The Southern Phokis Regional Project: Results of the 2023 Field Season (20 min)

Presenters

Andrew Koh, Yale University; Cheryl Floyd, AIA member at large; Ian Roy, Brandeis University; Trevor Luke, Florida State University; Savannah Bishop, Ko? University; Micah Gold, Yale University; Matthew MacFarline, Hollis-Brookline High School; and Ioannis Liritzis, European Academy of Sciences & Arts

Abstract

In 2018, a team of international scholars inaugurated the Southern Phokis Regional Project (SPRP) to investigate the cultural and natural environment of the Desfina Peninsula in central Greece. Traditional scholarship has constructed the region as a backdrop to the activities of more famous neighbors such as Delphi and Chaironeia. Yet ongoing field research by SPRP continues to uncover a well-networked region with its own intriguing history tied to local resources such as the hellebore plant. A certain level of self-sufficiency was naturally encouraged by prominent geographic barriers such as Mt. Parnassos to the north and Mt. Helikon to the east, conditions that likely spurred the development of maritime connections via the Mycenaean coastal acropolis at Steno and later at adjacent Antikyra.

With the completion of initial studies at the inland Mycenaean citadel at Desfina-Kastrouli, SPRP in summer 2023 endeavored to elucidate the relationship between Desfina-Kastrouli and Antikyra-Steno through a mixture of traditional intensive survey targeting the latter site combined with a more extensive survey documenting their connections to the rest of Phokis utilizing the latest UAV and GIS techniques. Fieldwork in 2023 builds on previous seasons and continues to draw upon a transdisciplinary blend of traditional, digital, and archaeometric methods to undertake a comprehensive archaeological, ecological, environmental, and ethnohistorical study of southern Phokis as a new collaboration between the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, the Ephorate of Antiquities of Boeotia, and the Archaeological Museum of Thebes.

The Homeric Catalogue of Ships names the site of Kyparissos as the port of ancient Phokis (Il. 2.521). While this port has previously been identified with Antikyra, the abundance of high-quality Mycenaean pottery at Steno, a dearth of Mycenaean remains at Antikyra, and documented connections between Steno and Kastrouli (likely Homeric Anemoreia) argue for the identification of Steno with Kyparissos, which was then inherited by Antikyra when it was founded some years later (cf. Pausanius 10.36.5). In studying Steno and the greater region, we start to shed light on these historic questions and investigate broader questions related to trade, technology, and pharmacopeia in ancient southern Phokis and beyond.