ASINE, Tapia - 2004

Asine, Tapia. Ch. Piteros (Δ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports that road construction revealed tombs from the cemetery of ancient Asine on three properties.

Bilikou (formerly Orphanou) property. One side of a probable destroyed Late Helladic cist tomb lay near the south edge of the property. Just to the north, a large stone-built Mycenaean cist tomb (1) contained the main burial, of a youth on the west side, and displaced bones from two earlier burials in the northeast corner, along with three LHIIIA vessels (two alabastra and a three-handled pithoid amphora). A bronze mirror, knife and dagger probably relate to these earlier burials. Tomb 1 was disturbed by the construction of the stone-built cist tomb (2) to the west: this was found empty, but a fifth- or fourth-century date is proposed. Pit grave 3, to the south of tomb 1, with a gravel floor and large cover slabs, contained a few bones but no goods. The form of construction indicates a Mycenaean date.

Immediately to the south, on the property of K. Mavragani, a Mycenaean prochous was found within a heap of stones. Cist tomb 4, 10.2m south of grave 3 above, contained an adult burial but no goods: the construction indicates a Mycenaean date.

11.5m south of tomb 4, on the property of the Christopoulou brothers, lay tombs 5 and 6. The fifth-/fourth-century tomb 5, a pit with stone cover slabs, contained an adult inhumation with a black-glaze kylix and a bronze strigil. The fifth-century tomb 6, a stone-built cist tomb, contained an inhumation in situ plus the bones of an earlier burial gathered at the east side, and two skyphoi. Just south of tomb 6 was the fifth-century cist grave 7, empty of bone though likely for a child on the grounds of size, which contained a pyxis, skyphos and satyr figurine. Further to the south, the fifth-century cist tomb 8, again assumed to be for a child, contained a pyxis and two skyphoi.