GOALS OF FUTURE EXCAVATION:
The Industrial Features
One focus of the Priniatikos Pyrgos Project over the next five years
will be excavation of the industrial area on the west to central part
of the promontory. Excavation methods include careful stratigraphic
recovery of industrial features such as furnaces and kilns, the products
of these pyrotechnical activities, and associated processing areas
and materials, including clay, ores, tools, and fuels. The scientific
team concerned with these industrial aspects of the site will analyze
the ceramics, associated soils, kiln and furnace linings, slags, wasters,
and fuels using various scientific techniques to establish chronology,
firing temperature, contents, source, and production stage. Because
of the historical and economic importance of the industrial site, emphasis
will be placed on careful documentation of every aspect of these industrial
operations, rather than on large-scale recovery, and the excavation
will focus on areas where geophysical prospection has identified well-preserved
remains.
The Settlement Areas
Excavation of the contiguous settlement on the west, east, and central
slopes of Priniatikos Pyrgos will concentrate on areas identified through
geophysical prospection as having well-preserved architectural relics
and stratigraphy. The long lifespan of the settlement has already been
verified through preliminary excavation in 2005 and surface survey.
Goals of the excavation include establishing stratigraphically the
chronological range of the Bronze Age, Greek-Byzantine, and underlying
Neolithic settlement; sequences of growth and destruction; and data
concerning household and community economy and possibly trade (based
on evidence for agriculture, pastoralism, imports, and evidence for
room/area function). The specific goals of this circumscribed approach
to initial investigation of this large harbor settlement is to obtain
insights concerning patterns of growth and decline, which will be placed
in a regional perspective. Excavation will provide data concerning
the economic basis for settlement over millennia, and how this may
have changed and evolved along with regional trade networks.
Work Plan 2006
The work plan for 2006 is to first complete the excavation of
the 2005 trenches in Areas H, G, and A. In 2006 excavation of the rooms/areas
in trench G2000 will be complete: the calderimi will be removed,
and all areas will be excavated as far as is possible into Bronze
Age strata. this can be accomplished without removal of overlying
Greek and Roman walls, although the spaces where excavation is possible
into Bronze Age strata will become smaller as greater depths are
reached. In Trench G1000 small areas will be excavated near the large
channel kiln, walls on the beach, and the paving, in order to establish
more precise dates for these features. In 2006 two more trenches
will be opened in area G: these to the north and south of trench
G2000, in order to expand excavation over the settlement area and
to begin to relate the deep stratigraphy of trench G1000 with the
strata under the Greek and Roman houses on the slope above.
Excavation of trench H3000 will be complete with removal of soil from
the floor surfaces of this trench, and excavation will continue in
H2000. One trench (H4000) will be placed directly south of trench H2000
to reveal a possible large structure detected by a wall in the southeast
corner of H2000. It may be worthwhile to open a trench farther east,
in the middle of the slope, and one at the top of the slope, where
traces of a large structure protrude through the surface (this north
of the chapel).
Excavation will continue in small areas around the paving in Trench
A1000 in order to establish the date of the paving and other features
in this trench. Excavation in Trench A2000, directly north, will possibly
reveal more features related to metallurgical production and the nearby
chapel. Two more trenches trench will be placed in area A: one over
a large possible kiln to the northwest, identified through remote sensing,
and one placed over the chapel, which appears to be built over a large,
possible Bronze Age structure (the massive worn gray limestone boulders
under and near the chapel apse appear similar in size, workmanship,
and stone to Bronze Age walls seen elsewhere on the site).
Overall, the 2006 season will involve opening six more trenches and
greatly expanding the existing grid of trenches, while completing some
work on those opened in 2005. Only trench G2000, however, may involve
more than a few days to complete. This will also be the plan for subsequent
seasons: to open up to six trenches each year (this goal of course
related to available funding and staff). This will ultimately expose
from 700 to 1,000 square meters of the ancient site.