Abdera, Thrace (Kallintzi 2010)
The Abdera Urban Plan Project (AUPP) is a three-year SSHRC project (2023-2026) co-directed by Maria Chrysafi of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Xanthi and Maria Papaioannou, Department of Historical Studies, University of New Brunswick with generous support from the Canadian Institute in Greece, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the museum at Abdera, the local community and the Prefecture of Xanthi. The AUPP began its first season this summer with a well-attended public lecture on June 15th at the Abdera Museum by Maria Papaioannou entitled “Living in Roman Greece” that included a brief overview of the AUPP project. Following the lecture, enthusiastic attendees (students and non-students) came forward to volunteer for next summer’s excavations! The following Monday a geophysical survey of the site began under sunny and hot June skies accompanied by a cool breeze from the Aegean.
The island of Thasos in the blue background. View from the archaeological site of Abdera
For those not familiar with the site, Abdera is located along the Thracian coastal in the prefecture of Xanthi, just 5km south of the modern village of Abdera that features a majestic view of the island of Thasos against a clear blue sky. The city was first founded in the 7th and 6th centuries BC by colonist from Asia Minor, and subsequently became a very wealthy and powerful city state as evidenced by its coins found in far away places such as Egypt and Mesopotamia; the poet Pindar praises the city for its ‘plentiful vines and bountiful fruits.’ For those however who favour the mythical foundation story, it was Heracles apparently who founded the city naming it after his companion Abderos who unfortunately met a grewsome death, devoured by the famous man-eating horses of the Thracian king, Diomedes. In historical times Abdera was the home of many famous Greek poets and philosophers, among them Demokritos the father of the atom theory. The physician Hippocrates is also known to have spent some time there apparently invited by the citizens of Abdera to cure the ailing Demokritos.
Abdera, aerial view of Insula of Houses with the Roman period peristyle house to the north (viewer’s left)
The site was first excavated in the 1950s by the newly appointed Director of Antiquities of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Demetrios Lazarides, who discovered the remains of fragmentary houses of a late classical-Hellenistic grid planned city. No complete housing block has ever been investigated and only one-well preserved Roman period peristyle house from the Insula of Houses was revealed in its entirety (albeit missing almost entirely its north wall). The boundary roads to the east, west and south of this insula were discovered in subsequent investigations conducted between 1996 and 2019 by the Archaeological Service of Xanthi, but the north road has not been identified. Previous studies on this housing block includes an architectural study of the Roman period peristyle house (figs. 3 and 4) by the AUPP co-director Maria Papaioannou and in 2016 with an Insight Grant from SSHRC, Maria and collaborator Peter Dare from Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering UNB conducted Terrestrial Laser Scanning to create a digital archive of the Insula of Houses and visualization theories.
The results of these earlier investigations sparked an interest in the study of the built environment, the various architectural phases of the Insula of Houses from Hellenistic to Roman times and its impact on urban identities. This new data combined with past studies will contribute to our understanding of the various political, social and economic networks that helped shape the town-plan of Abdera. We hope to answer questions that help identify those responsible for the project, what group of people it meant to accommodate, and the types of housing that existed at different time periods. The outcomes may challenge the long-standing theories regarding the uniform layout of the town plan of Abdera based on the democratic notion of isonomia, as some researchers have postulated.
The AUPP office under the oak tree at the SW corner of the site. The survey team taking a lunch break. From left, Nikos Papadopoulos, Gianluca Cantoro, Angelo Plageras and Demitri Oikonomou
On June 17th the FORTH Team from the Institute for Mediterranean Studies arrived and set up their office beneath a large oak tree at the northwest corner of the site. Although there were some delays as the Wi-Fi was not cooperating, which made it difficult for Angelo and Demitri to establish a connection between the GPS and the magnetometer, the problem was soon resolved, and work began. Next Ground Penetrating Radar was also applied followed by Electrical Resistivity conducted by Niko (Research Director of FORTH) in selective areas that required some additional clarification. Digital documentation (TLS) of the site in areas not previously covered in the 2016 study was conducted by Gianluca, Archaeologist of the National Research Council of Italy and member of the FORTH team.
Nikos and Angelo conducting electrical resistivity; Maria Papaioannou “mowing the lawn -and lending a hand with the GPR; TLS by Gianluca; Dimitri and Angelo with the magnetometer
GPR revealed remains of a peristyle house (highlighted in a red rectangle) at the southwest corner of the Roman period peristyle house at the north end of the insula
Preliminary results
from the geohpysical survey have revealed some exciting finds. A complete plan of a large house, featuring
remains of well-preserved stone walls, with rooms surrounding a central
peristyle coutryard appeared just to the southwest corner of the excavated Roman
peristyle house! (Rectangular red
area in figure 7). The dimensions appear to be similar to those of the Roman
peristyle house which features a ground floor plan of approximately 500 m2.
This was an unexpected find that made our day!
The final results will be submitted by the FORTH team in September. Based
on the geophysical findngs we will select areas to conduct test trenches next
summer. We hope to locate the road boardering the north side of the Insula
of Houses and thus verify the exact dimensions of the insula, identify
walls and plans of early Hellenistic period houses and confirm the existance of
structures (domestic?) in the neighbouring insulae to the north, east and
south. We look forward to organizing our
2025 field project and excavating a site next season which promises to be full
of surprises… we hope!
At the end of the day…Dimitri, Nikos, Angelo, Gianluca, Maria Ch. and Maria P.
Former Director of the Ephorate of Xanthi, Konstantina Kallintzi, and current Deputy Director Maria Chrysafi surveying from the north end of the housing block the cleared areas surrounding the Insula of Houses.
Maria Papaioannou, University of New Brunswick, co-director, AUPP
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