Greek Archeologists Rush to Uncover Secrets of Sites

Thousands of years ago, the bodies of dozens of men and boys were dropped into haphazard graves on the plains of central Greece.

One theory says that attackers overran their village, killing the males and enslaving the women and their daughters.

But archeologists have been unable to spend much time examining the skeletons or trying to date the graves in Mikrothebes, about 15 miles west of the central port of Volos. They are facing a modern onslaught: road crews expanding the national highway through a region laden with buried clues to cultures and rituals stretching back nearly 5,000 years.

Experts are racing to excavate and catalog as much as possible before their government funds run out next year and the highway workers arrive. The 30 digs underway explore an intriguing diversity of subjects and could hatch new ideas about how the ancient dwellers of Thessaly organized their lives and dealt with death.

“For us, it is a race against the road. . . . We understand the need for the national road, but we cannot compromise everything. Important finds must be saved,” said Vasso Adrimi, the archeologist directing the $11.6-million dig project in central Greece.

But engineers are under pressure to open the improved north-south highway in a nation with one of Europe’s highest accident rates.

“We are in the same race because we have car accidents every day,” said Costas Seretis, head of road works in the area. “They are rushing to dig sites. We are rushing to finish the road.”

The discoveries since the digs began in 1994 have forced redesigns in the highway project to avoid the most important sites. But additional detours are possible because archeologists keep turning up areas that may merit extensive study.

“From 1994 to 1999, we found more objects than in the last 90 years. It is crazy,” Adrimi said.

In ancient Alos, about 20 miles west of Volos, teams uncovered 36 graves that were once probably divided by the Amphrissos River, which has since dried up. Graves on one bank held buried bodies; the other side held ashes from cremations.

If the two sites cover the same epoch--from the 8th century BC to the Mycenaean era around 1250 BC--it could challenge the popular theory that cremation was totally replaced by burials in ancient Greece. Instead, it could suggest that both funerary rituals occurred simultaneously, said Zoe Malkasioti, an archeologist at the excavation.

Black tool sharpeners found dangling from necklaces on some corpses also could provide insights into the little-known technical abilities of the region’s pre-Mycenaean people.

In Aerinos, about nine miles west of Volos, archeologists have found part of a Bronze Age village on a hill overlooking a bridge already built for the highway. The site will be saved because of the excellent condition of the cemetery and its 12 remaining buildings, the oldest dating from 2800-2600 BC.

The buildings vary in size, but all have the same oval shape and were built with rocks stacked in a fish-bone pattern common throughout Greece. The similar construction method suggests contact between various people in Greece since prehistoric times.

Archeologists believe the Aerinos village could provide clues about whether people migrated within the region and what influences caused changes in earthenware style.

“Some people may have stayed in the Neolithic village, some left, and then during the Mycenaean Age they came back. We have to study why,” Arahoviti said.

Archeologists say the old highway, which was built in 1962, must have covered the rest of the village.

“They didn’t realize it,” said Polyxenia Arahovitis, an archeologist working at Aerinos.

Parts of two ancient roads have been found 2 1/2 miles from Aerinos. Although they will be covered, they are significant because they show that for thousands of years people have used the same route to connect the north and south.