Epidaurus Limera Overview

This grant will support manuscript preparation for the publication of the archaeological material from the Mycenaean chamber tombs at Epidaurus Limera in south-eastern Laconia, Greece. Surface exploration in 1957 by the British archaeologists, Helen Waterhouse and Richard Hope Simpson, on the Palaiokastro hill where the classical acropolis of Epidaurus Limera stands, brought to light a large number of LH IIIA-B sherds and established that a Mycenaean centre, possibly fortified, was situated on the summit. Additionally, at least four clusters of Mycenaean chamber tombs have been explored and/or reported to the south-west of the Palaiokastro hill, near the chapel of Ayia Triadha, at the site ‘Sternes’ near the modern village of Ayios Ioannis and the steep sides of the Vamvakia and Ayia Triadha ravines by Th. Karachalios (1936), Professor N. Drandakis (1953) and Professor Ch. Christou (1957). At the invitation of the E’ EPCA at Sparta, the applicant undertook the study of the material in January 2005. A large collection of Mycenaean pottery, beads of semi-precious materials, loom weights and bronze weapons have been unearthed during the three excavation seasons. The excavated material represents a long chronological sequence ranging from Middle Helladic III/Late Helladic I (ca. 1680BC) to the Submycenaean period (ca. 1050BC), hence it provides one of the few complete corpora of Mycenaean fine pottery from the mainland and a rich source of new material for the study of the Mycenaean period in the Peloponnese.

The results of the study will be published in one monograph (in English) that will include full description and discussion of the funerary architecture and the burial furnishings, an assessment of the region’s position within the exchange network of the Aegean throughout the Mycenaean period and a reconstruction of the process via which the local community established its own cultural identity and traditions. The text will be complemented by architectural plans, detailed artefact catalogues, maps, drawings and photographs. The proposed research will be completed, with the manuscript ready for publication, in December 2008. The monograph will be published in INSTAP Academic Press.