Dikili Tash, Prehistoric archaeological site near Philippi, Greece.
Dikili Tash is a prehistoric tell settlement in the Drama plain of Eastern Macedonia, about 1.5 km east of ancient Philippi. The mound rises 16 m above the plain and covers roughly 4.5 hectares. Excavations by the French School at Athens and the Archaeological Society of Athens have uncovered Late Neolithic timber-framed houses, including one with a clay-plastered bull's skull fixed to a wall or beam.
The tell was occupied from the second half of the 7th millennium BC, when the first settlement stood barely above the plain, protected by ditches on two sides. The Late Neolithic I phase (c. 5300–4800 BC) raised it about 5 m, and the Late Neolithic II village burned around 4300/4260 BC. Occupation resumed around 3300/3000 BC and ended around 2800 BC; a clay floor destruction is dated to c. 1150 BC. A Byzantine tower built on the summit in the 12th century was destroyed in the 13th or 14th.
The name Dikili Taş, Turkish for "upright stone", and its Greek equivalent Orthopetra refer to the 4 m Roman funerary monument standing about 200 m north-east of the tell. It was raised in the 1st century AD for Gaius Vibius Quartus, an officer of the colony of Philippi buried in the necropolis along the Via Egnatia, which ran at the foot of the hill. Its marble base carries inscriptions on the west and south sides.
The tell lies about 1.5 km east of ancient Philippi, in the Drama plain, and the Roman funerary monument that gave it its name stands roughly 200 m to its north-east, beside the line of the Via Egnatia. Excavation is planned to be opened to the public; finds are shown in the archaeological museums of Philippi and Kavala. The ground is open and unshaded.
The bull's skull from the House of the Bucrane, built around 4900–4800 BC, was coated in clay rather than painted, and was probably fixed to a wall or beam. Charcoal analysis from the house identified oak, ash, hornbeam and maple, and a pot inside held carbonised barley grains.
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