Perspectives on the archaeology

of Byzantine Greece 600-1000 AD

JAMES CROW

Abstract

The aim of this paper is not to rehearse the continuing debates concerning the archaeology of
so-called ‘Dark Age Greece’, but rather to situate the post-classical archaeology of Greece before
the ‘revival’ of the 10th and 11th centuries within the wider Byzantine world, particularly in
comparison with the early-medieval archaeologies of the adjacent nation states of Bulgaria and
Turkey and also as part of post-Roman archaeologies of north-western Europe. The paper will
review a range of differing perspectives from the varying contributions of excavation, survey
archaeology, ceramic chronologies, numismatics and standing monuments. In addition it aims
to consider those approaches derived from an increasing awareness and concern for environmen-
tal history and especially the greater definition of episodes of rapid climate change and their
potential significance for a fuller understanding of the broader history of the Byzantine world.
Finally we need to consider how far the archaeology of Byzantine Greece, and of the wider lands
of the Byzantine empire, forms part of a regional/national archaeological narrative, or is an
aspect of both a European medieval agenda and represents part of the long-term archaeologies
of the eastern Mediterranean.

Keywords

Byzantine – Dark Age – Slavs – environment – churches.

The end of the classical world witnessed some of the most profound changes in
the long-term history and material culture of Greece and the Islands. From 550 to
700 AD historians and archaeologists have recognised a vertiginous collapse of
late-Roman provincial structures, urban settlements and trading networks, which
only emerge as the newly configured Byzantine ‘themes’ from the later 7th and
9th centuries AD. There are few regions where the end of classical urbanism and
settlement appears as abrupt as in the southern Balkan provinces of the eastern
Roman empire. After 600 AD in the great triangle of land from the lower Danube
to the southern tips of the Peloponnese there was ‘closure’ and with few excep-
tions, it has been argued, the writ of the New Rome had expired and for many
‘classical cities’ there was an abrupt end, an almost paleontological extinction.

Pharos 20(1), 291-311. doi: 10.2143/PHA.20.1.3064545

© 2014 by Pharos. All rights reserved.
292 JAMES CROW

Only in the north-west Roman provinces, and especially Britain two centuries
before, do we recognise such a comparable collapse.1 In the provinces along the
lower Danube exposed to increasing invasion and population shifts the process
is less surprising and perhaps inevitable, conforming to patterns and processes
recognized in the western frontier provinces of the Roman world. But for the
provinces of southern Illyricum, including most of modern Greece the conse-
quences appear catastrophic and to some degree unexpected and unanticipated.
Firstly we need at least to briefly define the period under consideration and the
term ‘Byzantine’, which has come to acquire differing meanings in different con-
texts and disciplines.2 In this context I use it to mean the period from the begin-
ning of the 7th century. For the lower Danube provinces north of the Haemus
mountains – the Stara Planina – apart from those linked by the River Danube and
especially on the coastal littoral, direct control was lost after 600. Further south
the Greek (here referring to the boundaries of the modern state since 1945) terri-
tories away from the major coastal cities such as Thessaloniki and Athens were lost
to the direct control of Constantinople. By the middle of the century, the succes-
sors to Mohammed in the east had gained control of much of the prefecture of
Oriens (Roman Near East), so that the remains of the field armies fell back to the
mountain barrier of the Taurus mountains to create the new army commands of
Anatolikon (formerly Oriens), Armeniakon and so on. In the west, for the field
armies of Illyricum there was no comparable administrative regrouping; in
practice it would seem that there was nothing to consolidate or withdraw. Through
the second half of the 6th century, perhaps with diminished man-power as a
consequence of the Justinianic plague, the eastern empire was required to
campaign in Italy and the east, drawing on the Illyrian recruiting districts. Such
strategic needs were at the expense of the field army of the Balkan provinces which
in turn was the capital’s own hinterland, only 20 days march to the lower Danube
from Constantinople and the buffer for more southerly Aegean provinces.
The problem is how to envisage both the process of the loss of Byzantine
control in the southern Balkans and also the nature of the peoples who continued
or came to occupy these regions. Historical accounts of this period are often illus-
trated with maps demonstrating the extent or otherwise of Byzantine authority. If
we compare three recent attempts it is possible to recognise differing historically-

1
 The ‘distance’ in place and time is apparent in Procopius’ account of the isle of Brettia (Britain)
and its ‘long wall,’ Burn 1955. For a stimulating review of the approaches to the archaeology of early-
medieval England, see Härke 2011. For a recent overview of both the military and economic condi-
tions in the former Roman imperial world between 500-700, see Sarris 2011.
2
 Amongst many recent discussions see Whittow 2009 and Cameron 2011. Near-Eastern archaeolo-
gists continue to retain Byzantine for the period synonymous with late antiquity before the Arab
invasions and even impose an erroneous three-age division.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 293

derived perceptions, and then progress to ascertain how they may or may not
reflect known archaeological phenomena. Thus John Haldon in his informative
historical atlas of Byzantium (2005) presents the period from 650-717 with impe-
rial territories fringed around the Aegean coastlands and islands, with the addition
of the Ionian islands to the west, plus further territories in the Italian peninsula,
Sicily and Sardinia.3 Turning to Andrew Louth’s chapter in the new Cambridge
History of the Byzantine Empire (2008) a map representing the empire towards the
end of the 7th century shows Byzantine control around all of the mainland Greek
littoral and the Aegean islands plus more extensive territories across the central
Mediterranean including Carthage and Africa.4 A third, and final example, from
Jean-Claude Cheynet’s general history of Byzantium from 641-1204 presents the
situation ‘vers 750’ comparable to Haldon’s view, with minimal coastal territories
in eastern Greece, the islands including Crete, and south Italy and Sicily.5 As we
shall see these reconstructions of historical geography derive almost entirely from
the partial and limited written sources from the period, which relate to the terri-
tories beyond Constantinople and Asia Minor (the main focus of the surviving
post-Heraclian chronicles).6
One feature which is consistent in these historical maps showing the partial
Byzantine control in Greece and the southern Balkans, is to mark the interior
lands as newly dominated by Slavs. If we return to the recent review of the
evidence for the Anglo-Saxon immigrations to the former Roman provinces of
Britannia noted before, we are struck by the radical difference in the nature of the
evidence. For Britain, Härke is able to draw on two centuries of excavations
and other research to demonstrate the presence of Germanic peoples from the
5th century onwards. What is debated is the extent and character of the ‘invasion’.
Initially the Anglo-Saxon presence can be defined by new patterns of settlement
structures, ceramics and other artefacts, especially metalwork, and burial rites.7
By the 7th century new forms of monumental architecture in both timber and
in stone are identified, including by the end of the century stone churches. From
the historical record there was also the emergence of new polities which in turn

3
 Haldon 2005, 58, fig. 5.1. Carthage and the province of Africa are omitted although these were not
lost to the Arabs until after 670.
4
 Louth 2008, 222-223, map 11.
5
 Cheynet 2007, 4.
6
 For recent studies of Apothekai (imperial warehouses linked to the provincial administrative units)
based on surviving seals, see Ragia 2009 and 2011.
7
 Comparable studies for the limited evidence from early medieval Greece may be found in the
welcome publication of two studies by Florin Curta 2010 and 2011; only the cremation burials from
Olympia (2011, 122) explicitly attest the presence of ‘intrusive’ mortuary rites (now announced by
Eugenia Gerousi-Bendermacher at the Birmingham Byzantine Symposium, March 2013, is a second
similar cemetery near Tripoli).
294 JAMES CROW

developed a novel historiography, especially reflected in the writings of the North-

Umbrian historian the Venerable Bede. In the Balkans comparable changes in
material culture and political structures are best exemplified in Bulgaria where a
powerful Bulgar state emerged at the end of the 7th century.8 New forms of met-
alwork, ceramics and settlements, notably sunken-floored buildings (alternatively
termed Grübenhauser – also found in early medieval England and a familiar struc-
ture across early medieval Europe) are apparent in the Balkan archaeological
record from the 6th century onwards, although how far they constitute and define
mass migration or ethnogenesis remains a matter of scholarly debate.9 For Greece
outside the remaining major urban centres such as Athens, Thessaloniki and
Corinth, in both the mainland and the islands, discussion of settlement archaeol-
ogy after 600 is often defined by those places identified as places of refuge from
the ‘new occupiers’, following an explicitly historical model (Figure 1).10
For many cities, such as Messene and Tegea in the Peloponnese, the transfor-
mation and reduction of regional centres during late antiquity saw the dereliction
and recycling of monuments and the proliferation of workshops. At Messene these
changes included a watermill constructed on the monumental fountain of Arsinoë
and fragmentation of the urban centre into a patchwork of settlements. Signifi-
cantly both places acquired Slavic toponyms by the 9th century. 11 Studies of sur-
viving architecture are not especially helpful for this period. A recent ambitious
and important overview of architecture in the Balkans from Diocletian to Süley-
man the Magnificent by Slobodan Ćurčić provides a chronological sequence of
maps. For late antiquity his map 4 reveals numbers of sites across the Balkans,
map 5 for the subsequent period however reveals only four places.12
Two are inevitable: Constantinople and Thessaloniki; Salona is distant in Cro-
atia, and the fourth is Tigani - a prominent peninsula on the west coast of the
Inner Mani. Ćurčić suggests that the basilica there may date to the 7th century;
however this assertion is reliant on stylistic rather specific archaeological or his-
torical criteria.13 The impressive defended site nonetheless has provided important

8
 See Fiedler 2008 for a balanced overview, for the major settlement centre of Pliska see also com-
ments in Crow 2012.
9
 See important discussions and a comprehensive review of the material evidence in Curta 2010,
complemented by his discussion of the historical sources, 2011; see also Bavant 2012, 341-351 for the
wider Balkan context.
10
 A classic example of this approach is Hood 1970; see now the important discussion by Vionis
(2012, 125-132) of the isle Viokastro, off Paros, and other island settlements.
11
 Tsivikis 2012; Bon 1951, 59-60; Avramea 1997, 67-86.
12
 Ćurčić 2010, see 170 map 4, 250 map 5, 264 map 6. Note: map 5 on p. 250 is incorrectly captioned
as map 4. Ćurčić’s maps are not distribution maps as such, but illustrate those monuments which are
discussed in the text; compare Curta’s distribution and discussion of late-5th and 6th century basili-
cas, Curta 2011, 26-34, fig. 1.3; see a review by Crow 2012.
13
 See Ćurčić 2010, 262, fig. 277.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 295

Figure 1. The islet of Viokastro off the south-east coast of Paros (see Vionis, 2012, 125-132);
the remains of the boundary wall can be seen (photo by author)

evidence for later burials with artefacts, cut into the floor of the earlier church
dating from the 6th to the later 7th centuries.14 The church is located on the south
side of a rectangular enclosure c. 150 m2 located at the end of a rocky finger of
land projecting from the west side of the Mani peninsula. Apart from the basilica,
which as Ćurčić notes is secondary to a smaller single-naved chapel, a number of
buildings are visible within the enclosure, with an annexe to the west. There is a
defensive wall on the south and west sides.15 No date is hazarded for the defences
or other structures. If the site was fortified in the early medieval period, and even
if the visible defences are later in date, this cannot nullify the suggestion that it
was a defended coastal site which provides extremely valuable and rare evidence
for a significant settlement at this period. One further piece of evidence helps
to define the wider significance of Tigani. In her discussion of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus’ account of the Slav tribes in the Mani, Anna Avramea also
noted a fragmentary inscription found in the basilica recording a comes of the
imperial fleet, which she re-dates to the 9th or 10th century.16 Along with other

14
 Discussed recently by Curta 2010, esp. 422, 441; see also Curta 2011, 100, although in his discussion
it is unclear why the fort is assumed to date to the 6th century.
15
 See GoogleEarth 36˚32’44.30”N 22˚21’56.91”.
16
 Avramea 1998, 56, n. 29; the inscription is published in Feissel & Philippidis-Braat 1985, 308,
no. 50. Avramea also argues Tigani should be identified as κάστρον Μαϊνης.
296 JAMES CROW

early medieval settlements such as Troezen and Monemvasia, these sites not only
represent potential coastal refuge sites, but might equally be seen to form part
of a network of maritime communications around the Peloponnese linking the
Byzantine Aegean with territories in Sicily and Italy.17
The basilica at Tigani also raises another wider archaeological question con-
cerning the ‘fate’ or ‘transformation’ of early Christian basilicas into the early
medieval period. Large numbers of basilicas dating from the 5th to 6th centuries
are known from excavations and survey across Greece and confirm the increasing
Christianization as well as the increasing resources and patronage of the church
and society. Similar patterns are known elsewhere from the late antique Mediter-
ranean, although probably a greater density is known from Greece, encouraged
by the activities of the Christian Archaeology Society especially in the 1920-30s.18
At the International Congress of Christian Archaeology held in Rome in 1938,
George Soteriou reported in a review of recent work that few of these great Chris-
tian buildings remained in use after the 6th century, many of which having been
consumed by fire.19 However, this ‘catastrophist’ narrative as represented through
the material evidence has only been investigated at a local level. For this debate
Bryan Ward-Perkins has provided a seminal analysis of the competing archaeo-
logical and historical historiographies of early medieval Italy, a study with equal
relevance across the eastern Mediterranean during this period.20 Certainly a few
great basilicas or variants survive: St Titus at Gortyn on Crete or the church of
the Katapoliane on Paros, and notably in Thessaloniki St Demetrios and the
Acheiropoietos. In the same city there is clear evidence at the church of St Sophia
for the replacement of an earlier large basilica with a new domed plan in the
7th century.21 Ironically it might be argued that amongst the most successful
‘survivors’ from late antiquity were the venerable classical temples such as the
Parthenon and Hephastaion in Athens, both converted into churches by the end
of the 7th century, or on a smaller scale the sanctuary of Gyroula on Naxos.22 In
the case of St Sophia there is no evidence of deliberate external destruction on
what was the most important new-build project in the early medieval Balkans

17
 Bon 1951, 100; both bishoprics figure in the lists of the council of Nicaea in 787 when Corinth was
absent.
18
 Frend 1996, 243-245.
19
 Quoted in Frend 1996, 245, n. 138; see Soteriou 1929.
20
 Ward-Perkins 1997; for the study of late antique churches see the stimulating article by Caraher
(2010) and the review by Sweetman 2010.
21
 For Thessaloniki in the 7th century see the recent discussion in Ćurčić 2010, 257-260. At St Sophia
construction after 620 was apparently disrupted by an earthquake and not completed before the end
of the century.
22
 For Athens see most recently Saradi & Eliopoulos 2011, 267-273; for Naxos see Deligiannakis 2011,
327-332.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 297

before the construction of the great basilica at Pliska in Bulgaria in the late 9th
century.23
How or by whom these structures were destroyed, whether natural or human,
remains uncertain in most cases. But for the study of later periods what matters is
the manner in which they were transformed and their continuing presence in the
lives and landscapes of later communities. At Synaxi in western Thrace the site of
an earlier basilica (itself constructed over an earlier pre-Christian shrine) became
the setting of a small monastery.24 Some may have been abandoned and neglected,
but frequently on the sites of former basilical churches smaller more compact
structures replaced them.25 The phenomenon of basilical shrinkage and trans-
formation was certainly not unique to Greece. Throughout western and southern
Asia Minor examples can be found, for example from the church of St Mary at
Ephesos to the lower church at Amorium.26 In addition to the modification of the
existing stock of religious structures from late antiquity, closer to Constantinople
a distinct cluster of early medieval churches are found east and west of the Sea of
Marmora. In discussing them Robert Ousterhout refers to this period as ‘transi-
tional’ rather than ‘Dark Age’ and they are seen to attest to continuing patronage
at the empire’s core in the region east and west of the sea of Marmara.27 However
throughout much of Greece there is very limited evidence in the period from the
early 7th to the mid-9th century. This lacuna is also reflected by the absence of
monumental building inscriptions. None are known in southern Greece between
the Victorinus panels from the Isthmia c. 550 and the building inscription from
the church of the Panagia at Skripou of 873-874 (Figure 2).28 Indeed Slobodan
Ćurčić recently stated that ‘The art of building in the Balkans came close to
extinction’.29 As we shall see there is cause to question the deep pessimism of this
statement although it does highlight the challenge of defining a clear chronology
in the absence of the more conventional tools applied in historical archaeology

23
 The date of the Pliska basilica remains the focus for continuing speculation, see Crow 2012.
24
 Bakirtzis 1989; Ćurčić 2010, 297, fig. 312.
25
 See Caraher 2010, 246-250, where he stresses the importance of their continuing use as places for
later burials, even when a new structure did not replace the earlier basilica. He follows Ruggieri
in reckoning that early Christian basilicas were inherently unstable, but whilst seismic destruction
cannot be ignored, Ward-Perkins has observed (pers. comm.) that this does seem to have applied to
the many surviving and near contemporary basilicas in Rome and Ravenna and may require further
assessment.
26
 See Ousterhout 2008, 89-91. Note however in contrast the newly constructed and impressively
large 9th-century church of St Sophia at Vize in eastern Thrace, which like its namesake at Thessa-
loniki appears to ignore the footprint of the earlier and larger basilica; see Bauer & Klein 2006.
27
 Ousterhout 2001, 3-19.
28
 Gregory 1993, 13-14; Ćurčić 2010, 316-317; for a recent discussion of the inscriptions see Prieto-
Domnínguez 2013.
29
 Ćurčić 2010, 262.
298 JAMES CROW

Figure 2. Skripou. Part of the external building inscription showing the titles of
Leo basilikos protospatharios and epi ton oikeiakon (by permission of Dr Ida Toth)

and architectural history.30 Coins do exist although their circulation is often lim-
ited to major imperial military activity, as Florin Curta and others have argued to
account for the large number of coins of Constans II in Athens.31 Ceramic evi-
dence remains problematic,32 although recent research by Thanasis Vionis and
others has shown the benefits of reviewing evidence across the 8th and 9th century
Byzantine worlds.33 Known settlements are very few. Indeed Florin Curta has
argued that by the 6th century rural settlements in Greece were predominantly
small and dispersed in contrast to the earlier villa estates apparent until the later
4th century;34 however such a view is not sustained by extensive fieldwork else-
where in Greece.35 At the same period in the southern Balkans (FYROM, Bul-
garia) the pattern of rural landscape differs from either villa estates or dispersed
settlements and many of the known settlements from this period are located in
defended situations. In further contrast across southern Asia Minor extending into

30
 See discussion of dating criteria in Ćurčić 2010, 249-262.
31
 Curta 2011, 106-108; a coin of Tiberius III (698-702) was able to date the rebuilding of a church
from Vathia in Inner Mani, south of Tigani, see Avramea 1997, 102. For coins in the Cyclades see
the survey by Penna, in Crow & Hill forthcoming.
32
 Sanders 2004, for an important review of the ceramic evidence.
33
 Vionis 2013.
34
 Curta 2011, 38-39.
Vionis et al. 2009, 38-39.
35
 See the valuable discussion in Bintliff 2012, 353-58; see also Veikou 2012.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 299

north Syria there is extensive surviving evidence for the expansion of late-antique
stone-built villages. The best known examples are the so-called Villes Mortes in
north Syria studied by Tchalenko and others.36 However recent documentation
especially in Rough Cilicia and Lycia has shown the phenomenon extending
across the southern coastal zones of Turkey.37 These surviving villages comprise
domestic dwellings and yards, often with small to medium-sized basilical churches.
Situated in ‘marginal’ uplands set back from the immediate coastal plains these
appear to have flourished in the 5th and 6th century, and although their later
chronology is uncertain, their subsequent survival would argue for an abandoned
landscape, not intensively occupied before the 20th century. Contemporary with
these settlements are a number of small coastal new-towns found particularly on
the rocky coastline of Lycia.38 This particular phenomenon may be linked to the
route of the annual grain fleet from Alexandria to Constantinople, which contin-
ued until the Sassanian invasion of Egypt in 618 and was finally terminated with
the Arab conquest in 642. Subsequently the coastlands became the focus of
Arab raiding, although it is likely that the cessation of the annual fleet passing
along the coast will have had a far greater and more lasting impact on the survival
of settlements.39
In southern Greece the emergence of new coastal settlements such as Monem-
vasia and Tigani in the period after 600, and the survival of bishoprics as noted
before may be seen as much part of a commercial – albeit on a smaller scale –
consequence of the necessity to sustain increasing Constantinopolitan connections
with the western Byzantine territories, especially Sicily before the Arab capture of
the island from 820 onwards.40 The deserted late antique villages of southern
Turkey also raise an issue concerning not only the social role and significance of
the church in rural society, but a more practical question of location and function.
The basilical churches are mostly located within the settlements; at Gemile Ada
there is clearly a complex pilgrimage landscape within the island, and this may
apply elsewhere in Rough Cilicia.41 However in southern Asia Minor there appears

36
 See Chavarría & Lewit 2004, 12, 18-19, note the comparatively few references to early Byzantine
Greece in their review.
37
 See Varinlioğlu 2007.
38
 Asano 2010 provides a study of the churches and settlement from Gemile Ada, south of Fethiye.
Although the architectural elements are presented in detail there is little discussion of the chronology
of pottery or artefacts.
39
 For a similar phenomenon on the south-west coast of Cyprus, see Raptis & Bakirtzis 2008 on
Ayios Georgios, Pegeia, another example of a late antique ‘new town’; see Deliyanakis forthcoming
for an important study of the late antique and early medieval Dodecanese.
40
 For the continuing significance of Sicilian resources and evidence for contacts with Constantinople
see Bowes et al. 2011, 444.
41
 Asano 2010; Hill 1996.
300 JAMES CROW

to be a direct correlation of some churches with rural settlements during late

antiquity. For Greece it would be helpful to investigate how far the distribution
of rural basilicas might be seen to correspond with at least some rural settlements.
If we move forward into the Byzantine period proper churches remain a crucial
component of the later Byzantine landscape of town and country. A recent unpub-
lished analysis based on data collected by the Tabula Imperii Byzantinii (TIB)
project of the Austrian Academy, reveals a remarkable preponderance of monastic
foundations known from the Byzantine period located within Greece. The TIB
project is primarily concerned with historical geography, not just archaeology,
and includes textual references as well as physical remains.42 From the tabulated
evidence it is possible to see that out of eleven completed volumes, three and
another part are concerned with Greece (volumes I, III and X and part of VI), yet
this represents nearly 61% of monastic and other religious foundations from the
total for all the Byzantine territories surveyed so far (Table 1).
As presented these are very ‘raw’ statistics with no temporal classification and
no differentiation between places known from text or surviving remains. It does
however reveal the remarkable corpora of medieval churches known from various
parts of Greece. A challenge for the archaeologist is how to engage this evidence
as part of a wider understanding of the archaeology and history of the period. For
the later period where there are more extensive written sources and material
remains, previous and forthcoming studies by Sharon Gerstel show the potential
of this approach.43 For the earlier period there are greater challenges, although the
potential was recognised in Anna Avramea’s study of the Maniote churches.44 One
of the key problems is a chronology acceptable to scholars in different disciplines.
Thus Florin Curta rejects the early-7th century date suggested for the church of
the Panagia Drossiani in Naxos since it is based on art-historical criteria rather
than archaeological data, without considering the striking and unusual architec-
ture of the building complex.45 Naxos, as an island, possesses an exceptional
assemblage of churches, 150 buildings dating before c. 1560. From these more than
20 reveal evidence for aniconic decoration, which if not specifically datable to the
iconoclast era, as has been sometimes asserted, are likely to date before 900.
Because of the controversy about equating aniconic decoration with the period of

42
 For the changing methodologies of the TIB project see Popović 2010. I am grateful to Prof.
Johanes Koder for permitting the reproduction of Table 1.
43
 Gerstel 2005; see her forthcoming Landscapes of the Village: The Devotional Life and Setting of the
Late Byzantine Peasant, Cambridge.
44
 Avramea 1997; see also Drandakes 2009 for Maniote churches; similar potential groups of churches
are known around Arta and Kastoria. See the study by L. Sigalos, Housing in Medieval and Post-
Medieval Greece, Oxford 2004, quoted in Bintliff 2012, fig. 17.4 showing church construction and
renovation in Messenia from the 9th to 19th century.
45
 Curta 2011, 127, n. 6; see however Drandakis 1989, 18-27.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 301

Table 1. Showing the high proportion of Byzantine monastic sites and place names recorded
in the Tabula Imperii Byzantinii volumes for Greece in comparison with other parts of the
Byzantine world, up to 2012 (courtesy of Prof. Johanes Köder)

TIB All Monastic % of total Regional volume

Vol. places etc.
1 460 146 31.7 Hellas und Thessalia
2 300 89 29.7 Kappadokien (Kappadokia,
Charsianon, Sebasteia und
Lykandos)
3 405 95 23.5 Nikopolis und Kephallēnia
4 238 42 17.6 Galatia und Lykaonien
5 578 95 16.4 Kilikien und Isaurien
6 740 77 10.4 Thrakien (Thrakē, Rodopē und
Haimimontos), Incl. parts of
N. Greece
7 532 20 3.8 Phrygien und Pisidien
8 528 54 10.2 Lykien und Pamphylien
9 249 20 8.0 Paphlagonien und Honorias
10 333 19 5,7 Aigaion Pelagos (Die nördliche
Ägäis )
12 471 51 0.8 Ostthrakien excluding Constantinople
Total 4834 766 15.9
Total 60.9
Greek (excluding
TIB Crete, south
Aegean)

iconoclasm many scholars have been understandably cautious.46 Yet here poten-
tially is some of the best-preserved evidence for a group of structures situated
across the island and located in a range of locations, often associated with extant
terraced field systems.47
The conventional approach to historic landscape and settlement in Greece has
been through intensive surface artefact survey; however for the early medieval

46
 Ćurčić 2010, map 6, ‘Renewal - ninth and tenth centuries’, 315-316.
47
 For the multi-layered wall-paintings from Naxos see Chatzidakis 1989 and Acheimastou-Potami-
amou 1984; see also recent studies of the landscape setting and the known monuments by Crow et
al. 2011; Crow & Turner forthcoming; Vionis 2012, 131-133; various conference papers in Crow &
Hill forthcoming
302 JAMES CROW

period there remains the persistent problem of establishing ceramic chronologies

as has already been noted. Yannis Lolos in his recently published study of Sikyon
in the northern Peloponnese observed how the problems of studying the early
medieval period were limited ‘by our ability to recognise earlier (early Byzantine)
pottery types (that) did not allow us to push occupation at these sites earlier back
in time’.48 Rather than perceiving the landscape as empty of settlements and
farmers, implicit in this statement is the assumption that the problem lies instead
with the nature of the archaeological data and how to recognise and interpret it.
In turn this reveals the divergence between the synchronic aims of the landscape
archaeologist and the diachronic objectives of an archaeologist like Florin Curta
whose expertise derives from a deep knowledge of artefacts and coins ordered
within an historic framework.
Some of the problems which faced the Eastern Empire from the mid-6th cen-
tury were not just the result of human agency or contingency – invasions, civil
disorder etc, but what are now recognised as a crescendo of varying natural disas-
ters focussing around 540. Shortly before that date there was a significant climatic
phenomenon known as the ‘dust veil event of 536’ with severe consequences for
agricultural production49 which in turn may well have weakened the population’s
overall resistance before the advent of the next calamity of the Justinianic plague
in 542.50 This plague is known to have recurred into the 8th century and
Theophanes records Constantinople’s final iteration travelling eastwards along the
sea-routes from Sicily by way of Monemvasia into the Aegean and on to Constan-
tinople in 746, a sombre reminder of the damaging effect of long-distance com-
munication and trade.51 The economic and demographic impact of these plagues
remains a matter of controversy, although only a decade later in 756/7 Theopha-
nes also records that Constantine V was able to assemble 500 clay workers from
Hellas and the islands as part of a much larger workforce gathered from across the
empire for the work of restoration of the great Thracian aqueduct of Constan-
tinople.52 These climatic events and the emergence of new pathogens in the mid-
6th century were certainly incremental in contributing to the weakness of the
empire over the following century, but it is also important to consider
how far other climatic and environmental changes may have influenced the early
medieval societies in the eastern Mediterranean, and Greece in particular. Studies

48
 Lolos 2011, 83; Bintliff 2012, 385-388.
49
 See now Arjava 2005; Gräslund & Price 2012.
50
 Little 2007.
51
 Noted by Theophanes, Chronographia AM 6238 –AD 745/6; see Mango & Scott 1997, 585-586,
n. 7, for discussion of the occurrence a year later.
52
 See Crow et al. 2008; Magdalino (1996; 2007) recognises these and other works in Constantinople
as evidence of the recovery of the Byzantine economy in the later 8th century.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 303

of climate history have often in the past relied on the anecdotal evidence provided
in a range of historical texts and chronicles.53 However a consequence of the cur-
rent anxieties over contemporary rapid climate change has been a number of
recent studies contributing to an understanding of climate history throughout late
antiquity and the middle ages.54 In essence the long-term proxies developed for
the study of climate history up to modern times can also provide significant data
for the early medieval period. A recent study based on Carolingian Europe pre-
sents new insights into climatic anomalies and their disruption of food production
and supply, by associating known volcanic events from around the planet identi-
fied through Greenland ice cores, with especially harsh winters documented from
north-western to eastern Europe.55 This study commences in 750 focusing on the
harsh winter of 763/4 when ice covered parts of the Black Sea, and when the
chronicler Theophanes recounts how he and his friends played on icebergs in the
Bosporus.56 The same chronicler records the dramatic eruption of the volcano
between the islands of Thera and Therasia in 725/6 (AM 6218) but in a review of
recent studies concerned with the stratigraphy of volcanic tephra from across the
Mediterranean only the ‘Minoan’ eruption of Thera has been documented.57 The
cataclysmic eruption in 725/6 created a new island and cast pumice ‘against all of
Asia Minor, Lesbos, Abydos and coastal Macedonia’– effectively a broad arc across
the northern and eastern Aegean coastlands. The consequences were not just phys-
ical, for Theophanes states this manifestation of God’s wrath provoked a more
ruthless campaign against icons under the iconoclast emperor Leo III.58 Analogous
paleo-climate studies including this period exist for Asia Minor, based on eastern
Cappadocian lake-cores, but there are fewer cores with the necessary resolution
available from the Aegean coastlands and mainland Greece.59
Contemporary with these climatic and other natural challenges, the Aegean
coastlands and islands are generally considered to have experienced extensive dis-
ruption from Arab raiders who seized control of Crete in 827 and retained it until
its triumphant recovery by Nicephoras Phocas in 961.60 Piracy and raiding,

53
 Telelis 2005 and 2008.
54
 Büntgen et al. 2011; see however the reservations of Behringer (2010) on the limitations of some
claims of climate historians.
55
 McCormick et al. 2007.
56
 McCormick et al. 2007, 878-881.
57
 Mango and Scott 1997, 559-561; Zanchetta et al. 2011, 42.
58
 Compare the similar dispersal of tephra from Thira’s ‘Minoan’ event, although Theophanes’ loca-
tions have a distinctly northern bias, see Zanchetta et al. 2011, 43, fig. 5b.
59
 Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2011; see also paleo-environmental studies from early medieval southern Italy in
Arthur et al. 2012.
60
 See the standard historical approach in Setton 1954 and in Miles 1964. For a more nuanced (less
catastrophic) view of piracy in the Mediterranean see Horden & Purcell 2000, 153-60. Trombley
304 JAMES CROW

Figure 3. The church of St George on Apalirou Kastro, Naxos, dating to the 8th or 9th century
(see Klimis Aslanidis in Crow & Hill forthcoming). The fortress dominates the southern part of
the island, with the central mountains of Zas to the east (looking east) (photo by the author)

whether by Slavs or Saracens, is often invoked as one of the main agents for
decline, and may prove to be an often repeated trope, although it is up to archae-
ologists in the Aegean coastlands and islands to review and potentially challenge
historically derived narratives of landscape settlement.61 Coastal fortresses such as
Monemvasia and Tigani have already been noted, but early examples are known
from the islands. In particular the current survey of Kastro Apalirou (Figure 3) on
Naxos by Oslo University has shown that the mountain-top fortress has an exten-
sive planned settlement together with complex fortifications and cisterns. Pre-
liminary dating suggest that it was occupied from the early 7th until the later 12th
century.62 A key question must be how far some of these fortified places constitute
new forms of settlement distinct from the classical urban legacy, which were in

(2001) sets the Aegean as part of a wider Byzantine/Arab maritime and land frontier in the period
before the 9th century.
61
 See Caraher 2010.
62
 http://www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english/research/projects/naxos/survey/; see also Crow & Hill forth-
coming.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 305

turn different from the smaller refuge defences found throughout the islands and
parts of the mainland. As such, while they might operate in certain respects as
regional administrative centres similar in ways to the late antique poleis, they also
possess a new strategic military role. In Greece many such sites may well have
continued as later medieval ‘castles’,63 however analogous sites exist in Turkey but
few have been surveyed in detail. One example is Dereağzi in Lycia where an
isolated fortified hill-top settlement set in a critical strategic location is associated
with a major middle Byzantine church in the valley below. Similarly on Naxos
close to Apalirou are a number of churches including the important aniconic
painted church of Ayios Ioannes st’Adisorou.64 Both sites have clear strategic loca-
tions distant from previous classical settlements, but additionally were the focus
for significant Byzantine-period ecclesiastical patronage, presumably derived from
local commanders and garrisons.
From the 10th century, on both sides of the Aegean there is widespread evi-
dence for recovery.65 However, as already noted from Koder’s survey of data
within the Tabula Imperii Byzantini’s regional studies, there is a predominance of
religious structures and foundations known from the Aegean and mainland
Greece. This is also apparent from the map for the years 1000-1250 in Ćurčić’s
study of architecture in the Balkans, although here there are also significant clus-
ters in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia, notwithstanding the evident concentra-
tion around the Athonite peninsula.66 Recent studies suggest that for Asia Minor
the numbers are far fewer.67 In part this may be a consequence of survival. Sig-
nificantly on the Black Sea coast of Turkey at Amastris and Trebizond numbers
of Byzantine churches survive converted into mosques. At Sinope midway along
the coast between these two cities nothing is known apart from imposing Seljuk
edifices and earlier Classical and Byzantine walls.68 Critical for the endurance of
former Christian buildings, the first two cites did not come under Muslim control
until the Ottoman conquest after 1453, whereas Sinope became a major Seljuk
harbour in 1215, evidence for increasingly divergent experiences of conquest across
the former Byzantine territories. This simple example demonstrates the value of
the Byzantine ecclesiastical heritage as it survives throughout Greece. But at the
same time the wealth of religious structures from Greece, apparent even before the

63
 See an attempt to integrate these changing structures within a wider settlement pattern in Veikou
2010.
64
 Morganstern 1993; Acheimastou-Potamianou 1986.
65
 See most recently Curta 2011; evidence for church building can be traced from the mid-9th century
especially in Attica as well, as Skripou already noted.
66
 Ćurčić 2010, map 7.
67
 See a forthcoming study by Niewöhner on 11th-century buildings in Asia Minor.
68
 Bryer & Winfield 1985; Crow 2013.
306 JAMES CROW

disasters in Byzantine Anatolia following Manzikert in 1071, could signify a shift

in the material prosperity of the Byzantine world, less apparent in the written
sources.
Throughout this essay I have attempted to select a number of particular themes
within the archaeology and history of medieval Greece, where reflection across the
wider early and middle-Byzantine world presents insights allowing a fuller mean-
ing and context. The catastrophe apparent throughout the southern Balkans after
600 AD was not unique in the former territories of the Roman empire. But in
comparison with the archaeological record of the early medieval period from most
of western Europe, with few exceptions, the dearth of material remains apparent
at most excavated sites in Greece remains perplexing.
Life-styles and material cultures were transformed but Greece did not become
a demographic vacuum.69 The self-evident challenge for future generations is to
refine new methodologies or discover new proxies to delineate the changed pat-
terns of society and settlement. As Yannis Lolos observed it is not the absence of
artefacts but the inability to recognise them,70 which prevents even the simple
presentation of distribution maps identifying the distinctive material cultures of
the new early medieval age. In the introduction I observed how historical maps
based on written accounts can at best provide a blunt and imprecise impression
of the spatial distributions of past peoples and settlements and the archaeological
pattern of early medieval coastal and island-settlements is frequently too fine to be
represented at such a small scale demanded by publishers. By contrast when we
turn to the distribution of medieval churches as recently studied from Naxos we
are presented with a macro-view, not only their position in relation to known
settlements and topography but as part of the historic landscape patterns of land-
use and boundaries.71 Such an approach in the right location offers an opportunity
to situate the distant past as part of a wider contemporary world, but can also
present a broader context for the monuments themselves. Finally it is important
to recognise that as archaeologists concerned with a material past, we are com-
pelled to approach and view the early medieval and Byzantine periods within the
context of the modern nation state, whether in modern Bulgaria, Turkey or
Greece. It has recently been argued that Byzantium as a European culture remains
uneasily situated, neither within the core histories of western and central Europe
nor of the predominantly Islamic Middle East.72 One way of engaging the Byzan-
tine past can be to ensure that a fuller understanding of the archaeology of early

69
 See Izdebski 2011 for an analysis of Slav social structures and how these are reflected in Byzantine
texts.
70
 See note 44 above.
71
 Crow et al. 2011; Turner & Crow 2010; Crow & Turner forthcoming; Vionis 2012.
72
 Cameron 2011.
 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BYZANTINE GREECE 600-1000 AD 307

medieval Greece is conversant with, and alert to, the wider perspectives and anal-
ogies from across the Eastern and wider Mediterranean worlds.

J. CROW
University of Edinburgh
jim.crow@ed.ac.uk

Acknowledgments
I wish to thank John Bintliff and the Netherlands Institute at Athens for the
invitation to participate in the conference on the Archaeology of Greece and for
their generous hospitality. For information and assistance in the preparation of
this paper I’d like to acknowledge and thank Johannes Koder, Knut Ødegård,
Rebecca Sweetman, Thanasis Vionis, Efthymios Rizos, Rossana Valente, Ida Toth
and Emanuele Intagliata. The comments of the anonymous reviewer provoked
further enquiry, however all errors remain my own.

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