SCHOINOS - 2007

Schoinos (property of Ν. Papakonstantinou). E. Balomenou (ΛΖ’ ΕΠΚΑ) discusses an Early Helladic burial ca.1km east of the bay and hill of Ag. Soter (fig. 1). An amphoroid krater with horizontal handles, the mouth covered by a handmade bowl, was discovered in the course of rescue excavation. It lay within a burnt layer 0.9m below the modern surface, and contained the cremated remains of an adult. Both the bowl (of Lerna Early Type I) and the white-slipped amphoroid krater (of Lerna Type V) are dated early in Early Helladic II. The bowl had a hole in the base (perhaps for ritual purposes) and the amphoroid kater two holes in the walls (probably for an ancient mend, though ritual is possible). This is the first Early Helladic cremation reported from the Corinthia. While the burial is slightly earlier than the first Early Helladic tumuli (and no evidence of a tumulus was found), the possibility that it formed part of a larger cemetery requires further investigation.