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Modern Description: Returning to the coast road, and proceeding through the village of Pamphylla to Pyrgi Thermis (10km from Mytilene centre), you come to the remains of prehistoric Thermí—the most important Bronze Age site on the island— which lie a short distance east of the road by the shore. (After entering Pyrgi Thermis, a road signed to the ‘New Lesbos Inn' leads northeast to the shore: the excavations are 100m along the shore, to the north of the hotel.) The site was first located and explored by the English archaeologist, Winifred Lamb, between 1929 and 1933. The discoveries here should be thought of in relation to two other prominent, coastal, Early Bronze Age sites—Poliochni on Lemnos and Troy on the Asian mainland—both of which lie at no great distance to the north of here. Even to the non-specialist eye, it is clear that the foundations revealed here by the excavations delineate dwellings that were spacious for their time. The contiguous houses, disposed in a seemingly well-organised plan, had pebble floors and flat roofs; they were long and narrow, with a main room, sometimes closed by a porch at the front. Significant habitation here goes back to as early as 3000 BC (‘Thermi I') in the form of an initially unfortified urban tissue organised in roughly radiating fashion around a central block. What the visitor now sees, however, are principally the remains of two successive, slightly later periods of construction of the Early Bronze Age, defined as Thermi IV and V, dating from c. 2700-2400 BC (northeastern area of site). In these, the ‘building-plan' has changed and adopted an ‘orthogonal' form, i.e. roughly rectangular blocks divided by wide parallel arteries, and surrounded by defensive walls and gates (visible to the south side). Around 2400 BC the site was abandoned and apparently not reinhabited again until the early 2nd millennium BC (southwestern portion of site). From this later period date the first, neatly constructed cist graves, and a well-conserved pottery-kiln. The finding also of imported pottery of the later Bronze Age indicates contacts with the growing influence of the Mycenaean world.The site was finally abandoned around 1300 BC after a conflagration.
Artefacts found here (especially the black pottery which strongly resembles that of Troy I) show that Thermi belonged predominantly to the cultural sphere of Troy, even though Cycladic influences appear later on. As at Poliochni on Lemnos, metal-working (evidenced by the finding of crucibles, moulds and bellows) appears to have been an important element of the community's economy from the very earliest times. As often with prehistoric settlements, the choice of site appears not to be determined by special features of geographical relief. The coast of Asia Minor is close and visible across a stretch of mostly calm, protected water, and would have presented no great difficulty to early traders. The proximity of the geothermic waters, however, may have been important for the settlers.
An inspiring and ecologically-minded project of planting has been undertaken on the site together with a nonintrusive presentation for the visitor. A wide and imaginative variety of Aegean herbs and aromatics have been used to consolidate the earth around the excavations, and climbers to give shade: the outlying areas have been planted with trees such as pomegranate (which has a rich, divine symbolism in the Asian/Aegean area), juniper, and olive—for whose presence there is archaeological evidence at Bronze Age Thermi. Control of weeds on the site, furthermore, is effected using strictly non-chemical means, such as by sprinkling with a solution of sea-water and simple cooking soda. As the planting matures it will give the site a pleasing and attractive aspect, and it is to be hoped these ideas might be adopted on other Aegean sites.
Wikidata ID: Q38280658
Trismegistos Geo: 34118

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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