Das vorklassische Pergamon und sein Siedlungsprofil

Abstract

The contexts used in Radt and the excavation documentation for the dating of the ancient defensive wall referred to as Mauer I contain sherds and vessels that are from the Middle or Late Bronze Age, and none that are early Greek, as is established by comparison with ceramics from various find sites of the 2nd millennium B.C., particularly ceramics from Panaztepe and Ancient Smyrna published in 1999 and 2000. This circumstance together with the special masonry technique employed indicate that, already in the Middle or Late Bronze Age, Pergamon could well have been a fortified settlement of considerable size and the chief settlement at least in the central portion of the Kaikos valley (it appears to have occupied the acropolis and the southern slope of the castle). In addition, painted pottery, including Proto-geometric ceramics, and Aeolian Grey Ware from the 10th to the early 7th century B.C. has been identified, so that it may be assumed that the site was inhabited in that period, too, although there is no positive evidence of Greek occupancy. It can be stated with some confidence that the latter existed only from the Archaic period onwards.