Kontopigado. A Mycenaean Industrial Area South of Athens

The Mycenaean workshop installation of Kontopigado/Alimos in Attica (Greece) represents the largest industrial area discovered so far in the Late Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 17001100 BCE). It is a possible case of a regional industrial center. Therefore, it offers a unique chance to investigate a series of crucial questions related to Mycenaean technology and production during the palatial era of the 14th to 13th centuries BCE. The excavated structures of the workshop installation consist of a complex of rock-cut pits, wells and channels, one of which reaches 64 m in length. These structures either represent the whole range of workshop facilities existing at Kontopigado, or else they were only part of the infrastructure related to workshops located close by. The precise function and utility of the workshop installation remain undefined so far, but it seems to have been related to water use and management. Due to its size and distinct morphological features, the workshop installation of Kontopigado still remains unparalleled in all the prehistoric Aegean. The envisaged project focuses on the analysis of the uncovered architectural remains as well as pottery and small finds of that industrial area and includes a geophysical prospection of neighboring plots. The goal of the research project is the study and interpretation of this exceptional site by using an interdisciplinary approach including a series of archaeological and archaeometric studies. Detailed measurements of the excavated remains shall be combined with geophysical prospection on neighboring plots, in order to unravel size, layout and construction details. Typological, technological and archaeometric analyses of the pottery shall provide the chronological framework as well as evidence for determining the activities conducted at the site. Further clues to those activities can be expected from archaeometric analyses of small finds such as querns, which are present in significant numbers. The collected data will serve to determine the relation of the industrial installation to the settlement excavated nearby and to reconstruct its role in Mycenaean society in general. The project aspires insights into highly debated aspects of Mycenaean Greece, especially regarding the period of the palatial administration system and economy (14001200 BCE), such as technology, settlement organization and production management. Workshops located outside the palaces figure prominently in the written archives of the period and seem to have played a crucial role for Mycenaean economy. However, such workshops apart from rare exceptions are barley known from the archaeological record. The discrepancy between written documents and archaeological evidence reveals a crucial gap of research, while Kontopigado has a high potential to help and fill this gap by providing invaluable new information.

The Mycenaean workshop of Kontopigado/Alimos in Attica (Greece), 6 km SE of the Athens Acropolis, represents the largest "industrial" area discovered so far in the Late Bronze Age Aegean. The workshop uncovered by the Greek Antiquities Service in a rescue excavation in 2006-07 is located 350 m to the south of a settlement. The workshop was established around 1350/00 BCE, when the settlement already existed. Both were abandoned around 1200 BCE, at the same time when the Mycenaean fortified settlement on the Acropolis was destroyed. The excavated workshop area consists of long rock-cut channels interspersed with rows of pits and a few wells in an area of 2400 m2. A geophysical survey conducted in the framework of the FWF project on plots next to the excavated area and a careful analysis of all excavated structures and associated finds established that the whole Mycenaean workshop had at least twice the size of the excavated area with channels and pits. We now know that in the NE and SW there are two areas with parallel channels running from NNE to SSW, interspersed with rectangular pits and wells. In the NW and in the SE there are two areas with pits and wells, but without channels. Other production facilities or buildings were not detected by the geophysical survey. The production of animal dyes (such as purple) does not seem to have taken place at Kontopigado, but plant dyes may have played a role here. According to another hypothesis, the pits served for flax retting. The rarity of animal bones in the excavated layers and of animal fats detected in the pottery vessels suggest that the people inhabiting the settlement and working in the workshop area had only very limited access to meat. The organic residues also suggest that their diet predominantly consisted of plants such as figs, but also spices; wine was only occasionally consumed. Microbotanical analyses conducted on the many grinding stones found in the workshop area revealed large-scale production of flour from wheat/barley. This picture of the working community at Kontopigado fits very well with what the written documents found in the Mycenaean palaces tell us about dependent workforce. People working for ruling class would receive exactly defined and annotated rations of wheat/barley and figs. Workshops located outside the palaces figure prominently in the Mycenaeean archival records and seem to have played a crucial role for Mycenaean economy, but were largely unknown from the archaeological record. Kontopigado is a unique example of such a workshop with a size rivalled only in pharaonic Egypt. The combined archaeological and archaeometric evidence supports the interpretation of Kontopigado as a regional "industrial" center controlled by the palatial administration of Athens.