The Coming of the Greeksvast basin drained by a single river system—the Peneios—and
is rimmed by mountain walls. Stone is readily available near
the mountain rims, but that is seldom the case in the interior
of the basin. Most building here was done in mud brick, which
tends to disintegrate in the moist soil. The Thessalian plain is
exceptionally fertile (although the severe winters discourage
the growth of olive trees and other flora common to much of
the Mediterranean) and seems to have supported a large popu-
lation all through the neolithic period and the Bronze Age.
Like the Egyptian Delta, however, it has not been archaeolog-
ically productive.
It is not entirely surprising, therefore, that there is rather
little material evidence for a takeover of Thessaly at the begin-
ning of the Late Helladic period. Although in historical times
Thessaly was renowned for its horses, we have no material rec-
ord for chariots in this region in the middle of the second mil-
lennium. In a tholos tomb at Mega Monastirion, twenty kilo-
meters northwest of Volos, a painted toy chariot with yoked
horses was found, but this terracotta figurine is assigned a LH
IIIB date. 85 Funerary architecture, however, does seem to indi-
cate an early takeover. Tholos tombs apparently of LH II date
have been found near the Gulf of Volos. The tombs themselves
(in which gold ornaments were found) 86 can hardly be dated
before the fifteenth century B.C., although it may be notewor-
thy that the lolkos region has yielded a considerable quantity
of LH I pottery. 87 More significant, although problematic, is a
large tholos found far in the interior, more than a hundred ki-
lometers west of lolkos and in fact almost at the Pindus rim of
the Thessalian plain: at Kouphia Rachi, five kilometers south-
west of Kardhitsa, Dimitrios Theochares excavated a tholos
that purportedly contained pottery from the LH I and even the
- R. Hope Simpson, Mycenaean Greece (Pack Ridge, N.J.: Noyes,
1981), 165; for illustration of the figurine, see Crouwel, Chariots, plate 41. - Hooker, Mycenaean Greece, 64—65.
- Feuer, Thessaly, 49.
191