2. Cilt - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

Embedded into the terrace a little rectangular altar of the 7th cent. B.C.was found. Against his western face an almost completely preserved mortarwas leant (Fig. 8). Despite its somewhat misleading name these ‚mortars‘had nothing to do with grinding and pounding of grain but served for thepreparation of cheese by separating milk and cheese 10 . Close parallels fromthe Athenian Agora can be dated to the end of the 6th and the beginning of the5th cent. B.C. 11 Similar items from Miletus equally belong to the late archaicperiod.Evidently during the later second half of the 6th cent. B.C. the site has beentaken over by shepherds and has fallen into oblivion soon.The discovery of an archaic temple of mid 6th century amidst the ruins ofa fortified settlement of the 7th cent. B.C., which apparently was abandonedby the end of that century, raises many questions and challenges many oldtheories. In the light of the re-interpretation of the findings of G. Kleiner andP. Hommel at Güzelçamlı 12 the younger Panionion located there cannot betaken any longer to be on the same spot as the archaic Panionion, mentionedby Herodotus, especially since a displacement of the Panionia is explicitlytestified to by Diodorus (15,49). The thourough excavation of the Germanarchaeologists G. Kleiner and P. Hommel over 15 months with 23 workers atOtomatik Tepe did not come up with any noteworthy remains of the archaicperiod 13 . The few unpublished fragments of reputedly archaic pottery fromthe filling of the clearly non-archaic temenos wall at Otomatik tepe can notbeconsidered seriously to represent the debris of an archaic sanctuary. Aseverybody knows who ever in his life has been engaged in the excavation ofan archaic sanctuary, pottery is usually found there in huge quantities. The10 For mortars in general see B. A. Sparkes - L. Talcott, The Athenian Agora 12: Black and plainpottery (1970) p. 221-223 no. 1884-1921 pl. 90-92 fig. 16. 20, for their use see H. Lohmann,Atene. Forschungen zur Siedlungs- und Wirtschaftsstruktur des klassischen Attika (Köln1993) p. 38-39.11 Sparkes – Talcott loc. cit. (note 10) p. 369 no. 1887 pl. 90 (context 500 / 480 B.C.).12 G. Kleiner – P. Hommel – W. Müller-Wiener, Panionion und Melie (Tübingen 1970).13 Cf. W. Müller-Wiener ibidem p. 69: “. . . die Reinigung der gesamten Plateaufläche brachtekeine Architekturfragmente und nur ganz vereinzelte Scherben”. P. Hommel ibidem p. 75states, that these few fragments (altogether perhaps less than 10) have been found in betweenthe stones of the temenos wall on top of the Otomatik tepe which clearly shows that theyhave been already lying on the surface when the wall was erected. The whole excavation ofthe site came up with so few fragments of pottery that they do not even cover the bottom ofthree small boxes. These finds are stored in the depot of the Balat museum.194