Ayios Stephanos in Laconia:
Final Site Report
Richard Janko

Ayios Stephanos lies on the S coast of Laconia, some 45 km SSE of Sparta, in the SE Peloponnese, at 22° 39´ E, 36° 48´ N. It is presently just under two km from the sea, but drill-cores have proved that it was a promontory in the Bronze Age. The site is a flat-topped hill, covering an area of c. 45,000 m2. Lord William Taylour chose it for excavation in 1959 because Laconia was then an almost unexplored part of Greece with close links to Crete via the island of Kythera. It turned out to be a Bronze Age settlement dating from Early Helladic to Late Helladic III with many burials among the houses. Operating under the auspices of the British School, Taylour published the excavations of 1959, 1960 and 1963 in the Annual of the British School at Athens of 1972.

Only in 1963 were deep stratified deposits found. As knowledge of the Middle Bronze Age pottery phases on the Greek mainland was still rudimentary, further excavations were carried out. These yielded an almost complete stratified ceramic sequence, which runs from Early Helladic I down to Late Helladic IIIC Early (c. 3000-1175 BCE), EH III excepted. This is the first site in Laconia to yield such a sequence, which, when compared with those of Lerna, Kythera, and Crete, is of great importance for tying together mainland and Cretan pottery styles without the added complication of Cycladic influence.

The site has two phases of EH II. There is then a radical break with the material culture of the Middle Bronze Age. Resettled at the very beginning of Middle Helladic I, there are three ceramic and architectural phases during MH I. Apsidal buildings were replaced by rectangular structures, while the street-plan came to resemble Minoan prototypes. Minoan imported pottery, and styles under Minoan influence, are evident. The site has stratified remains of MH II and two phases of MH III. A ceramic phase transitional between MH and LH I has also been recognized. Throughout the Middle Bronze Age Ayios Stephanos was a medium-sized port which relied on trade, fishing and metal-working. It maintained close links with Kythera and Crete, and exported the rare stone lapis lacedaemonius; this material was turned into luxury goods in Cretan palatial workshops. A Linear A inscription is known (almost the only one on the Greek mainland), but Ayios Stephanos was neither a Minoan settlement like Kastri on Kythera, nor a heavily Minoanized one like Phylakopi on Melos. Ayios Stephanos lay just beyond this zone and kept its mainland culture.

As the interior of Laconia grew in prosperity, the site declined. Trade must have collapsed after the destruction of many settlements in Crete at the end of Late Minoan IB. In addition, the approach of the Eurotas delta, after which Homeric Helos was to be named, must have caused the harbour to begin to silt up, giving an advantage to a rival centre at Ayios Strategos on the other side of the bay. In LH IIIA1 Cretan influence was renewed, as the LH IIIA2 Early pottery attests; raw lapis lacedaemonius was exported to Knossos. But Ayios Stephanos, which was largely deserted in LH IIIB. At the end of LH IIIB2 the site received a large influx of refugees. The greatly expanded settlement lasted long enough to leave behind substantial architecture and major deposits of LH IIIC Early pottery. But then the site was emptied of its valuables, partly burned and abandoned, possibly after a massacre.

Ayios Stephanos was only resettled in the 13th and early 14th centuries CE. Its occupants were probably followers of the Frankish knight Guy de Lele. By about 1285 they had erected a house and/or tower with a walled yard and stables. This doubled as an inn and a fortified look-out post guarding the SW approach to Skala, the local capital, from the sea. The pottery will be the type-site for the Peloponnese south of Corinth. However, in the years after 1321 a raid by Catalans or Turks plunged Ayios Stephanos into oblivion.

A 600-page (1 ½ -spaced) draft of the final report has been prepared, including the following parts by the applicant: ‘Introduction’ (19 pp.) , Chapter 1, ‘Architecture and Stratigraphy’ (75 pp.), Chapter 2 ‘The Burials’ (28 pp.), Chapter 14 ‘Summary and Historical Conclusions’ (99 pp.) and several appendices, together with contributions by 26 expert contributors. The revision and checking of the manuscript is completed, except for those changes caused by laying out the plates and figures and those that will be needed after the prospective publisher has had it read by outside readers. However, before that can be done the plates (c. 80 pp.) and figures (c. 230 pp.) need final editing for publication; they have all been digitized but need to be tidied up, set at the right sizes and scales and to have their final catalog-numbers added.