Ancient Greece Neolithic Pottery & Stone Artifacts

Dimini ( el, Διμήνι; older form: ''Diminion'') is a village near the city of

Volos Volos ( el, Βόλος ) is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about north of Athens and south of Thessaloniki. It is the sixth most populous city of Greece, and the capital of the Magnesia regional unit ...

, in

Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...

(central

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

), in Magnesia. It was the seat of the municipality of

Aisonia Aisonia ( el, Αισωνία) is a former municipality in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Volos, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 75.504 km2. ...

. The name Aisonia dates back to ancient times and it is the westernmost place in the Volos area. The Dimini area contains both a Mycenean settlement and a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

settlement. The Neolithic settlement in Dimini was discovered near the end of the 19th century and was first excavated by the archaeologists

Christos Tsountas Christos Tsountas ( el, Χρήστος Τσούντας; 1857 – 9 June 1934) was a Greek classical archaeologist. He was born in Thracian Stenimachos, Ottoman Empire (present-day Asenovgrad in Bulgaria) and attended Zariphios high school in Plov ...

and Valerios Stais. The palace of ancient Iolcos is believed to be located in modern-day Dimini, where a Mycenaean palace was excavated recently.

Population

History

Neolithic

Dimini culture is well known for its abstract painted vessels. Dimini ware is characteristic of the Later Neolithic period in eastern

, although it was traded and imitated outside the region and has been identified as far away as Cakran in

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...

. File:Clay vase with polychrome decoration, Dimini, Magnesia, Late or Final Neolithic (5300-3300 BC).jpg, Clay vase with polychrome decoration, Dimini, Magnesia, Late or Final Neolithic (5300-3300 BC). Ceramic; height: 25 cm (9 in.), diameter at rim: 12 cm (4 in.); National Archaeological Museum (

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

) File:Ancient Greece Neolithic Pottery - 28171028800.jpg, Dimini plate, National Archaeological Museum (

) Terracotta base and lower body of a vessel MET DP21228.jpg, Terracotta base and lower body of a vessel; 3800-3300 BC; terracotta; length: 7.5 cm (2 in.);

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(New York City) Terracotta rim fragment with latticework design MET DP21226.jpg, Terracotta rim fragment with latticework design; 3800-3300 BC; terracotta; length: 10.6 cm (4 in.); Metropolitan Museum of Art Terracotta rim of a bowl MET DP21233.jpg, Terracotta rim of a bowl; 3800-3300 BC; terracotta; length: 12.8 cm (5 in.); Metropolitan Museum of Art

Antiquity

In 1886, Lolling and Wolters excavated the Mycenean tholos tomb known as ''Lamiospito''. In 1901, Valerios Stais discovered the tholos tomb on the hill of the Neolithic settlement. He worked at the Dimini settlement with Christos Tsountas from 1901 up until 1903. In 1977, George Chourmouziadis continued excavations at the Neolithic settlement. Excavations of the Mycenean settlement in Dimini began in 1980 by V. Adrimi-Sismani. In 2001 the excavations uncovered a Mycenaean city and palace complex they believe could be part of ancient Iolkos. A stone weight and a

sherd In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are ...

inscribed with

Linear B Linear B was a syllabic script used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. It is descended from ...

writing were also uncovered. The "invasion theory" states that the people of the Neolithic Dimini culture were responsible for the violent conquest of the

Sesklo Sesklo ( el, Σέσκλο; rup, Seshklu) is a village in Greece that is located near Volos, a city located within the municipality of Aisonia. The municipality is located within the regional unit of Magnesia that is located within the admini ...

culture at around 5000 BC. Moreover, the theory considers the "Diminians" and the "

ans" as two separate cultural entities. However, I. Lyritzis provides a different story pertaining to the relations between the Dimini and the Sesklo cultures. He, along with R. Galloway, compared ceramic materials from both Sesklo and Dimini utilizing thermoluminescence dating methods. He discovered that the inhabitants of the settlement in Dimini appeared around 4800 BC, four centuries before the fall of the Sesklo civilization (ca. 4400 BC). Lyritzis concluded that the "Seskloans" and "Diminians" coexisted for a period of time.

Notes and references

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External links