FANOTI-DOLIANI - Geroplatanos - 2005

Fanoti-Doliani, Geroplatanos. G. Riginos and V. Lambrou (Η’ ΕΠΚΑ) report the discovery of a badly damaged cist grave west of the road from the archaeological site of Doliani towards Geroplatanos, next to the Hellenistic cist grave excavated in 2001. Excavation at a second site, on the western slopes of the hill east of modern Fanoti on which the Hellenistic town cemetery has been located, revealed ten cist tombs (four of which were intact). Lower on the same hill, 11 Byzantine tombs were excavated in 2000 during the construction of the road to Geroplatanos.

The tombs, built of well-cut limestone slabs, contained adult inhumations with the exception of inurned cremations in tomb 10. Skeletal remains had been removed to pithoi outside tombs 11 and 12 and inside tombs 7 and 9. Tomb 9 has three phases of activity; in the earliest, an adult inhumation was accompanied by a handmade kanthariskos and kantharos (similar to seventh-century BC examples from Vitsa) and a small metal item; only a few bones were recovered from the second phase; the third and final level contained the inhumation of a young woman with a pair of Middle Byzantine bronze earrings and a bronze ring. Bones from displaced burials were put into a specially prepared area in the northwest side of the grave. Tomb 10, which was particularly large and well-built, contained at least two ash urns from a single phase of use, and a further eight vessels (including lamps, plates, lachrymateria, and a black-glaze relief bowl) plus iron strigils, a dagger and a large quantity of iron nails. Tombs 10, 3 (which contained a plain oinochoe, lachrymaterion and intact lamp) and 4 (containing a lamp) are Hellenistic in date (late fourth- to mid second-century).