A. THE MYCENEAN PERIOD

It is now well recognised that the civilisation, which is usually called Mycenean, developed in Crete, and thence spread to other parts of the Greek world. This has been established by Dr Mackenzie's examination of the pottery sequences from Cnossus, and his results are confirmed by the evidence from other sites in Crete. Thus Crete for all practical purposes may be regarded as the source of this civilisation. Up to the end of the Third Middle Minoan Period its connections with the mainland of Greece were, as far as we know at present, slight. But from the beginning of the Late Minoan period it seems to have established itself on the mainland, and to have begun to create there subsidiary centres, which probably in the Third Late Minoan Period, after the fall of Cnossus, replaced Crete as the principal focus of civilisation. Of these centres the most important seem to have been in Argolis and Boeotia, though the latter district is not fully explored. But it is in the highest degree incorrect to assume that because there was in these districts a “Mycenean Period,” there was therefore a uniform Mycenean Period all over Greece. Neither in prehistoric, nor in historic Greece, was there ever a uniform culture. There are many local varieties of Dipylon pottery, and of the Orientalising fabrics.

The present work is an attempt to collect in a convenient form all the X archaeological evidence as yet available for the prehistoric period in North-Eastern Greece. Chapters I–X, which are purely descriptive, contain full accounts of our own excavations with a summary of the discoveries of others. These we hope will be of permanent value, but how far the theories put forward in the other chapters can be justified time alone can show.

Our own excavations in North Greece have all been conducted under the aegis of the British School at Athens, of which we are students. Our publications in connection with them are as follows:

1907. “Excavations at Theotoku,” A. J. B. W., J. P. Droop, B.S.A. XIII, pp. 309 ff.

1908. “Excavations at Zerelia,” A. J. B. W., J. P. Droop, M. S. T., B.S.A. XIV, p. 197. “Early Civilisation in North Greece,” A. J. B. W., J. P. Droop, M. S. T., Liverpool Annals, 1908, pp. 118 ff, 131 ff. “The Connection of the Aegean Civilisation with Central Europe,” T. E. Peet, A. J. B. W., M. S. T., Classical Review, 1908, pp. 233 ff.

1909. “Excavations at Lianokladhi, and Tsani Maghula,” A. J. B. W., M. S. T., Liverpool Annals, 1909, pp. 149 ff. “Prehistoric Mounds in Macedonia,” A. J. B. W., M. S. T, ibid. pp. 159 ff “The Connection of the Aegean Culture with Servia,” M. S. T., A. J. B. W., Classical Review, 1909, pp. 209 ff.

The architectural remains have already been described above in the accounts of the several excavated sites, but a general discussion of the various house types, their possible relation to one another, their development and origin has been reserved for the present chapter.

The best evidence for house plans of the First (Neolithic) Period is at Tsangli, where there is one complete example, and three others in fair preservation, one resting upon the other. At Sesklo, too, there are considerable remains, and also at Orchomenos; part of a house was uncovered at Zerelia, but the complete plan could not be ascertained. It seemed however to have been rectangular, and to be built of sun dried brick resting on a single course of flat slabs, in this respect differing from all other examples, which are built of wattle and daub with or without a stone foundation, or else entirely of stones, as seems to have been the case at Sesklo.

The Tsangli houses are all of the same square type with internal buttresses, and the existence of three superimposed houses, which differ only in the number of buttresses, shows that this type continued for a long period of time. The latest of this series may perhaps be contemporary with the earliest Second Period houses at Sesklo and Dhimini.

For the purposes of historical geography Northern Greece may be considered as divided into two parts by the great range of Pindus, which starting far up in the Macedonian mountains ends in the Parnassus group on the Corinthian Gulf. To the west in Epirus and Aetolia the whole country is a confused mass of rugged mountains with here and there a lake in a small plain as at Yánnina, and below Thermos (Kephalóvriso, Κεφαλόβρυσο). The principal rivers such as the Achelous (Aspropótamo, ʾΑσπροπόταμο) and the Arachthus (the river of Arta) run through narrow gorges except near their mouths. The main route from north to south seems to have come down Central Epirus to Ambracia (Arta, Αρτα), and thence to have crept round the coast past Amphilochian Argos into the lower Achelous valley.

To the east the formation of the country is entirely different. Great, parallel ranges starting at right-angles from Pindus run eastward to the sea and divide the land into a series of plains, in which the prehistoric settlements are found. The northernmost range, which separating the basins of the Haliacmon (Vístritsa, Injé-qára-su) and of the Peneus (Salambriás, ∑αλαμβριάς) forms the boundary between Thessaly and Macedonia, ends in Olympus. At its extreme east is the pass of Tempe which, despite its fame, never seems to have been of much practical use.