Aigeira

Aigeira (Greek: Αιγείρα) (IPA: [eˈʝira], Ancient Greek: Αἰγείρα or Αἴγειρα, Latin: Aegeira) is a town and a former municipality in northeastern Achaea, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it has been a municipal unit of the Aigialeia municipality, with an area of 103.646 km². The municipal unit stretches from the Gulf of Corinth, where the town of Aigeira is located, to the mountains in the south. The town of Aigeira is 26 km (16 mi) southeast of Aigio, 55 km (34 mi) northwest of Corinth and 55 km (34 mi) east of Patras.

The archaeological site of ancient Aigeira is located approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) from the modern town. It is an important site for the Mycenaean and later periods, with particularly extensive remains from the Hellenistic period. It has been excavated since 1916 by archaeologists from the Austrian Archaeological Institute at Athens.

(Location of the ancient site: 38°07′43″N 22°22′41″E / 38.12861°N 22.37806°E / 38.12861; 22.37806)

Settlement at Aigeira is known from the Middle Neolithic and Final Neolithic, beginning around 5500 BCE. The first settlement was situated on the acropolis, and has furnished evidence of pottery, including vessels likely used in the production of cheese. A small quantity of obsidian blades, using material from Melos, have also been found from this period. Some evidence of Neolithic settlement has been found on a lower plateau, approximately 150m to the east of the acropolis.

Patterns of settlement around the Gulf of Corinth in the Final Neolithic show a few 'main sites' and a much greater number of apparently transient settlements, used only briefly before abandonment. In the Early Helladic period (beginning around 3100 BCE), settlements appear to become more permanent, being used over multiple chronological phases, and to be involved in more intense contacts between each other, particularly maritime exchange. While there is a great deal of evidence for social and cultural continuity at Aigeira between the Final Neolithic and Early Helladic, particularly as concerns patterns of food production and consumption, there are also signs of technological development, particularly in higher-temperature ceramic production, the use of flax or double fibres in textiles, and possibly the addition of arsenic to copper in metallurgy.

In the EH II period, the acropolis site was abandoned, and settlement moved to a low-lying and more fertile site at Kassaneva, close to the Krios river. The acropolis was re-occupied in the Middle Helladic period: little evidence of this phase survives, though what does exist points to new cultural connections with the western Peloponnese.

Relatively little is known of Aigeira for most of the Late Helladic period. Aigeira has been proposed as the centre of one of two putative Mycenaean states in Achaia, but no signs of palatial structures or administration have been found at the site, making it difficult to argue that Aigeira was the centre of the sort of state apparatus seen in contemporary palatial centres like Mycenae or Pylos. Indeed, the relatively low level of monumentality found in tombs and buildings at this period suggests that local elites, while undoubtedly evidenced from the use of chamber tombs, did not possess the ability to mobilise even relatively small amounts of skilled labour, unlike the contemporary palatial elites elsewhere. Furthermore, the lack of tholos tombs in the vicinity, which are closely associated with palatial elites at other Mycenaean sites, lacks a conclusive explanation: it has been argued that this situation may represent the lack of penetration of palatial social structures and ideology into Achaea, or perhaps that distant centres, such as Mycenae and Aegina, were able to inhibit the growth of Achaean elites, if not to control them directly.

Only a few pieces of pottery are known from the LH IIIB period, mostly found on the terraces below the acropolis, and it is possible that the settlement moved to another location, perhaps nearer the coast, during LH IIIB, returning to its original location early in LH IIIC.