Wednesday 7 April 2010

Dimini - Iolkos: Mycenean Settlement in need of Protection (T)

The impressive site of Dimini - Iolkos in the Magnesia Prefecture is a Mycenaean settlement with a palace complex. Works of restoration and supporting were commenced financed by the 2nd and continued with the 3rd Community Support Packet, and should have already led to a visitable archaeological site.

Unfortunately basic problems remain such as the temporary roofing - a naylon covering and buckets filling up with rain-water - which impede visitors. In is last meeting the Central Archaeological Council gave its accord for the construction of permanent roofing over the Megara A and B in the Mycenaean settlement.

The excavation in the Mycenaean settlement of Dimini, at the edge of the Pagasitic gulf, started o*in 1977 and in 30 years of research - under the dr Vasiliki Adrymi, archaeologist and director of the Archaeological Institute of Thessalian studies and former director the 13th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquuities - came to light the ruins of a large Mycenaean settlement, the only one of such size and organisation know in the whole of Thessaly. It was founded at the end of the 15th century B.C. in the plain to the East of the well known neolithic settlement of Dimini, and flourished in the 14th and 13th Centuries B.C. It is composed of a central architectural ensemble with two large buildings (Megaro A and B), which combine living quarters, storage areas where traces of agricultural products were discovered as were products of commerce, workshops for ivory and areas of religious uses.

The Mycenaean settlement of Dimini is identified (because of its morphology, finds and in combination with the settlements at Pefkakia and Kastro of Volos, but also with the 4 great Tholos tombs in the region and the newly-found on at the locality called Kazanaki) with the mythical centre of the famous Iolkos. This is where - according to myth - the Argonauts set out following their leader Jason, to find the Golden Fleece in Kolchis, in the gold-rich shores of the Black Sea.

Source: Kathimerini, 07.04.2010
Adaptation - Translation: ArchaeologyMatters

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