19-30

Excavations in the district of Kastoria during 1997

• Τσουγγάρης, Χ.Γ.

The district of Kastoria is one of the less explored areas of Greece as regardsprehistoric and classical antiquities, although it is positioned on the junction ofimportant land routes that connect Western Macedonia to Epirus, Albania andNorthern Macedonia. After the pioneering investigations of Prof. Keramopoullosin the 1930s, fifty years elapsed before a new excavation started, this time inDispilio, while the 17th Ephorate of Antiquities undertook the first rescueexcavation only in 1996.During 1997 a substantial part of an Early Iron Age cemetery was excavated atDailaki, just to the south of Kastoria. Thirty-four cist-graves were opened into thenative rock with no steady orientation and with the occasional presence of smallstone mounds over them. Most belong to adults. Men are usually accompanied by apair of lances or javelins, as well as knives. Women wore a variety of pins and fibulae,spirals, bracelets, pendants and beads, all made of bronze, together with beadsof gold, glass, and carnelian. Common to both sexes was the use of clay vases ofopen and closed shapes, usually in pairs. Few are wheel-made, but many decorativetechniques have been used on them, showing connections with Epirus, as well asUpper and Lower Macedonia.Small scale excavations revealed a Neolithic settlement near Nestorio and partof a private house with a caldarium, dated to the 2nd century A.D. near Argos Oresticon.Public works hit upon a mountaintop sanctuary of early Roman times just westof Kastoria, ancient Celetrum. The excavation that followed unearthed several fragmentsof votive reliefs depicting Zeus, Hera and Hermes. Continuation of this researchcan give us important information on the local cults of Orestae.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

Καστοριά, συνέδρια

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