From 2000 onwards a team
of Dutch, Greek and Slovenian staff and students have carried out fieldwork
on the ancient city of Tanagra and its surroundings. The fieldwork includes
on-site and off-site survey as well as geophysical research. Specialists
study the pottery obtained during the fieldwork seasons. The aim of the
project is to reconstruct the historical development of the habitation
in the town and the relations with the immediate countryside. The survey
also provides useful information for the preservation and management of
Tanagra and other sites in Boiotia.
Tanagra appears to have first been settled in the Neolithic period by
a small group of farmers and there is evidence for the same kind of small
settlements throughout the Bronze Age. The city of Tanagra can first be
recognized during the Late Geometric and Early Archaic period (around
700 BC.), even though the size of the city in this period is unknown.
In classical times the city of Tanagra was of considerable size and wealth.
In Early Roman times there was a decline of population in the whole of
southern Greece and it is probable that Tanagra shrunk in size and population,
as did other cities in the region. In Late Roman times however, the city
grew again and the bulk of the surface finds stem from this period. It
was also in this period that its classical fortifications were repaired
as a reaction on barbarian raids that afflicted Greece. After the Late
Roman period the city was no longer extensively inhabited and for the
Byzantine period there is only evidence for scattered farms. During the
Middle Ottoman period a small hamlet existed on the acropolis consisting
of four longhouses.
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The evidence for
the countryside corresponds with that for the city, with a great
expansion of habitation in Archaic and Classical times, a decline
in Late Hellenistic and Early Roman times and a blossoming again
in the Late Roman period. |
The density of so-called offsite pottery, carpets of broken potsherds at lower densities than material emanating from past settlements, but still significant enough to mark a major form of human activity, is at the highest around the edges of the ancient city. Going further away from the city the density gradually declines and after 2 kilometres the pottery has almost disappeared. An explanation for this phenomenon can be found in the cities fertilisation program, urban residents storing their rubbish for recycling out in to the field in order to fertilize their estates. While the organic components are long gone, all that remains is a carpet of broken pottery. This manuring system is still to be dated for Tanagra, but the city of Thespiae has shown a similar phenomenon that can be dated to the Classical period in accordance with the expansion of the population and size of the city.