Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "ASSINI Ancient city ARGOLIS".
On the coast ca. 8 km SE of Nauplia and a little over one km NE of
Tolon. Prehistoric settlement with remains dating from the Early, Middle, Late
Helladic, Protogeometric, and Geometric periods. Deserted about 700 B.C., it was
again inhabited from shortly after 300 B.C. in Hellenistic and Roman times. The
site is mentioned by Homer, Strabo, Ptolemy, and Pausanias.
Remains were uncovered on the acropolis, in the lower city, in a field
NE of the acropolis, and on Mt. Barbouna. The acropolis and the lower town were
surrounded by a Hellenistic fortification wall provided with towers. A city gate
leads to the lower town remodeled in Roman and Venetian times. There is a Hellenistic
oil or wine press on the top of the acropolis.
Architectural remains from Early and Middle Helladic, Late Helladic
III, Geometric, Hellenistic, and Roman times were found. Notable are two Early
Helladic houses with absidal ends, a Roman bath, a great reservoir belonging to
the Hellenistic or Roman period, and burials from various periods consisting of
cists, pithoi, shafts or earth-cut graves. House G is an important Late Mycenaean
building consisting of at least nine rooms, one of which had two column bases
and a cult ledge in one coiner.
There are Mycenaean tombs on the NE and N side of Mt. Barbouna. Seven
Mycenaean chamber tombs, a Geometric pit tomb, and three Hellenistic shaft tombs
were investigated, but many more tombs were traced. Geometric stone-settings were
excavated on the S side of the hill and an archaic building, perhaps a Temple
to Apollo Pythaios, mentioned by Pausanias, was found on the uppermost terrace
of Mt. Barbouna.
Early and Late Mycenaean, Protogeometric, and Geometric habitation
remains and tombs of Middle Helladic, Protogeometric and archaic date were found
in recent excavations in a field NE of the acropolis. Early Mycenaean and Geometric
house walls were also uncovered on the lowest slope of Mt. Barbouna, just opposite
the acropolis. Traces of an extramural cemetery of the Middle Helladic period
were found on the same slope.
The principal finds are in the Nauplia Museum, in Uppsala, and in
the Museum of Mediterranean Antiquities in Stockholm.
P. Astrom, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains 56 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Eth. Asinaios, Asineus. A town in the Argeia, on the coast, is mentioned by Homer (Il. ii. 560) as one of the places subject to Diomedes. It is said to have been founded by the Dryopes, who originally dwelt on Mt. Parnassus. In one of the early wars between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives, the Asinaeans joined the former when they invaded the Argive territory under their king Nicander; but as soon as the Lacedaemonians returned home, the Argives laid siege to Asine and razed it to the ground, sparing only the temple of the Pythaeus Apollo. The Asinaeans escaped by sea; and the Lacedaemonians gave to them, after the end of the first Messenian war, a portion of the Messenian territory, where they built a new town. Nearly ten centuries after the destruction of the city its ruins were visited by Pausanias, who found the temple of Apollo still standing. Leake places Asine at Tolon, where a peninsular maritime height retains some Hellenic remains. The description of Pausanias, who mentions it (ii. 36. § 4) immediately after Didymi in Hermionis, might lead us to place it further to the east, on the confines of Epidauria; but, on the other hand, Strabo (viii. p. 373) places it near Nauplia; and Pausanias himself proceeds to describe Lerna, Temenium, and Nauplia immediately after Asine. Perhaps Asine ought to be placed in the plain of Iri, which is further to the east. The geographers of the French Commission place Asine at Kandia, a village between Tolon and Iri, where they found some ancient remains above the village, and, at a mile's distance from it towards Iri, the ruins of a temple. But, as Leake observes, the objection to Kandia for the site of Asine is, that it is not on the sea-shore, as Pausanias states Asine to have been; and which he repeats (iv. 34. § 12) by saying that the Messenian Asine, whither the Asinaei of Argolis migrated, after the destruction of their city by the Argives, was situated on the sea-side, in the same manner as Asine in Argolis.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited May 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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