Isles of Refuge in the Early Byzantine Period

Abstract

Some years ago in an article offered in honour of my friend, Dr. Jírí Neustupný, I described three settlements on small off-shore islands round the coasts of South Greece, where some of the native population appear to have taken refuge during the period of the Slav invasions in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. (Fig. 1). In August 1969, when I was in Galaxidhi on the west side of the bay of Itea, Mrs. Lois Ventris told me about a group of islets there with traces of similar occupation. These island refuge settlements of the period of the Slav invasions are of some interest in themselves, and they open the door to what might be a fruitful line of inquiry as regards the problem of the Slav occupation of South Greece.There are seven islets in all in the bay of Itea, and of these I was able to visit the three nearest to Galaxidhi, namely (1) Panayia, (2) Ayios Yeoryios, and (3) Apsifia (Figs. 2, 3). These three islands all had traces of habitation in the late Roman or early Byzantine period, including pottery assignable to the sixth or early seventh centuries A.D.: notably, fragments of amphorae with straight and wavy grooved decoration (Plate 14d, 4–6), and rims of dishes of fine red (Late Roman B) ware imported from North Africa. These rims (nos. 6–8, 12) belong to dishes of a type (Ant. 802) found in the Late Phase of the Late Roman period at Antioch, lasting from about the middle of the sixth century A.D. into the seventh. I recovered one or two fragments of clay lamps from (1) Panayia (Plate 14d, 1–2), but saw none on the other two islands which I visited. Some of the Roman pottery from (1) Panayia and (2) Ayios Yeoryios appears to date from a time before the Slav invasions. There are also traces of medieval or later occupation here.