Des quartiers spécialisés d’artisans à l’époque géométrique

Alexandre Mazarakis-Ainian in A. Esposito & G.M. Sanidas (eds), «Quartiers» artisanaux en Grèce ancienne. Une perspective méditerranéenne (Lille 2012): 125-154.

Abstract

The study concerns the question of the existence or not of specialized artisans areas in Geometric Greece. Since it is not possible to present the data from the entire Greek world, the discussion concentrates mostly in the comparison between Attica and Euboea. According to J. Papadopoulos, the area of the future Athenian Agora, characterized by numerous wells and tombs, should not be regarded, as usually, as a habitation zone with small burial plots, but rather as an artisans’ quarter within a vast necropolis. In our opinion this was not the case. Athens seems to conform to the model observed at Oropos and Eretria; it is argued that the area of the future Agora served multiple functions (oikoi, workshops, family burial plots), which were located around the Acropolis; the latter would not have been the only nucleus of habitation, but a cult centre and a place for refuge in case of danger. The Geometric era was a formative period, characterized by a middle degree of specialization, in which the same people would have conducted together multiple activities, in the same spaces and within the same buildings.