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Modern Description: immediately N of road, 950 m SW of Velanidia junction, excavated by Korres. Description: a large mound with five small tholos tombs and four burial pithoi; another possible mound or mounds nearby; part of a series of sites ranged along the Potámi tou Arápi, sites 10-13. Setting: the Kamínia mound is the most northerly of the excavated funerary sites set along the line of the Potámi tou Arápi in central Messinía. It is set on the eastern side of the gorge, less than 100m from it; in this area and further north the sides of the gorge are generally less steep and impassable. A second mound is said to be in the vicinity of the excavated mound; there is a natural-looking knoll a few metres to the south. This area of the landscape is less flat, but a few hundred metres further south along the track there is a vantage point over the flat Messinía plateau. Architecture: the dimensions of the mound were measured in 1975: 18.7m east to west, 13.9m north to south, and 4m high. The north to south dimension has been reduced by the creation of the road. In 1980 the following dimensions were given: 20m x 15m x 3.5m. Aside from the remains of a later, probably Byzantine, construction on top, this artificial mound, built largely of heaped up earth, contained five small tholos tombs, and the unexcavated northern section of the mound may well contain more tholos tombs. The tombs are located in the western, southern, and eastern half of the mound, and generally quite high (that is, rather than being buried deep and low in the mound, they are quite near the surface and top of it). All five were very similar in construction, dimensions and situation. [Michael Boyd 2002, p116]

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(JBK)

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