Skarkos () is an early

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

settlement on the island of

Ios Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. Owing to its well preserved state, Skarkos is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Aegean and especially the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

.Eric H. Cline (ed.), ''The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean'', , Jan. 2012.M. Marthari, ''Aspects of Potery Circulation in the Cyclades during the Early EB II Period: Fine and Semi-fine Imported Ceramic Wares at Skarkos, Ios'', Horizon 71-84, 2008.

Geography

Ios, with one of the most sheltered natural harbours in the

, is located at the crossroads of Cycladic maritime routes. The settlement of Skarkos is situated on a hill in the middle of the west side of Ios, in proximity to the island's most fertile plains and to its harbour.

Excavations

Skarkos was systematically excavated during the years 1984-1997. The excavations have been carried out in the north and east sides of the hill. They have brought to light an important early Cycladic settlement (mid-3rd millennium BC) in an exceptionally good state of preservation (two-storey buildings, four-metre-high walls), and an overlying late middle/early late Bronze Age cemetery (mid-

2nd millennium BC File:2nd millennium BC montage.jpg, 400x400px, From top left clockwise: Hammurabi, Babylonian king, best known for his Code of Hammurabi, code of laws; The gold Mask of Tutankhamun, funerary mask of Tutankhamun has become a symbol of ancient Egypt ...

). The settlement covers an area of 1.1 hectares and is the largest and best preserved site of the Keros-Syros culture, estimated to have been home to between 200 and 300 people.Μαρίζα Μαρθάρη, ''Σκάρκος Ίου''
Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Architecture

Skarkos is built on terraces that follow the natural relief of the hill. Its rectangular, stone-built residential buildings consist of a ground floor, a first floor and an enclosed courtyard. Their varying sizes reveal a social differentiation in the community. Streets between one and two meters wide and public spaces were uncovered. Walls are preserved to a height of three to four meters. The urban planning system of Skarkos is comparable to that of Poliochne on

Lemnos Lemnos ( ) or Limnos ( ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos (regional unit), Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean modern regions of Greece ...

from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Archaeological evidence suggests that the ground floor was used for food preparation whereas the first floor served as living room, storage area for pottery and other goods and occasionally as workshop.

Findings

Excavations have unearthed several small artifacts such as marble figurines, obsidian ware, seals, ceramics, marble and stone vessels, tools, animal bones and seashells. Numerous pithoi from 1 to 1.30 in height were used for the storage of agricultural goods. Smaller

amphora An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

e were used to transport liquids. Clay seals on pottery indicate the control of agricultural production and the organization of the distribution of goods. Several of these findings are now on display at the archaeological museum in Chora.

Conservation

The site of Skarkos became publicly accessible after extensive conservation works between 2002 – 2007. The project was awarded the 2008 EU Prize for Cultural Heritage /

Europa Nostra Europa Nostra (Latin for "Our Europe") is a pan-European Federation for cultural heritage, Cultural Heritage, representing citizens' organisations that work on safeguarding Europe's cultural and natural heritage. It is the voice of this movement ...

Top Prize for Conservation, for the ''outstanding quality of conservation work and above all the minimal and extremely sensitive character of the interventions, having no detrimental impact on a unique landscape''.

References

External links

H δρ Μ. Μαρθάρη ομιλήτρια στη διάλεξη της Ελληνικής Αρχαιολογικής Επιτροπής Μεγάλης Βρετανίας με θέμα τον «Προϊστορικό χώρο του Σκάρκου στην Ιο» στο Kings College.

Gallery

File:Skarkos 130260.jpg File:Skarkos 130303.jpg File:Skarkos EC II 113M816.jpg File:Skarkos EC II 130272.jpg {{coord, 36.7318, N, 25.2828, E, source:wikidata, display=title Cycladic civilization Bronze Age sites in Greece Archaeological sites on the Aegean Islands Ios