Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:04:12.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bothroi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

R. W. Hutchinson
R. W. Hutchinson
Affiliation:
Villa Ariadne, Knossos
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

House-Pits or ‘bothroi’ have been uncovered on various sites of the Early Bronze Age in Greece, notably at Korakou, Gonia, and Zygouries in the Korinthia, at Asine in the Argolis, and at Eutresis and Orchomenos in Boiotia. They vary considerably in size and shape and the explanations of their purposes advanced by archaeologists are scarcely more uniform. They have been interpreted as common or as sacrificial rubbish pits, as hearths or slow ovens or as ‘silos’ (that is, cupboards for the storage of grain or other food).

The theory that such bothroi were underground ovens has recently been championed by Dr. Mylonas, who found one in a neolithic deposit at Olynthos in Macedonia, and who gives an illuminating account of the construction of such an oven at the present day in the neighbouring village of Myriophyto, inhabited by refugees from Asia Minor. The modern oven, or ‘ταντοῦρι,’ was prepared in the following manner.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , 1935 , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1935

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 I restrict the term ‘house-pits’ to the nonstructural pits often discovered by archaeologists in the floors of prehistoric houses or in courtyards immediately adjacent to them, and shall disregard pit-dwellings, post-holes and all other holes of an obviously structural character.

I am indebted to Miss Lamb for permission to publish details of the pits discovered in the recent excavations at Thermi; likewise to Mrs. M. E. Cunningham for permission to publish Fig. 9, to Dr. Buday Arpád for Fig. 6, and to Dr. W. Unverzagt for Fig. 7.

2 Blegen, , Korakou, p. 75Google Scholar; Zygouries, pp. 26, 28, 76, 77, 215.

3 Persson, , Rapport … Asine, 1922–1924, p. 62Google Scholar.

4 Goldman, , Eutresis, pp. 16, 19, 21, 22Google Scholar.

5 Bulle, , Orchomenos, pp. 27 ff. and pp. 104–6Google Scholar.

6 Ἡ Νεολιθικὴ Ἐποχή ἐν τῇ Ἐλλάι, pp. 161–64, fig. 86.

6a Trudy, xi, 1908Google Scholar.

7 Orchomenos, pp. 27 ff.

8 Antiquity, I, p. 326Google Scholar.

9 Årsberättelse, 1924–1925, pp. 62–64, PJ. IX, No. 2Google Scholar.

10 Blegen, , Korakou, p. 75Google Scholar.

11 Zygouries, pp. 26, 28, 76, 77, 215.

12 Lamb, , BSA. XXX, p. 8, Pl. III, No. 5Google Scholar.

13 Goldman, , Eutresis, p. 19Google Scholar.

14 Schliemann, , Ilios, Appendix IV, p. 711 and figs. 1540, 1541Google Scholar.

15 For the date and duration of Yortan see Frankfort's account in Archeology and the Sumerian Problem, and my criticisms thereof in a future number of Iraq.

16 E.g. Γ 14 illustrated in BSA. XXX, Pl. III, No. 5, and the room in K1 illustrated in my Fig. 1.

17 Antiquity, Sept. 1927, Pl. 5.

18 Ill. Lond. News, May 13th, 1933, p. 686, Fig. 7Google Scholar.

19 JRAI. LXII, p. 266, Pl. XXIVGoogle Scholar. For bothroi in Hittite strata at Alişar see Oriental Institute Publications, 6, p. 125, Plan 15Google Scholar.

20 Man, February 1933, p. 25, by Wayland, Burkitt and BraunholtzGoogle Scholar.

21 Dolgozatok, 1914, pp. 331, 332 and 403 and figs. 31, 79 (for H9) and fig. 78 (for other pits), and my Fig. 6Google Scholar.

22 Fig. 6 and cf. All Cannings Cross, Pl. V, No. 5.

23 Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, II, p. 72Google Scholar.

24 Roska, Fouilles aux remparts de Perjámos.

25 Dolgozatok, 1927, pp. 94 ff., 1928, pp. 148–243Google Scholar.

26 Prachist. Zeit. VI, pp. 293 foll.Google Scholar; Reallexikon, V, p. 178Google Scholar; Childe, , Danube in Prehistory, p. 43Google Scholar.

27 Wahles, in Röm. Germ. K.-Bl., 1916, p. 10Google Scholar.

28 Niklasson, l.c. Two intramural wells of neolithic date have recently been uncovered at Starčevo near Belgrade; Amer. School of Prehist. Research, May 1933, p. 42, Fig. 1Google Scholar.

29 Praehist. Zeit. VI, Pl. IX, and my Fig. 7.

30 Schliz, , Grossgartach, pp. 1 ff., figs. 4, 5, 6, 8, 22, 23, 24Google Scholar.

Childe, , Danube, p. 57, fig. 29Google Scholar, and Dechelette, , Manuel, I, p. 360Google Scholar.

31 Hutchinson, and Preston, , Liverpool Ann. XVII, pp. 19 foll, and Pl. VGoogle Scholar; for Saxon examples from Sutton Courtenay see Archaeologia, LXXVI, p. 73Google Scholar.

32 All Cannings Cross, pp. 61 ff.

33 Cf. Fig. 9, Nos. 2 and 5.

34 Dunning, G. C. in Antiquaries' Journal, July 1932, p. 279 and fig. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Dunning, , l.c., p. 283Google Scholar.

36 Antiquity, March 1931, p. 50Google Scholar.

37 But the Thermiotes were more hearty eaters than they of Skara Brae, and fed on lamb and pork with occasionally a joint of beef or a haunch of venison.

38 Arch. Journ. 1884, p. 76Google Scholar.

39 Sussex Arch. Coll. 1927, p. 1Google Scholar.

40 JRAI. 1876, p. 360Google Scholar, and Archaeologia, XLV, p. 337Google Scholar.

41 Rivers, Pitt, Excavations, II, pp. 242, 243Google Scholar.

42 Curwen, , Ant. Journ. XIII, No. 2, p. 109Google Scholar.

43 Wiltshire Arch. Mag. 38, p. 77Google Scholar.

44 Richmond, I. A. in Arch. Journ. 1932, p. 34, etc., Pl. VI and Fig. 7Google Scholar, describes military earth-ovens of Roman date, and also some storage pits and a latrine pit, at Cawthorn, Yorks.

45 Palmyra and Zenobia, p. 275.

46 Hist. Nat. XVIII, 30Google Scholar; see also Columella, I. 6Google Scholar, and Curtius, VII, 12Google Scholar.