1. Location - Name
The ancient city of Mykalessos was situated in eastern Boeotia, and in Antiquity it belonged to the territory of Tanagra. It is placed in the area of modern Ritsona, more specifically on the crossroads of the old National Road connecting Chalcis and Thebes with the provincial road connecting Ritsona and Vathi Avlidas (area Chani), where groups of graves dated to the historical times have been found. It was built in the centre of a fertile plain defined to the N-NW by Mt Messapion (modern Ktipas) and to the S-E by the hills separating the area of Tanagra from the beach of the Euboean Gulf close to the Euripus straits. The city controlled an area (chora) measuring an estimated 50-100 km².
The toponym is attested by Homer (Il. 2.498) and Thucydides (7.29.2-3), but it is not attested by epigraphic evidence. According to a Boeotian mythological tradition, it took its name from a cow, which lowed (emykesato) here as it was guiding Cadmus, the founder-king and his retinue to Thebes.
2. History
The earliest reference to Mykalessos is found in the Homeric ‘Catalogue of Ships’, where the Achaean cities participating with ships and troops in the Trojan campaign are recounted. The area, however, was inhabited already in the Early Bronze Age (first half of the 3rd millennium BC), as can be deduced by pottery sherds and minor artefacts revealing uninterrupted human habitation from Prehistoric times to the Hellenistic period. As a polis, in the political and urban planning sense of the term, it flourished during the Archaic and Classical period (6th-5th cent. BC), as attested by the finds from the city’s necropolis. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Mykalessos was mentioned as a member of the Tetracomia, i.e. as one of the four towns (the other three being Eleon, Arma, and Pharai) comprising one of the cities of the region of Tanagra (Strabo 9.2.11, 14). The Tetracomia, Tanagra, Delion, Aulis and Salganeus participated in the Boeotian League, forming one of the 11 districts of the Confederacy. In Pausanias’ time (2nd cent. AD) the city was at least partially ruined.
Mykalessos passed into history due to the horrible massacre of its inhabitants by the Thracian mercenaries of the Athenian general Dieitrephes in 413 BC. These troops had travelled to Athens to participate in the Sicilian expedition, however, because of their belated arrival and Athens’ financial difficulties, they were sent to sack Boeotia, which was enemy territory for Athens. In the narrative of the events of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), Thucydides (7.27-30) relates how the assailants crossed the straits of Euripus from Chalcis, made camp at Mt Hermaion, and having taken the weak, neglected and unguarded walls of the city by surprise, they pillaged and destroyed houses and sanctuaries and indiscriminately slaughtered its inhabitants, including the children they found in a boys’ school. The Thebans dispatched a contingent against them, and in the ensuing battle 250 Thracians and 20 Theban infantry and horsemen were killed. Mykalessos remained inhabited as a polis throughout the 4th cent. BC and during Hellenistic times. In Roman times it had become a rather insignificant kome.
3. Religion and coinage.
During his visit to the area, Pausanias (9.19.5 -6. 9.27.8) noted a sanctuary dedicated to Demeter Mykalessia, but could not provide any further information.
Mykalessos minted silver coins in the Aeginetan weight standard from 500 to 480 BC, and from 386 (perhaps even earlier) to 374 BC (or even later). The early mints depicted the Boeotian shield on the obverse and the letter Μ (or ΜΥ) placed in an incuse square or mill-sail in the reverse, while later mints feature a bolt of lightning on the reverse.
4. Topography and monuments.
The remains of the city have not been identified, save for the ruins of a defensive wall in polygonal masonry. Other architectural members have been identified, like fragments of stone blocks, of an unfluted monolithic column and of an Ionic base; apparently these originated from an important edifice. A systematic excavation, conducted in a part of Mykalessos’ Archaic and Classical necropolis in 1907-1908 and 1921-1922 by Ronald M. Burrows, Percy N. Ure and Annie D. Ure, yielded important results. The graves date from Early Geometric times to the late 3rd cent. BC, yet most are dated from the Archaic period to the early 5th cent. BC. The graves of the second half of the 6th cent. BC were particularly rich. These contained abundant burial gifts: pottery vases, figurines, and metal and bone minor artefacts.
The systematic excavation of the necropolis by English archaeologists, which was in fact carried out during a time when grave robbing had become endemic in the area of Tanagra, laid the foundations of Boeotian archaeology. The study of the finds as unitary closed contexts per burial offered a wealth of new evidence for a new type of archaeology, one that does not approach ancient artefacts exclusively in terms of aesthetic value, but elects to study them in their broader historical and cultural context, seeking to extract data on dating, trade, burial customs and the cultural specifics of Archaic and Classical Boeotia. Thus, it emerged that Mykalessos maintained contacts with the other Boeotian cities, as well as with neighbouring regions such as Attica, Corinthia and Euboea. The tomb types at Mykalessos comprise pit graves, cist-shaped graves, tiled graves and pyres. In terms of burial gifts, the most common types of pottery are the black-figure skyphoi and lekythoi, largely products of Attic and Boeotian workshops; Corinthian drinking and cosmetic vases; and local black-figure kantharoi. In terms of the repertoire of terracottae, most common were figurines depicting horsemen, as well as seated and standing males and females; some of the deceased were accompanied by metal ornaments. A quantity of the pottery found was inscribed with the name of its owner or maker, while very few inscribed covering slabs were also unearthed. The necropolis of Mykalessos is still being revealed in ongoing rescue excavations.
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