Thessaly 2001 Overview

The Publication of the Archaeological Society Of Athens' excavations in the Ancient Cemeteries of Demetrias and Pharsalos in Thessaly, Greece.
Maria Stamatopoulou

This grant is for the publication of the excavations at the ancient cemeteries of Demetrias and Pharsalos in Thessaly, conducted by the Archaeological Society of Athens from 1906-1929 and 1948-1955 respectively.

Demetrias publication:
Demetrias was founded by the Macedonian king Demetrios Poliorketes, sometime after 294/3 BC, on the western shore of the Gulf of Pagasai, about 7 km west of modern Volos. Because of its strategic location it soon became the second Macedonian city after Pella. Characterised as one of the ‘fetters’ of Greece, Demetrias was a major military, administrative and commercial centre, a royal residence for the Antigonids and a cosmopolitan port, with a significant foreign population, including mercenaries serving the Macedonian court and merchants from the eastern Mediterranean and Italy. Demetrias was a Hellenistic city, far more similar to Pella, Alexandria and the other large civic centres of the time than the old city-states of southern Greece.

Demetrias was first explored by A. Arvanitopoulos, between 1907-1925, who concentrated on the recovery of the large number of painted gravestones of Hellenistic date, which were used as building material in the fortifications of the southern part of the city. In the immediate vicinity he excavated an extensive ancient cemetery, which had been in use from the early 3rd century to the early Christian period, and a funerary sanctuary of Pasikrata, a local goddess whose cult bears similarities to that of Aphrodite of the Dead and Persephone.

Despite the great artistic and historical significance of these finds, much of this archaeological material is still unpublished. My book will be the first comprehensive publication of this material, incorporating the evidence from the recently re-discovered excavation daybooks and the ample comparative material provided by recent excavations in Macedonia. I have completed the study of the Archives in Athens and started collecting and recording the artifacts, aided by a Fellowship from the British Academy. Thus, the completion of the project will require another year and a half and will be published by the Archaeological Society of Athens.

This publication will offer a systematic discussion of the evidence, which includes the important in artistic terms - corpus of Hellenistic painted stelai and elaborate groups of gold jewelry and silverware. It will also provide an analysis of the funerary practices of Demetrias against its historical and cultural background, seeking to clarify the interaction of the local populations with the large number of foreigners resident in the city. The comparative analysis of the material in relation to that of Macedonia and Alexandria, will help reassess Demetrias' role in the development of Hellenistic culture in Greece.

Pharsalos publication:
Pharsalos - the mythical home of Achilles - was one of the leading Thessalian cities during the Archaic and Classical periods, with close links to Athens and the south.

Excavations by N. Verdelis at the western cemetery of the city, between 1948 and 1955, revealed a major road lined with monumental built tombs of the Archaic and Classical periods. The most important, the so-called Verdelis Tomb, was a 6th c. tholos tomb, erected over a Mycenaean chamber tomb, which was used for burials and later, possibly, for a hero-cult until the Hellenistic period. It contained numerous finds, including well-known clay vases, such as the fragments from the crater by Sophilos depicting the Funeral Games for Patroklos, and the crater by the Workshop of Exekias showing the battle for the body of Patroklos (both are now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens). In the eastern cemetery of the city, Verdelis excavated rich cremations in bronze vessels, one of which contained a gold strip inscribed with a Dionysiac-Orphic text, the earliest attestation of mystery cults in Thessaly.

My publication, by the Archaeological Society of Athens, will be the first comprehensive study of this material, as most of it remains unpublished. It will require about a year to prepare and will offer a detailed analysis of the grave typology and organisation of the cemeteries, grave offerings, tomb markers, funerary customs and beliefs, which will be examined in comparison with those of other contemporary Thessalian necropolis.

This first, systematic, publication of the cemeteries of these two major and very different Thessalian cities, Pharsalos - a traditional Greek city, the capital of the tetrad Phthiotis, and a stronghold of the landowning families of mainland Thessaly - and Demetrias - a cosmopolitan Macedonian city of the Hellenistic period - will be a significant addition to our knowledge of Thessalian culture and Greek art of the Archaic to late Hellenistic periods and, it is hoped, result in more interest and further studies devoted to the region.