The Diachronic Museum of Larissa hosts a new temporary exhibition which visualizes life in the ancient Greek city at the site “Kastro Kallithea”. Rarely archaeologists are able to study an ancient Greek city that has been so completely preserved as ‘the Kastro’ at Kallithea. The site near the village of Kallithea in Achaia Phthiotis, Thessaly, was inhabited from the 4th-2nd centuries BC and features unspoiled defensive structures, such as walls, towers and gates as well as a nearly complete city-plan, including an acropolis, temples, a civic centre and a housing area. The city’s ancient name may have been ‘Peuma’. It covers 34 hectares and is located on a 618 m. high hill, inland from the plain of Almiros, near the modern city of Pharsala.
The Antiquities Ephorate of Larissa in cooperation with the University of Alberta (UofA), under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports and of the Canadian Institute in Greece, has been conducting extensive archaeological research at the site since 2004. The Kastro Kallithea Archaeological Project (KKAP) receives also important support from the municipality of Pharsala.
Over the years, KKAP surveyed the ancient city and undertook excavations which revealed much information about the economic and social life of city dwellers in the Classical and Hellenistic period. More than 250 UofA students travelled to Greece to receive training in archaeological techniques and strategies. Many of them enjoyed the international experience and returned to Greece as volunteers, research assistants or became staff members of the project.
The exhibition features the results of excavations of ancient public, religious and domestic buildings at the site. It is designed and prepared by the co-directors of the excavation program, S. Karapanou (Larissa Ephorate) and M. J. Haagsma (UofA). The best information derives from the excavation of large house, ‘Building 10’, which provided an important lens on people’s daily activities in antiquity.
The excavation of Building 10 yielded 400 individual ceramic vessels, 230 loomweights, 18 spools and spindle whorls, 287 lamp fragm ents, 510 terracotta figurine fragments, more than 700 metal finds, faunal remains representing 1209 individual domestic and other animals, 69 coins, 69 pieces of glass and 135 stone artefacts. This assemblage provides a good impression of Building 10’s household management strategies and role in civic life. The exhibition features many of the items found in Building 10, accompanied by 3D representations of important city buildings. A reconstruction of a warp weighted loom constructed by using original loom weights and a piece of cloth, which was woven with it, are also exhibited.
Research at Kastro Kallithea has shown that regions that were traditionally considered marginal in the big picture of Ancient Greece’s history were no cultural and economic backwaters. Especially from the Hellenistic period onward, they played an important role in international political, economic and social networks in this period of major political change.
Opening : Thursday 1st of February, at 19:00. Free entrance.
The Exhibition will run till the 6th of May 2018.
More information about the Kastro Kallithea, in the exhibition's leaflet.