Byzantine and Ottoman Torone material culture as history

• Main Author: Armstrong, Pamela
• Published: Queen's University Belfast 2013
• Subjects: 930.1
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.599931

This work concerns the results of excavations that took place at Torone, on the southern tip of the central peninsula of the Chalkidiki region of northern Greece. It looks at two castles on the site, remnants of which were standing when the excavations began, and the material culture associated with them. Particular attention is paid to the ceramics, and their pJace within the ceramics of the region. With its location on the very edge of Europe, looking across the Aegean to Asia, Torone is a suitable vehicle for casting an eye round the region at the Byzantine and Ottoman archaeological framework into which the excavations there fit. Modern political divisions mask the former political, cultural, and socia-economic structures of the countries that encompass the north Aegean and its islands. While much archaeological work is being conducted, there is a tendency for it to be carried out in isolation so that, for instance, recent work on the Troad does not consider what is happening in Bulgarian or Greek Thrace, yet they are connected. To this end a study of the Thraco-Macedonian area is timely since so much evidence has recently been made available. The present work attempts to synthesize archaeological studies in Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey for the late Byzantine and Ottoman periods. At the centre sits Torone which is the key to drawing this information together .