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Modern Description: The low hill called Ryrgos or Loutro or Pati at the sea-shore NE of the modern village Livanates is identified with the Homeric town of Kynos, the main port of Opuntian Lokris. Kynos overlooks not only a vital land route but it also dominates upon an important sea route on the north Euboean gulf. It sems that the hill was formed by the debris of successive occupations. Excavations in its NW sector proved that the site was constanly used from the Final Neolithic (4300-3200 B.C) to the Early Byzantine period (5th - 6th cent. A.D). The surviving architectural remains are mainly dated to the Late Bronze Age (Late Helladic IIIC, 12th century B.C). A handful of Final Neolithic sherds and a number of Middle helladic cist cist graves comprising contracted skeletons and a few grave goods such as 1-2 shells, 1 spindle whorl or 1 pot point to activity prior than the Mycenaean era. Between these strata and the foundations of the superimposing Late Helladic buildings poor structural remains indicate that the earlier phases of Late Helladic are present too. The Late Helladic IIIC structures, with mud-brick walls on a dry stone socle, were part of a complex of houses with storerooms and workshops. Some contained clay bins for keeping mostly crops. Pieces of a floor of a pottery kiln, many misfired sherds and masses of slag indicate production of ceramics and metallurgical activity. The complex was destroyed by earthquake in the middle of the 12th cent. B.C. In the destruction layer of this phase sherds - mainly from craters - depicting warships and the fragments of clay models of ships or boats were collected. They offer an insight to and in some cases provide unique evidence as to Late Bronze Age sailing vessels and naval engagements. At the aftermath the structures were rebuilt or repaired and were finished with large pithoi instead of clay bins. At the end of the 12th cent. B.C. they were burnt by fire, perhaps caused again by earthqauke. The debris was leveled and modest houses were erected immediately afterwards. In their floors small cist graves were opened to recieve children. Remnants of a building of Protogeometric period (10th cent. B.C) witness for the continuity of the settlement in later times. The fortification wall crowning the hill was built in the Hellenistic period. In the period of the Roman occupation the surface layers were releved and the contemporaneous structures were erected on top of the Mycenaean ones. The Early Byzantine period is further confirmed by architectural remains and movable finds.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynus
Wikidata ID: Q5200184
Trismegistos Geo: 37859
Manto: 9688220

Info: Odysseus

(Odysseus, Greek Ministry of Culture)

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