KEPHALLONIA - Livatho Valley Survey - 2007

Livatho Valley Survey. C. Souyoudzoglou-Haywood (Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies/Dublin) and A. Sotiriou (Director, ΛΕ' ΕΠΚΑ) report on the 5th survey season.
The 2007 season was a combination of study, fieldwalking of a small part of sector E and gridded collection at 3 locations of pottery densities consistent with sites. Although the survey has adopted an artefact centred ‘siteless’ survey strategy, the existence of ‘places of special interest’ or ‘sites’ is fully recognized. Among the most significant, resulting from the 2006−2007 campaigns, are the following.
In sector D, S of Kleismata (tract CGQ), very fragmentary EBA pottery, painted and plain, was collected from mudflow terraces spanning 70m. In the same sector, the area around the village of Pesada, where pottery clusters were identified in 2005, was confirmed as an important focus of LRom and post- Rom activity. An impressive building in Rom style masonry, preserved on 2 incomplete sides (3.3 x 5.7m), was identified in the E part of tract AUN, ca. 250m SW of the village. The walls are preserved to a h. of 0.8m under the mod. agricultural terrace wall. At Krania (sector E), ca. 350m S of the chamber tombs at Diakata, high sherd densities led to the identification of the ‘lost’ site of Starochorafa, where S. Marinatos excavated part of a Myc house. Gridded collection from 6 squares (10 x 10m) produced densities of 1.07 sherds per m². The pottery, which was very fragmentary, consisted of 65.61% coarseware and 34.3% fineware sherds, but the only Myc diagnostics were 2 small kylix fragments. The site is mainly one period, probably LH IIIC, although there is a small post-BA component. At the location of Liostassakia, ca. 500m NW of the village of Kokolata, 3 of the 12 Cl−Rom rock-cut cist graves, which had survived recent bulldozing of the site, were cleared and recorded. The cemetery was excavated by S. Marinatos, but not fully published. Some of the graves had been used for successive burials. Noteworthy is a feature, not mentioned by Marinatos, at the corner of one of the 3 surviving graves. It consists of a carved channel and 2 depressions, possibly for libations. Fieldwalking in the tracts bordering the cemetery yielded Cl and Hel pottery consistent with cult activity at the graveside.