OroposKATERINA KOLOTOUROU

The ancient city ofOropos lies in the borderland

between Attica and BOIOTIA, opposite ERETRIA.

The few rural Bronze Age sites scattered in

the area are succeeded by nucleation at the

coastal site of modern Skala Oropou from the

late tenth century BCE on. Recent excavations

revealed parts of an Early Iron Age settlement,

which flourished in the eighth and seventh

centuries BCE together with Eretria. It formed

a cultural extension of the Euboean Gulf, as

evidenced by the architecture and by an early

graffito in the Euboean alphabet.

On the basis of ancient testimonies

(Thuc. 2.23.3; Strabo 9.404), Oropos has been

cogently identified with Homeric Graia (Il.

2.498). Its inhabitants, the Graioi, would have

joined the Euboeans in search of metals in the

west, eventually becoming known to the indig-

enous Italian peoples, and thereafter to the

western world, as Grai(c)i (Greeks). There are

indeed several similarities in terms of settle-

ment organization, industrial activities includ-

ing metalworking, burial customs, pottery

production, and cult activity between Oropos,

Eretria, and PITHEKOUSSAI on the island of

Ischia in the Bay of Naples, which is considered

to be the first Euboean settlement abroad

(see COLONIZATION, GREEK).

The architectural complexes at Oropos sug-

gest that the Early Iron Age community was

organized according to family units compara-

ble to the Homeric OIKOS (household). Each

family resided and worked within walled com-

pounds that comprised dwellings, workshops,

storage facilities, household shrines, and ani-

mal pens, apparently with a degree of eco-

nomic autonomy. In addition to fishing,

herding, and agriculture, the members of the

oikos worked in textile manufacture, pottery

production, and metalworking. Control of

the metal trade and craft was a token of elite

status in the community, as it relied on exten-

sive exchange networks and technological

expertise. The metallurgical debris from the

metal workshops, where COPPER and IRON were

worked side by side, provides some of the

earliest evidence for iron smelting in the

Aegean, illuminating the transition from

BRONZE to iron technology in the early first

millennium BCE.

Due to the destructive torrents of a nearby

river, the site was abandoned towards the end

of the Archaic period. The city was transferred

a few hundred meters to the east and became

a bone of contention between ATHENS and

Thebes during the late Classical period.

Modeled on the grid plan, its remains include

building blocks, cemeteries, harbor installa-

tions, and traces of a circuit wall.

SEE ALSO: Houses, housing, household

formation, Greece and Rome; Metallurgy,

Greece and Rome.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Cosmopoulos, M. B., ed. (2001) The rural history

of ancient Greek city states: the Oropos survey

project. Oxford.

Mazarakis-Ainian, A. (1998) “Oropos in the Early

Iron Age.” In M. Bats and B. D’Agostino, eds.,

Euboica: l’Eubea e la presenza euboica in Calcidica

e in Occidente: atti del convegno internazionale di

Napoli 13–16 novembre 1996: 179–215. Naples.

Mazarakis-Ainian, A. (2006–7) “I primi Greci

d’occidente? Scavi nella Graia Omerica

(Oropos).” Annali di Archaeologia e Storia Antica

n.s. 13–14: 81–110.

Mazarakis-Ainian, A., ed. (2007) Oropos and

Euboea in the Early Iron Age: acts of an

international round table, University of Thessaly,

June 18–20, 2004. Volos.

Mazarakis-Ainian, A. and Matthaiou, A. P.

(1999) “Εnepίgrajο alieutikό bάrος tongeometrikώn wrόnon.” ΑrwaiοlοgikήΕjZmerίς 138: 143–53.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print page 4941.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah02139

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