AIDONIA - 2009

Aidonia. V. Hachtmann (Heidelberg) publishes evidence for the Late Bronze Age settlement associated with the chamber tomb cemetery at Aidonia, discovered in the course of the Heidelberg University survey of the area. Among sites close to the cemetery with Middle Helladic pottery and chipped stone, site Ai 2 also produced evidence of intensive Late Bronze Age occupation. The site covers a spur (400 x 100m) between two streambeds and rises to a 50 x 50m plateau. It was intensively terraced (20 terraces are preserved), with evidence of roads and ramparts which cannot be precisely dated, although Cyclopean masonry is probably from a Mycenaean fortification wall. Further preserved walls indicate extensive building. The surface pottery included a few Early Bronze Age sherds, but Middle Helladic is the earliest to appear in quantity, beginning on the EHIII/MHI transition, and then featuring Adriatic ware, dark burnished ware and grey Minyan. MHIII sherds include heavy goblet stems with incised rings, and cups with rivet imitations also known in LHI and IIA contexts. Mycenaean finewares (notably goblets and kylikes, also decorated sherds) predominate in all areas surveyed. Pithoi, large storage vessels, cooking pots chipped stone tools, querns, pounders and a spindle whorl confirm the domestic character of activity. Imports are present, including Aeginetan tripods and cooking pots as well as andesite millstones (?) from the Saronic Gulf. The absence of decorated deep bowls indicates that the site was abandoned in LHIIIA2 or slightly later, likely before that chamber tombs went out of use. It is therefore proposed that the settlement was relocated (perhaps to Phlius or Agia Eirene).