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© Ministry of Culture and Sports, © 11th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities
View of the prehistoric settlement
Prehistoric settlement and cemetery of the Early Bronze Age (3000-1900 B.C.), located in a fertile and strategic place on the Euboian channel near Chalkis.

The greatest excavated part of the settlement still preserved is Area I where public buildings and houses, closely packed, have been revealed. Rectangular buildings with courtyards stand one next to the other. One road leads probably toward the sea. Other roads, running E-W, lead into this. The buildings here belong to the Early Helladic II period, although some few remains are earlier. Of particular importance are two unusual horse-shoe shaped buildings with thick walls which belong very likely to "granaries" of the time, and also date to the Early Helladic II period. It is quite possible that in this spot there were important storage buildings and areas where reserves of agricultural produce were stored. The source of these will no doubt have been the two big plains, the Lelantine and the Psachna river valley. These will certainly have been public buildings and they will have been controlled by some leader or other. We may surmise that this same power will have been responsible for the production, gathering and transportation of goods. Agricultural reserves (grain in particular), when they existed, could be exported to poorer areas yielding smaller amounts of grain because of poor soil, as, for example, the Cyclades. The role of Manika, or rather of prehistoric Chalkis, as a production and trading centre is significant in any reconstruction of the economic basis of the Early Bronze Age and its geographical framework.

The cemetery of Manika is of special importance because it has yielded most of the finds (pottery, metal implements and vessels). Even though no more than around 300 graves have been excavated, they form a rare group of graves. Successive studies have been made of their construction, their finds and their skeletal remains. The burials are in monumental rock-cut tombs the construction of which bespeaks a well-organized and hierarchical society. The skeletal material is being studied by the Biology Department of the University of Athens. Definitive publication is being prepared which, together with the grave offerings, will contribute to a better understanding of the social and economic conditions of the time. Similar work, though on a smaller scale, has been carried out on a small group of graves, which were excavated in the campaign of 1982. The existence of cuts on human bones coming from the cemetery is another important chapter, which has already received considerable scholarly attention. Although similar treatment of human bones has been observed at other Bronze Age sites outside of Greece, for example in Bulgaria and in Poland, this phenomenon was thought to be unique in Greece. Study by M. Fountoulakis, K. Zapheiratos and J. Musgrave, has shown that most of these cuts had been made on purpose. The interpretations suggested (cutting of the tendons to relieve rigor mortis, fear of the dead) cannot explain the different kinds of marks.

The grave offerings are basically Helladic. There are, however, many offerings of Anatolian and Cycladic type. The Anatolian type of pottery found in the Manika cemetery can be dated to Early Helladic III times and it often outnumbers the Cycladic pieces. Similar Anatolian pottery has been found in the Cyclades (Kastri in Syros, Paros, Delos) and it has been used to support theories of invasion by Anatolian peoples. In Mainland Greece there is a strongly international climate in a framework of exchange and a train of connections, which favoured the dissemination of Cycladic and Anatolian cultural elements.