Settlement and contact on Late Roman and Early Medieval South Naxos, Keros and Kato Kouphonisi

Abstract

This thesis is a study of settlement patterns and contact networks in the Central Cyclades in the Late Roman period and the Byzantine Early Middle Ages. It brings together data from field surveys covering a broad range of landscapes and habitation types on Southern Naxos, Kato Kouphonisi and Keros. The most notable feature of the surveyed area might be the variation between the settlements and the different trajectories they follow. There is not a clear pattern of activity levels and landscape use, which highlight the need to understand each site and its context individually.

In the study area, neither land nor underwater survey alone gives a complete picture of coastal communication. The conclusions drawn from seeing upland, coastal and offshore data individu- ally would be contradictory, but when put together they complement each other. Under water, the evidence shows continued sailing along the south coast of Naxos from the Early Roman to the Middle Byzantine period, but the use of the port of Panormos is concentrated around the 5th and the mid-7th century. However, Panagia on Kato Kouphonisi and Konakia on Keros show that the lack of activity in Panormos after the 7th century is not a result of general abandonment of coastal sites in the area. Instead, it seems that the specific function of that site was no longer in need. While Panagia and Konakia were likely local, self-sufficient settlements, Panormos was (argued here to be) a point of export for produce from a larger part of Naxos attracting inter- regional attention and investment. The only indications of changing political borders and the frontier moving closer to the study area are the investments in fortifications at Irokastro and the construction of Kastro Apalirou.

The thesis shows that Naxos was a frequently used node in long distance trade and travel net- works. Typological and petrographic ceramic analysis indicate a change from an East-to-West directed trade in the Late Hellenistic to Middle Roman period towards an availability of goods from across the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Roman centuries. Deposited ballast piles and petrographic identification of local amphora production is evidence for export related production and shipment harbours, showing that Naxos was not just a passive node at the receiving end of trade routes.