins in the vicinity may have led the local inhabitants to guess at the ancient name.

¹⁵ Gell, William, Itinerary of Greece (London 1819) 134.Google Scholar By the time Leake's Northern Greece appeared sixteen years later, Cockerell's ‘discovery’ was too well known to be rejected.

¹⁶ Cockerell's unpublished plan is in the British Museum. See Hutton, C. A., ‘A Collection of Sketches by C. R. Cockerell, R.A.’, JHS 29 (1909) 419–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar John Hawkins, in a letter to E. D. Clarke, also claimed to have been the first to visit the site (Clarke (see n. 13 above) 55–6).

¹⁷ Other early visitors include Spencer Stanhope, John, in 1814 (Topographical Sketches on Megalopolis, Tanagra, Aulis, and Eretria (London 1831)Google Scholar; Pouqueville, F. C. H. L., before 1821 (Voyage de la Gréce (Paris 1821) 219)Google Scholar; Wordsworth, Christopher, 1832 (Athens and Attica: Journal of a Residence There, 2nd edn. (London 1837) 12–20)Google Scholar; Ross, Ludwig, 1834 (Wanderungen in Griechenland (Halle 1851) 1.109–10)Google Scholar; Ulrichs, H. N., 1837 (Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland (Berlin 1863) 68–71)Google Scholar; Baird, Henry, 1852 (Modern Greece (New York 1856) 170)Google Scholar; and Wyse, Thomas, probably 1859 (Impressions of Greece (London 1871) 60–1).Google Scholar A good summary of the earliest travellers appears in Knoepfler, Denis, ‘Zur Datierung der grossen Inschrift aus Tanagra in Louvre’, Chiron 7 (1977) 67–87.Google Scholar

¹⁸ The bibliography on the figurines is extensive. See Kleiner, Gerhard, Tanagrafiguren (Berlin 1942; new edn. 1984).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Pyne, Kathleen, ‘Classical Figures: A Folding Screen by Thomas Dewing’, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 59. 1 (1981) 5–15.Google Scholar She is currently preparing a monograph on the influence of the Tanagra figurines in nineteenth-century painting.

²⁰ Diehl, Ch., Excursions archéologiques en Gréce (Paris 1890) 337–80Google Scholar; Frazer (see n. 6 above) 5. 81–82.

²¹ Konstas, D. D., ‘Ἀναπκáθαι Τανáγρας’ PAE (1890) 33–5Google Scholar; Frazer (see n. 6 above) 5.81–2.

²² Ibid. 76–91.

²³ Such was the 1985 account of the guards assigned to protect the modern aqueduct which crosses the site.

²⁴ ‘An Historical and Topographical Survey of Tanagra in Boiotia’ (thesis, Harvard 1971); see HSCP 76 (1972) 299–302.

²⁵ ‘A New Map of Tanagra’, AJA 78 (1974) 152–6; ‘The Date of the Walk at Tanagra’, Hesperia 43 (1974) 260–3.

²⁶ The traditional neglect of such topics is in part being remedied; see Rackham, Oliver, ‘Observations on the Historical Ecology of Boiotia’, BSA 78 (1983) 291–351.Google Scholar

²⁷ See the present author's forthcoming Sources and Documents on Tanagra in Boiotia.

²⁸ Frazer (see n. 6 above) 5. 78.

²⁸ ‘The Date of the Walls at Tanagra’, Hesperia 43 (1974) 260–3.

³⁰ Frazer (see n. 6 above) included a number of detailed measurements in his account of his 1895 visit to the city (5. 78). Unfortunately, or fortunately, they all seem to have been in the southern areas, where the 1950s aqueduct destruction took place, and there is litde point in attempting to make his measurements conform to the current evidence.

³¹ Ibid 77–8. The various hasty defences of Athens in the third century after Christ are well known: see Travlos, John, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (New York 1971) 161.Google Scholar

³² Towers are numbered from the highest one at the summit (south end of the city), around the city in a clockwise direction.

³³ On overlap gates, see Winter, F. E., Greek Fortifications (Toronto 1971) 222–3Google Scholar; Lawrence, A. W., Greek Aims in Fortification (Oxford 1979) 332–4.Google Scholar

³⁴ The extensive use of towers is a feature of the fourth century Be. See Winter (n. 33 above) 157–9.

³⁵ This was a common means of guarding an acute angle in the wall. Winter (see n. 33 above) 198–9; Lawrence (see n. 33 above) 386–8.

³⁶ Winter (see n. 33 above) 161–2.

³⁷ For the stylistic and historic arguments regarding the date, see Hesperia 43 (1974) 260–3.

³⁸ A large block near the Delion Gate stands this high.

³⁹ The actual alignment is slightly north of north-east by slightly south of south-west, but the streets are referred to as north-south for convenience.

⁴⁰ The east-west avenues are actually aligned from slightly east of south-east to slightly west of north-west.

⁴¹ On orthogonal planning in Greece, see Thomas Boyd, ‘Appendix’, in Williams, Hector, ‘Investigations at Mytilene and Stymphalos, 1983’, EMC NS 3 (1984) 183–6.Google Scholar

⁴² Leake (see n. 4 above) 2. 456.

⁴³ Wyse (see no. 17 above) 60–1. It is unlikely that these are the fragments visible today.

⁴⁴ Frazer (see n. 6 above) 5.79.

⁴⁵ Fiechter, E., Das Theater in Oropos (Stuttgart 1930) 26Google Scholar; Das Theater in Eretria (Stuttgart 1937) 34–5.

⁴⁶ Pausanias 9. 22. 2: the sanctuaries are above the town in a clear area.

⁴⁷ See the appendix, ‘Cults of Tanagra’. in SD.

⁴⁸ Konstas (see n. 21 above) 33–5.

⁴⁹ Frazer (see n. 6 above) 5. 81–2.

⁵⁰ Delorme, Jean, Gymnasion (Paris 1960) 239.Google Scholar

⁵¹ There are no specific details other than size and shape to suggest that the structure is the gymnasium. Nevertheless the large rectangular plan is similar to those of a number of known gymnasia of the early Hellenistic period, such as Epidauros (Delorme, pp. 95–9 fig. 19) and the Palaestra at Olympia (Delorme, pp. 102–8). Although one might argue that Tanagra would not have had a gymnasium as monumental as one at the major centres, the Tanagran structure was noted for its art and worthy of mention by Pausanias (9. 22. 3).

⁵² This is clearly documented by Plutarch (Greek Questions 37), who listed a number of early sanctuaries and noted that all but one were abandoned by his time (and this one may have existed in name only).

⁵³ Pausanias 9. 22. 2. He hardly would have mentioned this had it not been unusual and notable. Wycherley, R. E., How the Greeh Built Cities (London 1962) 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁴ Charbonneaux, J., et al., Classical Greek Art, James Emmons, tr. (London 1972) 76.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ The features can be seen in the model formerly in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin (Charbonneaux, pl. 77). See also pp. 72–6, and Akurgal, Ekrem, Ancient Civilisations and Ruins of Turkey (Ankara 1969) 185–206.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Priene was probably refounded in 334 BC (Lawrence, A. W., Greek Architecture, 4th (integrated) edn. (Harmondsworth 1983) 343)Google Scholar, with the temple of Athene begun shortly before that time (pp. 249–52) and the earliest phase of the theatre around 300 Bc (pp. 368–70).

⁵⁷ Leake (see n. 4 above) 2. 456–8; Bouras, Ch., Churches of Attika, 2nd (English) edn. (Athens 1970) 361–3.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For these Tanagran names, see the Prosopography in SD. The stone has been removed to the Thebes Museum. The author is indebted to Paul Roesch for supplying the information about the date and form of the name.

⁵⁹ On quarries generally, see Ward-Perkins, J. B., ‘Quarrying in Antiquity: Technology, Tradition, and Social Change’, ProcBritAc 57 (1971) 137–58.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Such bollard sockets are common. See Ward-Perkins, p. 143 pl. 12b (Mt. Pentele, Attika).

⁶¹ Ward-Perkins 142–3.

⁶² The quarries for the sandstone have not been located. Sandstone outcrops are found on the ridges within Tanagra itself, and on Kokkali to the north; it seems to exist generally at an elevation of 100–150 m above sea–level, whereas the limestone occurs on the summits above 175 m in elevation.