Camp J. The Archaeology of Athens

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This concern over pollu-

tion of the rivers is at-

tested to for the Ilissos as

well; a fifth-century in-

scription prohibits the

washing of hides up-

stream of the sanctuary

of Herakles (IG I

257).

The plain of Athens

is bounded by four moun-

tains. To the west, Mount Aigaleos runs down to the sea; a pass through it carried the Sa-

cred Way to the Thriasian plain and the important town of Eleusis, with its sanctuary of

Demeter. To the north, Mount Parnes separated Athens from Thebes and Boiotia. To the

northeast is Mount Pentele, source of the fine white marble used and exported by the Athe-

nians for centuries. And to the southeast, closing Athens off from the rest of Attica, is

Mount Hymettos, crowned with a sanctuary to Zeus as weather god and famous in antiq-

uity for fine honey.

Beyond Pentele and Hymettos lay the rest of Attica, some of it hilly country, part of it

a large arable plain. The northeast limit was occupied by the towns of Rhamnous and

Marathon, both on the sea, facing the large island of Euboia. The southern tip is Cape

Sounion, which was dedicated to the sea god Poseidon.

Attica, and therefore Athens, was rich in certain products, poor in others. Grapes and

olives have always done well, grain less so. The area is a dry one, and when Athens pros-

pered and the population grew, Attica could not produce enough, and food had to be im-

ported, especially grain. Attica also failed to provide enough timber for Athenian needs; in

addition to housing and fuel, immense amounts of timber were needed for the huge f leet

from which Athens derived its power. Plato, writing in the early fourth century

., de-

scribes an earlier time when the ecological system was better:

But at that epoch the country was unimpaired, and for its mountains it had high

arable hills, and in place of the moorlands, as they are now called, it contained

plains full of rich soil; and it had much forest land in its mountains, of which

8 INTRODUCTION

6. Inscription of the 5th

century b.c., limiting the

area along the Ilissos River

where hides may be tanned.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

7. Map of prehistoric Attica, the territory belonging to ancient Athens, showing the principal

Bronze Age sites.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

10 INTRODUCTION

there are visible signs even to this day; for there are some mountains which now

have nothing but food for bees, but they had trees no very long time ago, and the

rafters from the trees felled there to roof the largest buildings are still sound.

And in addition there were many lofty trees of cultivated species; and the coun-

try produced boundless pasturage for f locks. Moreover, it was enriched by the

yearly rains from Zeus, which were not lost to it, as now, by f lowing from the

bare land into the sea; but the soil it had was deep and therein it received the wa-

ter, storing it up in the retentive, loamy soil. (Critias 111 C–D)

Beautiful white marble, large deposits of silver, and excellent clay all contributed to Athe-

nian prominence in the historical period, though they were of little interest to the earliest

human inhabitants of the area.

The Prehistoric Period

PALEOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC

For the earliest history of Athens we rely on the results of archaeological exploration,

supplemented by the myths and legends familiar to the Athenians of later times. The land

of Attica has been inhabited since at least the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000–10,000

.), when humans hunted and gathered their food. Early traces from this time have been

found in the Kitsos cave near Laureion and in chance finds elsewhere of early stone tools.

Sometime around 6000

. the Neolithic period began with the introduction of cultivated

grains and domesticated animals. These new advances appear in Greece relatively quickly,

and it is usually assumed therefore that they were developed elsewhere, presumably in the

Middle East, and imported into Greece. The changes allowed for a larger and more settled

population.

Evidence of human activity in the Neolithic period has been uncovered at various

sites in Attica, particularly in caves. At Oinoe near Marathon, excavation of one such cave

produced large amounts of pottery of the Middle Neolithic period (5000–4000). At Nea

Makri, at the south end of the plain of Marathon, excavations have revealed part of a settle-

ment of several very modest houses of Middle Neolithic date, along with a stretch of the ear-

liest known street in Attica. In Athens itself excavation suggests that the shallow caves and

overhangs of the Acropolis rock were used primarily in the latest Neolithic period (3000–

2800), a time when the use of caves was widespread throughout Greece. The Klepsydra

Spring just below the caves on the northwest slope of the Acropolis hill was also exploited

at this time, when twenty-two shallow wells were cut into the soft bedrock.

EARLY BRONZE AGE

With the introduction of metallurgy, the Bronze Age began, and along with it the be-

ginnings of a recognizable, distinct history of Athens. The early Bronze Age (3000–2000

.) was an island and coastal civilization, and the clearest evidence for human activity has

been found largely in excavations of cemeteries and settlements by the sea (see fig. 7):

Aghios Kosmas (near Hellenikon Airport) on the west coast, Thorikos, Raphina (Aski-

tario), Brauron, and Marathon on the east. The objects recovered from these sites, includ-

ing marble figurines and clay pans with incised decoration, show close affinities with the

rich civilization f lourishing at this time in the Cycladic Islands of the Aegean. The house

walls are built in the characteristic herringbone style of masonry, with cobbled areas in

front. Except for a modest attempt at Askitario, the Attic sites lack the substantial fortifica-

tions found at Lerna, on the island of Aigina, and at Chalandriani on Syros.

The early cemetery at Tsepi, near Marathon, consists of well-built large family tombs,

each with a slab roof and small doorway, marked off as a private plot by rows of large

rounded stones. As each member of the family was buried in the stone-lined chamber, the

bones of those interred earlier were somewhat unceremoniously piled up in a corner. The

area of Athens, in particular the Acropolis, which had been attractive to Neolithic cave

12 PREHISTORIC PERIOD

8. Early Bronze Age tombs at Tsepi (Marathon), ca. 2500 b.c.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

dwellers, seems to have been less appealing to the seafarers of the early Bronze Age. These

people were probably not Greek speakers, for one of the most enduring and conservative

aspects of the countryside—the toponyms—are not, linguistically speaking, Greek. Words

ending in -ssos, -ttos, and -nthos are pre-Greek and must have been adopted from the early

indigenous people who occupied the land, remembered in later myth as Pelasgians, Lele-

gians, or Carians. Just as many Native American names survive today to remind us of the

indigenous population of North America before European colonization, so too for Athens.

The very names of the mountains (Hymettos, Lykabettos) and rivers (Kephisos, Ilissos)

take us back to the earliest memories of Athens and Attica, a time before the arrival of the

Greeks.

MIDDLE BRONZE AGE

In around 2000

. new people came into Greece and Attica, apparently by land and

from the north: the word for sea (thalassa) is also pre-Greek and must have been borrowed

from the seafarers of early Bronze Age times. The newcomers brought with them five in-

novations which allow us to recognize them as a different and distinct culture: a new style

of architecture, making use of houses with curved or apsidal ends; new burial customs,

with individual rather than communal graves; new pottery: of a gray fabric, sharply angled,

and made on a potter’s wheel; the horse; and the Greek lan-

guage. There are no written records from this pe-

riod (2000–1600), so we are dependent on

the archaeological evidence, which sug-

gests that Attica was extensively occu-

pied. Athens, too, was settled, and

numerous graves and wells have

been found, both on the Acropo-

lis and around the citadel.

With these newcomers came

their gods, presumably the

Olympian deities that are famil-

iar from the historical period.

Middle Bronze Age 13

9. Middle Bronze Age tumulus (ca.

1700 b.c.), with individual burials, at

Vrana (Marathon).

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Athens became the city of Athena, daughter of Zeus, warrior goddess and protector of the

city. When depicted in later times she is usually shown full-armed with helmet, shield, and

spear. Her breastplate was a goatskin (aegis) with snakes along the edges and the head of

the gorgon Medusa set in the middle. She was chosen as patron of Athens after a contest

with her uncle Poseidon. Athena was thought to have had a hand in building the Acropolis;

one tradition explains Lykabettos as a piece intended to further fortify the citadel but

dropped by the goddess. She also gave the olive tree to Athens, and both the olive sprig and

her favorite bird, the owl, were used in later times to decorate the coinage of the city.

LATE BRONZE AGE

The succeeding period, known as the Late Bronze Age (1600–1100), is the great age

of Greek myth and legend, the Heroic Age. To this period the Classical Greeks assigned the

Labors of Herakles, the Trojan War, the voyage of the Argo, the story of Oedipus, and the ex-

pedition of the Seven against Thebes, to name but a few. Numerous Athenian myths are at-

tributed to this period as well. Attica was thought to have been organized in early times by

King Kekrops into twelve cities:

According to Philochoros, because the country was raided from the sea by Cari-

ans and from the land by Boiotians (then called Aones), Kekrops was the first to

bring the population together in twelve cities. These were Kekropia, Tetrapolis,

Tetrakomoi, Epakria, Dekeleia, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thorikos, Brauron, Kytheros,

Sphettos, and Kephisia. (Strabo 397C)

Of the sites on the list which are securely located (Tetrapolis, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thorikos,

Brauron), all have significant Late Bronze Age remains, whereas two sites which are not

listed, though they were important in later times (Rhamnous, Sounion), have minimal

Bronze Age material. Archaeology would therefore seem to indicate that there is a core of

truth in these early legends which permits us to regard them with some confidence as part

of the history of the city. In addition to Kekrops, Athenian legend preserves the names of

two other significant early Athenian kings: Erechtheus and Theseus.

Erechtheus is one of the earliest legendary kings of Athens and was regarded as the

founder of the Panathenaic festival. A warrior king, he fought King Eumolpos of neighbor-

ing Eleusis, a contest he eventually won, though it took the sacrifice of one of his daughters

to ensure success. Euripides’ play Erechtheus has Athena herself foretelling the construc-

tion of a temple in his honor.

14 PREHISTORIC PERIOD

Theseus, a generation or so

later than Erechtheus, was the

son of the king of Athens,

Aigeus, though he was brought

up in Troizen, the ancestral

home of his mother. As a young

man he made his way to Athens

to claim his inheritance, having

many adventures en route as he

cleared the road of assorted brig-

ands. These youthful deeds make up a

sort of parallel to the Labors of Herakles

and were a favorite theme for Athenian sculp-

tors and pot painters in later times. When he arrived in

Athens, Theseus was sent to Crete for his most renowned exploit, the slaying of the Mino-

taur in the labyrinth. When he later assumed the kingship of Athens, Theseus is thought to

have carried out a crucial political reform, the unification of Attica (synoikismos), with

Athens as the capital. The procedure is described by Thucydides (2.15):

For in the time of Kekrops and the earliest kings down to Theseus, Attica had

been divided into separate towns, each with its town hall and magistrates, and

so long as they had nothing to fear, they did not come together to consult with

the king, but separately administered their own affairs and took counsel for

themselves. Sometimes they even made war upon the king, as, for example,

the Eleusinians with Eumolpos did upon Erechtheus. But when Theseus be-

came king and proved himself a powerful as well as a prudent ruler, he not

only reorganized the country in other respects but abolished the councils and

magistracies of the minor towns and brought all their inhabitants into union

with what is now the city, establishing a single council and town hall, and

compelled them, while continuing to occupy each his own lands as before, to

use Athens as the sole capital. This became a great city, since all were now pay-

ing their taxes to it, and it was such when Theseus handed it down to his suc-

cessors.

Late Bronze Age 15

10. Athenian red-figure cup by the Codrus Painter,

5th century b.c., showing the labors of Theseus:

the Minotaur is in the center.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

The archaeolo-

gical evidence seems

to confirm this tradi-

tion in broad outline.

In the years around

1400

. the Late

Bronze Age settle-

ments are well scat-

tered throughout At-

tica and were equally

wealthy, to judge from

the finds. Most signi-

ficant, perhaps, the

elaborately construct-

ed tholos, or “beehive,”

tombs, which denote

a substantial degree

of wealth and author-

ity, are also found scat-

tered throughout At-

tica: at Menidhi, Mar-

athon (see fig. 259),

and Thorikos (though

none are yet reported

from Athens itself).

Largely plundered in

antiquity, these tombs

have nonetheless pro-

duced signs of rich

grave goods: a gold

cup (Marathon), an

ivory lyre (Menidhi), and carved gemstones (Thorikos). By 1250, however, we find the

Acropolis of Athens massively fortified—also a probable indicator of wealth and power—

whereas none of the other Attic Bronze Age sites, though several are f lourishing, is forti-

fied. It appears, in short, as though the scattered and equally wealthy settlements of 1400

had by 1250 become part of a single political unit with Athens and the Acropolis as its dom-

inant center. The synoikismos was an essential step in the development of later Athens;

16 PREHISTORIC PERIOD

11. Mycenaean tholos tomb at Marathon, 15th century b.c. (Cf. fig. 259)

12. Mycenaean chamber tomb from the Agora with multiple burials, 14th

century b.c.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

13. Remains of the Mycenaean (cyclopean) fortification wall at the west end of the Acropolis with the

Parthenon in background, 13th century b.c.

14. The Acropolis

in the Mycenaean

period, showing

the line of the

circuit wall and

the probable

area of the palace

(hatched), now

lost.