Argos 1997 Overview

EXCAVATIONS NEAR THE CIVIC CENTRE OF ARGOS
Eléni P. Zoïtopoúlou

Two cities of Greece represent outstanding examples of the same problem for, while very many modern towns are built directly upon the remains of their prehistoric, classical and mediaeval predecessors, in Thebes and Argos the rate of constructing new buildings (largely for commercial or rental purposes) has proceeded at a horrifying rate over the last four decades. In advance of each new building the ground plots must be investigated by the local administration ("ephorate") of antiquities to determine the nature of any archaeological remains which will be affected by the construction, and in many cases the result is a full-scale excavation. While these rescue excavations do indeed save the remains from complete destruction, they seldom preserve them from oblivion; the number of such excavations and the limited size of the personnel qualified to carry them out result quite simply in the recording of structural remains and the placing of mobile finds in the local museum's storerooms with no further possibility of proper examination and publication, beyond what may be included in a brief notice of a particular year's work in the Khroniká of the Arkhaiologikón Dheltíon - when that does appear for the journal is running several years behind schedule and certain ephorates (including that for the Argos area) have not contributed such accounts for many issues before the hiatus.

The need for the proper compilation of all the archaeological data is made very clear when we read the principal discussions of Argive history that have appeared in the last half century (Mitsos, 1945; Tomlinson, 197?; Kelly, 1976) and realise just how much the picture is dependent upon the ancient literary sources and how little had been extrapolated from the physical remains. Only in very recent years, largely as a result of the work by the French School and its members, have other lines of approach started to be exploited-, some of these results a presented in the proceedings of a conference organised at Fribourg a few years ago (Pierart, 1992). Much of the interest has centered upon the earlier periods, especially outside the area of the agora proper, and this gives an extra value to the full publication of excavations of later sequences, such as the Evstratiádhis plot and the other two plots for which I have responsibility. It can fairly be added that work on the publication of the other two plots will proceed, for the most part faster than has been the case for Evstratiádhis since much of the bibliography and the artifactual comparanda will already have been studied.

In the case of Thebes attempts were made some years ago by S. Symeonoglou (1973 & 1985) to collate whatever was recoverable from his own excavations at the city and from the scanty records of work by others, as well as his access to the museum archives during his years at Thebes. In the case of Argos a different approach is going some way to achieving similar and even better results: a collaborative project between the local ephorate and the French School of Archaeology in Athens is producing a consolidated plan of whatever has been recovered by both institutions during more than a century of archaeological explorations in the modern city. The extent to which this large and worthwhile project can be successful will, however, depend upon the sort of details available concerning the results of individual excavations, especially the rescue excavations of the antiquities service.