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Bylazora: The Last Redoubt of the Paionians

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Cleopatra
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« on: February 06, 2011, 04:43:22 pm »

Bylazora: The Last Redoubt of the Paionians
Bylazora: The Last Redoubt of the Paionians

Ancient sources discuss the strategic position of Bylazora.
Bylazora: The Last Redoubt of the Paionians
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Sunday, January 30, 2011  |  Articles

Text and images by Eulah M. Matthews & William Neidinger

Bylazora was the fabled capital city of the Paionians, the people who occupied the land of the ancient kingdom that was to become Macedonia. Many ancient Greek and Roman authors mentioned both the Paionians and their Bylazora. Homer portrayed the Paionians as the allies of the Trojans in the Trojan War, and Herodotus and Thucydides described Paionia and its gradual conquest by the Macedonians: the Paionians would regain their freedom and fortify their capital, Bylazora, only after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.

However, the days of Paionian independence were numbered. In the third and second centuries BC their lands were overrun by Gauls, Dardanians, Macedonians and, finally, the Romans. When Polybius, Livy, Strabo and Pausanias wrote of the Paionians, they told of a vanquished and vanished legendary people. And when Ptolemy composed his Geography in the second century AD, he noted the cities of Paionia, but Bylazora was not one of them, having long since been reduced to ruins. It is Bylazora that the Texas Foundation for Archaeological and Historical Research (TFAHR) set out to explore in June 2008.

When the present day Republic of Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia, most Balkan archaeologists believed that Bylazora was probably to be found beneath the modern city of Veles. But the ruins discovered at Veles were far too humble (and late) to be the legendary Bylazora. In 1976 Professor Ivan Mikulcic, after a survey of  the central part of the country, suggested that a large plateau near the town of Sveti Nikole might prove to be a more promising site to hunt for Bylazora. Some exploratory soundings were made before and after  independence (1991) that lent hope to this suggestion.

In 2008 Mr. Aleksandar Danev, director of the Peoples’ Museum of Sveti Nikole, contacted us at TFAHR to initiate an in-depth, long-term project to excavate the site. Mr. Danev had heard of the TFAHR International Field School, which offers excavation opportunities to teachers, students, and volunteers from all over the world. On his invitation, we brought the field school to what may be the legendary Bylazora.
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Cleopatra
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« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2011, 04:45:00 pm »



Excavating on both sides of the northern defensive wall.

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« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2011, 04:45:57 pm »

We used past soundings and old robbers’ trenches to launch our excavation season. In the first weeks we exposed two sections of thick, substantially built walls on the acropolis, probably part of the city’s inner defences. We also cleared, at the foot of the hill, a subterranean stone building with a descending staircase. It had been discovered accidentally while the area was being quarried for road base material. The structure has been called by various archaeologists a tomb, a reservoir, a fortified cistern, and a ritual bath. Our plan, having finally excavated down to the last step, was to sink a few judiciously placed soundings in and around the structure to get a better clue as to what it might have been.

All plans were proceeding smoothly, until the night of July 3, 2008. That night a torrential downpour and hail storm, the likes of which the locals claim they had never seen, wreaked havoc with the excavation; trenches collapsed, baulks were washed away, and many squares were turned into deep, muddy swimming holes. The rains certainly put the structure at the base of the hill under water for the rest of the season, but new vistas opened on the acropolis.

As we cleared the wreckage from the storm, we discovered near the defensive wall of the acropolis a long and wide ramp. Where the ramp intersected the wall, the foundations of a small tower were unearthed. But as we followed the ramp to the south, uphill, we came across a large threshold with a square socket hole, probably for a beam of a lock socket to secure a double gate.
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« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2011, 04:47:15 pm »

We used past soundings and old robbers’ trenches to launch our excavation season. In the first weeks we exposed two sections of thick, substantially built walls on the acropolis, probably part of the city’s inner defences. We also cleared, at the foot of the hill, a subterranean stone building with a descending staircase. It had been discovered accidentally while the area was being quarried for road base material. The structure has been called by various archaeologists a tomb, a reservoir, a fortified cistern, and a ritual bath. Our plan, having finally excavated down to the last step, was to sink a few judiciously placed soundings in and around the structure to get a better clue as to what it might have been.

All plans were proceeding smoothly, until the night of July 3, 2008. That night a torrential downpour and hail storm, the likes of which the locals claim they had never seen, wreaked havoc with the excavation; trenches collapsed, baulks were washed away, and many squares were turned into deep, muddy swimming holes. The rains certainly put the structure at the base of the hill under water for the rest of the season, but new vistas opened on the acropolis.

As we cleared the wreckage from the storm, we discovered near the defensive wall of the acropolis a long and wide ramp. Where the ramp intersected the wall, the foundations of a small tower were unearthed. But as we followed the ramp to the south, uphill, we came across a large threshold with a square socket hole, probably for a beam of a lock socket to secure a double gate.
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« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2011, 04:47:44 pm »

We were on a threshold (literally), but a threshold to what? The answer to that question would have to wait until 2009 because what lay beyond the threshold was beneath two metres of dirt. We believe that the ramp is no ordinary paved street because all along it we found roof tiles, indicating that it was a roofed incline leading to undoubtedly a very special building.

Our excavation showed that the “ramp-building” was destroyed well before the final days of Bylazora in the second century BC. We found two strata of “squatter” habitations within the ruins of what we did uncover of the “ramp-building.” The abundant pottery from the earliest squatter stratum dates to the fourth century BC, meaning that the ramp-building had to have been built and destroyed before that date.

In one area of the dig we did come across evidence of the last days of this city. Inside the northern defensive wall more evidence was unearthed of flimsy squatter huts built up against the wall itself. But all these remains show the signs of having perished in an immense conflagration: thick ash deposits, burnt pottery, and masses of burnt mudbrick. Were these what the last inhabitants left behind them when their beloved city and last redoubt went up in flames?

Eulah M. Matthews and William Neidinger are the project directors for the Bylazora International Field School.
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« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2011, 04:48:16 pm »



A subterranean chamber approached by steps on the lower left hand side, having the groundwater extracted by the local fire brigade!
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« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2011, 04:49:05 pm »



Ancient sources discuss the strategic position of Bylazora.
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« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2011, 04:49:37 pm »



A long and wide ramp discovered near the defensive wall of the acropolis.
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« Reply #8 on: February 06, 2011, 04:51:42 pm »



Cleaning storage pithoi in the ‘squatters’ level build against the ruined walls.
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« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2011, 04:52:03 pm »

Get Involved

TFAHR’s work in 2008 and 2009 concentrated on the acropolis, where we uncovered an extensive stretch of the defensive wall, and a propylon (monumental gateway), which included a long and wide paved ramp flanked by public buildings. In 2010 we resumed work on the acropolis to determine what other buildings were associated with the defensive wall and propylon, and to get a better idea of the chronology of these structures. The 2010 excavations brought to light the remains of a monumental building in the Doric style, probably a stoa, and the western reaches of the city’s defensive wall and gate.

The discoveries of the first three seasons have already tremendously expanded our knowledge of Paionian history, the fate of Bylazora, and Paionian-Macedonian urban planning; this work has also raised tantalising questions as to the extent of Hellenisation of the Paionians and how this cultural transfer may have come about. In the 2011 season we will continue to investigate this remarkable city of the Paionians.

The aim of the annual TFAHR International Field School is to teach the archaeological process from actual excavating to artefact analysis, restoration and documentation.

Dig Dates: 6 June – 30 July 2011

There are also occasional evening lectures and field trips to other archaeological sites.

No university credit is offered.

Information will be posted on the TFAHR website  www.tfahr.org

http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/01/2011/bylazora-the-last-redoubt-of-the-paionians
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