Prehistoric Remains on Calymnus

Abstract

In March, 1947, as Antiquities Officer of the British Military Administration, Dodecanese, I examined the spoil earth from a well dug a few years before in the valley of Vathy on Calymnus; a previous visit had shown that it contained prehistoric potsherds. The well had reached, at about nine metres down, the remains of a village of late neolithic and early Bronze Age date. No trace of the strata of occupation was found in situ, but the amount of pottery in the spoil heap compared with the size of the shaft did not indicate that those strata were thick. The neolithic wares included pieces of rather thin polished pottery, silvery-grey, greyishbrown or reddish in colour, seldom of a uniform tint. Such pottery is, in surface and colours, not unlike late neolithic from Knossos, but it is less thick. A piece of a large handle of round section and polished red surface, decorated with knobs at intervals along the convex edge, was found. This type of decoration on a similar handle is paralleled in Stratum I. at Lianokladhi. The Bronze Age pottery, mostly grey or black in colour, is more or less rough in texture. Very little similar to the black polished wares of Thermi I appeared, but a few examples of striated ware, and of incised decoration, were found. There was also part of a spoon covered with red wash decoration, and sherds ornamented with the addition of a ribbon of clay, pressed flat at intervals, and with imitation rivet-heads. Simply shaped legs from tripod or other vessels were found, and flat solid handles placed rising from the rim and shaped with two points or horns. Another find consisted of part of the rim of a large vessel with internal ledge handles and a row of holes pierced just below the rim. Handles included both ribbon and round (in section) varieties, one type of ribbon handle being similar to a characteristic Cypriote type of handle. Two flat bases are paralleled in Crete and Hissarlik. A plain black single conical spindle whorl is paralleled at Thermi.