Ancient Economies of the Northern Aegean. Fifth to First Centuries BC

Aigeai

In 2009 Angeliki Kottaridi published a summarized survey of the scope
of archaeological enquiry over twelve years in the city of Aigeai, calling it
a‘town in clusters’.^57 An area of some 50 ha (500,000 m^2 ) comprises the
city’s acropolis and the fortification wall around its inner core, including
the royal palace, sanctuaries, residential areas, but also an extensive
development outside the city’s fortified area and cemeteries, including
the mound burials of the Early Iron Age and the royal tombs that
occupied much of the same collective space. Her purpose was to explain
the extended layout in terms of civic and architectural development.
Kottaridi compared the evidence that is emerging from the various areas
sampled by archaeologists within this space to a number of ancient
centres of the Greek mainland, including Athens, Thebes, Thespiai,
and Pherai, where public and residential areas were disposed (in their
early history at least) around a number of clusters, rather than concen-
trated in a single nucleus. At Aigeai the topography of the city below the
acropolis was steep and broken into a number of deep channels cut by
torrents, necessitating terracing operations to create larger open areas,
whether for public spaces or for construction purposes. The organization
of public and residential areas is still under investigation, but Kottaridi’s
instinctive evaluation of the style of urban development provides a
helpful tool for understanding urban evolution at other sites in the
northern Aegean area.

Amphipolis

The organization of private and public spaces in the pre-Roman phases
of Amphipolis and Abdera is different from conventions in much of the
Greek mainland, with multiple foci rather than progressive concentra-
tion around a central nucleus.^58 These sites have proved hard to investi-
gate, precisely because of the extended nature of their topography.

Philippopolis

There has been a similar challenge at sites like Plovdiv in Bulgaria
(ancient Philippopolis), where persistent evidence of long-term

(^57) Kottaridi 2009, 773–80 andfig. 2; cf. also S. Drougou 2011, 243–56, who provides a
preliminary assessment of the possible implications of the city 58 ’s layout.
Amphipolis:Inventory, no. 553; Abdera:Inventory, no. 640; cf. also Ioakeimidou et al.,
2006.
68 Herdsmen with golden leaves—narratives and spaces