1. Excavation Reports

Abstract

The Boeotia Project 2022 Research

John Bintliff, University of Leiden/University of Edinburgh

The Leiden-Cambridge Boeotia Project 2022

John Bintliff, Emeritus Professor Leiden University

[FIGURE ONE] Between 2019 and 2020 we completed the last fieldwork at the city and countryside of Hyettos in North Boeotia, which will form the third final monograph of our regional project. [FIGURE TWO] The city is the elevated hill in the lower right of the air photo, adjacent to its fertile plain. [FIGURE THREE] Our surface ceramic survey and geophysical survey by Apostolos Sarris has revealed the Greco-Roman city plan. [FIGURE FOUR] Alongside these approaches we deployed soil geochemistry: here we see the various soil sampling locations within the city area. [FIGURE FIVE] Trace elements linked to intense human activity, such as copper and lead (the former shown here) are very enhanced across the city core in its centre and east (colours orange to red), whereas elements tied to the local geology [FIGURE SIX] such as nickel are very weak (green colours) in these areas and high in the extramural west but also intriguingly in the outer western city suburb. [FIGURE SEVEN] The explanation reflects the long-term occupation history of the city: in Greek times it reached its widest extent (ceramic plot on the right), then by Roman times the town contracted and abandoned its western suburbs (larger image on the left). Trace elements mirroring intense human activity are thus strongest in the east and centre and weaker in the west, allowing the bedrock influence in soil to increase there. This geochemical research has recently been published by myself and Patrick Degryse of Leuven University in two Open Access articles in the Journal of Archaeological Science for 2022.

In summer 2022 in preparation for Volume Five of the final Boeotia Project monographs, on the city and countryside of Ancient Haliartos, we revisited all the rural sites discovered in its inner Chora or hinterland during the 1980s. Lieve Donnellan (Melbourne University) took drone photos illustrating the topographic location of each site [FIGURES EIGHT AND NINE]. The first aerial image shows the Frankish feudal tower overlooking the entrance to modern and medieval Haliartos, the second a small Byzantine village beside a modern chapel in the hills behind Haliartos. Meanwhile the author analysed their location in terms of geology, soils and catchment analysis to evaluate potential land use.

Restudy of the Project’s earlier finds continued. In Thespies Museum Dr. Kalliopi Sarri looked at the prehistoric finds from the Valley of the Muses, and Dr. Philip Bes the Roman ceramics, for volume Four of our final publications, while at Thebes Museum Prof. Vladimir Stissi and Anna Meens began the massive task of the first study of the urban survey of ancient Koroneia city, studied between 2006 and 2012.

Finally, Project Social Anthropologist Dr. Hamish Forbes continued his interviews and archival research into the recent history of the Modern town of Haliartos, as a complement to our archaeological long-term investigations of that town and its landscape.

A detailed report of the Boeotia Project’s research from 2016 to 2021 will appear in a forthcoming volume of the journal Pharos, issued by the Dutch Archaeological Institute in Athens.

For Figures click here.

References:

Bintliff, J. and P. Degryse. 2022. “A review of soil geochemistry in archaeology.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 43: 103419.

Bintliff, J., P. Degryse and J. van Zwienen. 2022. “The long-term programme of trace metal analysis at the ancient city of Hyettos.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 43: 103432.