Excavations at Thermopylae

Christopher The Great said:

Can someone give me a rundown at the excavations at Thermopylae? I know arrow heads were found but shocked nothing other of significance has been located. Why no helmets or shields?

Is there any other plans to keep looking or is it over? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

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I think the burial mound was excavated a long time ago, should be easy enough to find at least the basic information. The fortification walls have been surveyed, etc. But there honestly isn't really much to find, there. By 480 BC the Greeks were no longer burying their dead with armor and weapons, so none of that would have been put in the tomb. Anything else would have been collected up, either by the Persians (they won, after all), or by later locals, scavengers, chance finds, etc. The whole area has been lived in and fought over for 2500 years since that battle was fought, after all, so even if you find a corroded spearhead there is no telling how old it might be. Spears were used well into the 19th century, after all, and modern antiquities dealers have tons of modern fence spikes, flagpole finials, lighting rods, and other non-spear items for sale.

I believe there is a helmet said to have been found at Thermopylae by a famous historian/adventurer in the 19th century. He was very much in love with that battle and Marathon, so he visited both sites and poked around quite a bit, and wonder of wonders found a nicely preserved helmet in each place! Lucky him, eh? Especially since no one before or since managed to find any...

It's probably pretty hard to get permission to dig at Thermopylae. Plus all the usual problems of archeological funding, etc. Battle sites of any era are typically pretty sterile, really. With a few exciting exceptions!

Matthew

Christopher The Great said:

Thank you Matthew. I really do believe there are many wonders to find at Thermopylae.

So you think the most probable reason why we haven't found much was due to the Persians collecting the "booty"? I'm not sure I buy into that. A whole army carry armour doesn't seem to fit in my opinion.

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You think soldiers don't pick up souvenirs? The Persians were just as much into trophies as the Greeks were, and I suspect their *generals* would scoop up as many shields and helmets as they could, to cart them back to Persian temples. And the number of Persian troops who were not as well equipped as the Greeks would have outnumbered the Greek force by a large ratio. So there'd be bareheaded guys fighting over that last Greek helmet. Even if no one wanted to *wear* the stuff, the campfollowers would have scoured it all up as scrap metal. If you were walking across a park or street after a riot, and there was money blowing around, would you leave it there?

Remember, many armies had more non-combatants than troops! Plus carts, wagons, pack animals, and human porters.

And as I said, there were local inhabitants, not to mention 2500 years of tourists, ALL looking for souvenirs. The first few waves would have cleaned up pretty well. Though a lot of that would have been done by whoever was taking care of the bodies.

Arrowheads have been found because the arrows stick in the ground and the shafts get broken off. Or the whole thing can get lost in the grass very easily (depending on the grass!). So that's what archeologists and metal detectors turn up. Anything else would have been lying openly on the ground or was worn by a dead guy, free for the taking. In an area which was a major throughway for millennia. How do you figure it just got left there?

Sorry, I seem to spend a lot of time stomping on your dreams! But these things all happened in a real world continuously populated by real people who simply did not have your knowledge and veneration for whatever events we study today. Of course, anyone *with* your knowledge and enthusiasm who was able to get there has done so, and found whatever they could.

*Temples* are GREAT spots for archeology! Stuff full of armor and weapons, just waiting to be dug up. IF it was all helpfully buried before being looted by barbarians, etc...

Matthew

Christopher The Great said:

Thank you for the wonderful insight. My hopes have been dashed quite a bit as I still hope for a magnificent discovery but like you mentioned 2500 years is a very, very long time.

May I ask what your personal opinion on what happened to the deceased Spartans is?

Thank you.

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The Persian would have either left them to rot or piled them up and burn them.

At Marathon the Greeks placed all their dead in a large mound & burned them along with trophies from the Persians. They probably left the enemy to lie in the sun.

Leaving bodies where they laid was common up to and beyond the Napoleonic era.

Christopher The Great said:

If this is the case, shouldn't the dead Spartans still be at Thermopylae?

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Well, it looks like the Greek dead were buried there after the Persians left. I'm not sure if there are any details about whether they were burned first, or if there was a mass grave, or what. Wikipedia just says "buried on the hill", and I just had a quick look at Herodotus and he says they were buried "where they fell". So there may certainly be bones there somewhere, more likely if it was in a mass grave with a mound. Individual graves would be much more likely to be disturbed over time. Soil conditions are important, too, as is the depth of burial. Bones can decay and disappear even if they aren't disturbed by people or animals.

Ah, found this page:

The Battle of Thermopylae

There is a final dispute to be noticed concerning the identity of the hill to which Herodotus says the defenders retreated before finally being overwhelmed (7. 225). Until the excavations by Marinatos, it was generally assumed that this was the westernmost of the hills, Hill 1 by the remains of the Phokian Wall. However, the excavations proved that Kolonos Hill must be identified with Hill 2, due to the discovery of a large number of arrowheads similar in type to those found at Marathon, in a well at the Agora, and on the north slope of the Acropolis. The stone lion, the memorial to the heroism of the defenders, has never been found (though there is a modern restoration in the wrong place for the tourists) nor have the bones of the dead.

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Marinatos excavated in 1939, and found arrowheads and spearheads. They *might* be from the battle in 480, but they could possibly be from one of the later battles. You may be able to get the excavation report through interlibrary loan--that website has the bibliographic information.

Matthew

Procopius' De Aedificiis and the Topography of Thermopylae



You can find this article at JSTOR and read it for free if you register. JSTOR allows you to have three items on a shelf that you can read for free and has access to a great deal of art to find items.


Its in English too

not about Thermopylae, but it is Spartan related. Do you think the shield in Athens is Brasidas'?

bedb said:

not about Thermopylae, but it is Spartan related. Do you think the shield in Athens is Brasidas'?

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The one inscribed "Taken from the Lakedaimonians at Pylos"? Hadn't thought of that, but it's possible! Dunno if they would have marked it with Brasidas' name if it were his. And they *did* capture a couple hundred other shields there! (I'm thinking Sphakteria--that was Brasidas, right? Mind like a steel sieve...)

Matthew

Matthew Amt said:

The one inscribed "Taken from the Lakedaimonians at Pylos"? Hadn't thought of that, but it's possible! Dunno if they would have marked it with Brasidas' name if it were his. And they *did* capture a couple hundred other shields there! (I'm thinking Sphakteria--that was Brasidas, right? Mind like a steel sieve...)

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As far as I can tell, Brasidas wasn't at Sphakteria (425 BC). He was leading the Spartan side later in Amphipolis, 422 BC, and was mortally wounded in combat. The prisoners of Sphakteria were released with the Peace of Nicias, 421 BC, after Brasidas was already dead.

However, he WAS there at the preceding Battle of Pylos (425 BC). I doubt the Athenians got his shield, though. If they had, they surely would have made sure to record such an event, or at least claim it after 422 BC.

Matthew Amt said:

The one inscribed "Taken from the Lakedaimonians at Pylos"? Hadn't thought of that, but it's possible! Dunno if they would have marked it with Brasidas' name if it were his. And they *did* capture a couple hundred other shields there! (I'm thinking Sphakteria--that was Brasidas, right? Mind like a steel sieve...)

Matthew

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It may also have been a common name

Whyte said:

As far as I can tell, Brasidas wasn't at Sphakteria (425 BC). He was leading the Spartan side later in Amphipolis, 422 BC, and was mortally wounded in combat. The prisoners of Sphakteria were released with the Peace of Nicias, 421 BC, after Brasidas was already dead.

However, he WAS there at the preceding Battle of Pylos (425 BC). I doubt the Athenians got his shield, though. If they had, they surely would have made sure to record such an event, or at least claim it after 422 BC.

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Okay, I'm probably misremembering. Though yes, it would have been the action at Pylos--I recall a story of a Spartan general accidentally dropping his shield in the water during a landing from shipboard (or getting back on the ship?), and the Athenians got it when it floated ashore. SOMEthing like that!

Matthew

Christopher The Great said:

I am very curious about the famous historian/adventurer in the 19th century. What else do we know about him and is it actually true he found a helmet?!

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Well, here's a page I came up with, that has the basics of the story.

Weapon Wednesday: The Nugent Marathon Corinthian Helmet | Royal Ontario Museum

Seems the Marathon helmet supposedly included the wearer's skull! Call me an unromantic skeptic, but...

It doesn't really say if Nugent was doing legitimate archeological excavations, which would imply some sort of notes or report even if unpublished. Of course, it would probably take a couple advanced degrees and some friends in the right places to actually get hold of 19th century unpublished excavation notes if they are housed in a university somewhere. Or they could be lost forever.

Do a little Googling with his name and some other keywords like "excavation" or "Marathon", and see what you find?

Matthew

Christopher The Great said:

If I had millions, would it be worth digging up at the battle site?

Curious as what you guys think, or am I just a wishful dreamer?

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Wishful dreamer it is! There honestly isn't any point in digging unless you are pretty sure there is something to find at that particular spot. At any normal archeological site, that means visible ruins, or traces of buildings or earthworks showing up in aerial photos, radar scans, etc. Even most large structures are only excavated in certain limited spots, not stripped completely. The mound and other identifiable features have already been investigated. A battlefield is mostly dirt and rock, several square miles of it, so that's what you'd find--no archeologist would even attempt an actual dig. And like I said, it's been lived on for thousands of years, so most of what you might find will NOT be from that battle.

Better idea would be metal detectoring, because realistically there will only be metal artifacts left to find. BUT if detectoring is even legal, believe me, thousands of people have already looked! And if it is not legal, hundreds have anyway. You'll find beer cans, cell phones, car parts, nails and screws, coins up to 100 years old, and numerous clumps of unidentifiable rust (i.e., modern junk!).

Go see the battlefield! Just don't expect to trip over a Corinthian helmet.

Matthew