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Archaeological Investigations in the Island of Kyra-Panayia (Pelagonisi) by the Volos Department of Prehistoric and Archaic Antiquities
In the sixties the Volos Department of Antiquities began intense work in the area, setting the foundations of archaeological investigation: the protection and promotion of the area’s archaeology. Difficult and time-consuming work, hampered by economic problems, the people’s indifference and the state’s lack of cultured politicians. The protagonist in the strategy of the Ministry of Archaeology was the unsung D. Theocharis, who in his first investigations proved that humans first appeared in this area of the Aegean in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic period. (Theocharis 1970, pp.271-279, and 1971, pp. 293-300.) 15,000 years ago the sea level was lower and the islands of the Northern Sporades were joined to Magnesia, while between Alonnisos and Peristera there were plains where nomadic hunters would have lived. Theocharis, a wanderer of the Aegean by nature, improved Greek investigation with some basic principles: 1) The idea of unbroken cultural continuity. 2) The significance of the exchange of goods and the circulation of ideas during the advancing changes that could be discerned in the evolving phases of prehistoric culture. 3) The role of natural elements as a dynamic receiver of new ideas. (?) He was interested in the restricted pre-neolithic structures in Alonnisos, Kyra-Panayia, and the other small islands of the archipelago. He wanted to declare here, too, the daring supposition of continuity between the Palaeolithic and early Neolithic stages in the Aegean. And he carried it off. His investigations in the islet of Agios Petros in Kyra-Panayia, in Kokkinokastro, and in Glypha are to this day regarded as pioneering.


In Kyra-Panayia, apart from the highly important neolithic building at Ayios Petros, (Theocharis 1970 and 1971, Eustratios 1985 and 2001, Moundreas 1992), which is known in international bibliography as ‘The Ayios Petros Civilization’ for the outstanding ceramics, religious figures and stonework left behind by the neolithic community, there was also an established fortified settlement (Arguably the ancient Alonnisos?) At the island’s natural harbour of Planitis bay, there is a fortified polygonal enclosure, dating from Classical times, on the eastern side, while at the bay of Agios Petros, in the place known as ‘Janeti’, there is a fortified building of the same epoch. (Skaphida 1995, 1998, 2001). In the open country of the island there are many agricultural workings dating from Classical to post-Roman times, while underwater investigations in the area have discovered significant shipwrecks from Classical and Byzantine times, which have enriched our knowledge of archaic ship-building technology and seamanship, as well as of the organization of the marine trading network and its changes over time. (Kritzas 1971, Chaniotis and Kazianis 2001.)

Evangelia Skaphida, Archaeologist at Volos Museum.

Translation by Simon Darragh, 2009.