The Mycenaean Cemetery at Ayia Sotira, Nemea

Abstract

Abstract From 2006 to 2008 The Canadian Institute in Greece sponsored the excavation of a Mycenaean chamber tomb cemetery at Ayia Sotira near Koutsomodi in the Nemea Valley. The five modest tombs excavated by the project were undoubtedly associated with the nearby settlement of Tsoungiza, and offer a picture of the mortuary practices associated with this settlement. The practices at Ayia Sotira describe both local funerary customs and more generally “Mycenaean” ones observable throughout Mainland Greece and the Aegean. Explanations for the local character are found in the economic conditions of the nearby settlement, in the local geology, and presumably local customs. These were documented through careful recovery of the stratigraphy and contents of the tombs, including paleobotanical, phytolith, organic residue, and micromorphological analysis. The remarkable similarity of these tombs and their contents to those excavated at neighboring Zygouries confirm the local character of chamber tomb inhumation. Yet comparison with other chamber tomb cemeteries, notably nearby Aidonia, but also with examples in the Corinthia, Argolid, and elsewhere, demonstrate the general features of a common “Mycenaean” practice. Overall, burial practices in the chamber tombs at Ayia Sotira fits our reconstruction of the inhabitants of Tsoungiza being incorporated into a social and political system dominated by the inhabitants of Mycenae during the LH IIIA2–B periods.