• Home
  • Archaeological Research
  • Dating

Stratigraphy - Dating

The site of Thessaloniki Toumba is characterized by a highly complicated stratigraphy. The older deposits of the trenches at the slope belong to successive floors and strata of usage during the Middle Bronze Age. Those older deposits were succeeded by richer deposits belonging to the early and late phases of the Late Bronze Age.

All these deposits were covered in the end by the historical period deposits. The habitation during the Middle Bronze Age (building phases 14-9) is characterized by the use of monochrome pottery with a significant variety of shapes.

During the beginning of the Late Bronze Age (phases 8-6), habitation was limited to the higher terraces of the location. Pottery was enriched with a small number of decorated vases (incised pottery in phase 7, incised, matt-painted pottery and a LA II Mycenaean shell in phase 6)[1]. Based on the decorated wheel-made pottery study it appears that the LA III B vase number remained small at phase 5, in the later phases of the Late Bronze Age. The wheel-made pottery was greater in number during phases 4-2A: early and middle LH III C, during the four sub-phases of phase 4, middle and late LH III C and perhaps sub-Mycenaean during phases 3 and 2B, early PG with decorated concentric circles during 2Α)[2].

Some surface deposits of the Archaic and Classical period are only preserved on the top of Toumba.


[1] Ψαράκη, Κ. (2004). Υλική και κοινωνική διάσταση του στιλ της κεραμικής: η χειροποίητη κεραμική της εποχής του χαλκού από την Τούμπα της Θεσσαλονίκης. Διδ. διατριβή. Φιλοσοφική Σχολή: Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης http://cds.lib.auth.gr//archive.shtml?base=Griza&id=gri-2004-444. Andreou, S. & Psaraki, K. (2007) Tradition and innovation in the Bronze Age pottery of the Thessaloniki Toumba. In The Struma/Strymon River Valley in Prehistory. Proceedings of the International Symposium "Strymon Prehistoricus", 27 September to 10 October 2004. Blagoevgrad, ed. M. Stefanovich, H. Todorova & G. Ivanov. In the Steps of James Harvey Gaul, vol. 2, pp. 397-420. Sofia.

[2] Andreou, S. (In press) Stratified wheel made pottery deposits and absolute chronology of the LBA to the EIA transition at Thessaloniki Toumba. In LH III C Late and the Transition to the Early Iron Age. International Workshop Organized by the Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 23-24.2.2007, ed. S. Deger-Jakotzy & A. Baehle, pp. 15-40. Wien: Verlag der Österreichen Akademie der Wissenschaften.