In the shadow of the eastern foothills of Lake Kifissida, six kilometres north of the sanctuary of Apollo Ptous and ancient Acraifia in Boeotia, rescue excavations reveal important chapters in the archaic history of Greece. The site, marked on ancient maps with the ominous toponym Spitia-Katavotra (Houses-Gutters), has yielded a double archaeological discovery of exceptional value: a necropolis from the Archaic and Classical periods and architectural remains of a contemporary fortified settlement.
The project, initiated by the Directorate of Antiquities of Fthiotida and Evrytania, is led by Efimia Karantzali and the deputy director of the Directorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Aristei Papastapopoulos. Funding is provided by the Mytileneos group, through its subsidiary METKA ATE, for the construction of a photovoltaic power plant, which has covered almost the entire cost of this rescue work.
The necropolis, organised into groups or clusters, features a diverse typology of graves, including pits, funeral pyres and tombs with tiled roofs. Although investigations are at a preliminary stage, analysis of the first forty graves exhumed provides eloquent evidence of the high standard of living and significant social position of the inhabitants of the settlement, presumably a community of landowners who settled on the shores of Lake Kopais.
The mystery of the inverted diadem
Among all the discoveries, one stands out for its symbolic character and historical potential: the so-called Tomb of the Lady with the Inverted Diadem. This tomb, dating from the second half of the 7th century BC, is part of a group of three tombs. A preliminary analysis of the dental remains revealed that the bones belong to a woman who was between twenty and thirty years old at the time of death. On her skull, placed in ritual order as a symbol of her status and power, was a magnificent bronze diadem, crowned by a large central rosette reminiscent of the image of the shining sun.
The piece, manufactured using a complex minting technique, is decorated with a series of paired images of heraldic lions, male and female, animals that, in the conception of the time, personified the concept of royal power and sovereignty. However, the element that transforms this find from a simple luxury object into a historical document of paramount importance is its final location. The diadem was not placed in the correct position; it was placed upside down, with the lions lying on their backs and the rosette, which should crown the forehead, at the bottom.
In symbolic tradition, from antiquity to the present day, a crown placed or worn upside down is a powerful allegory of the abdication, deposition or fall of a monarch, always signifying the irreversible loss of power and status. This woman, endowed with the attributes of royal power, was buried with the symbol of her power deliberately subverted.
The chronology of the tomb places this aristocrat in a turbulent and momentous socio-political context: the environment of the second half of the 7th century BC in central Greece. This period coincides with the decline of the political system of hereditary patriarchal monarchy and the unstoppable rise of the aristocratic class of nobles, who, combining economic and military power, eventually imposed, in the following phase, oligarchic and aristocratic systems as the predominant form of government in the emerging fields. This lady’s tomb seems to symbolise, in a ritual gesture of an inverted diadem, the end of an era and the erosion of the model of power.
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Receive our news and articles free of charge at your email address. You can also support us by taking out a monthly subscription and receiving exclusive content. The wealth and prestige of this personality are confirmed by the impressive funerary decoration that accompanied her on her journey to the afterlife. The set of bronze offerings stands out for its large quantity and exceptional quality. Of particular note are two hypertrophied fibulae of the Boeotian type, decorated with geometric motifs and engravings of horses; a necklace with a central pendant in the shape of a vase; buttons and plates made of bone and ivory; electrum (amber) beads; laminar rosettes; bronze earrings; bracelets and several spiral rings that adorned all the phalanges of her fingers.
Family ties and continuity of rituals
In the same funerary complex, the grave of a girl of about four years of age was discovered. Her head was crowned with a bronze diadem encrusted with rosettes. Chronologically, her burial dates back to the same period of the Archaic Bronze Age. The child’s grave also contained luxurious funerary gifts, including jewellery and adornments similar to those found in the tomb of the lady of the house. This coincidence in wealth and ritual treatment indicates, with a high degree of probability, the existence of a direct family relationship between them, proving that status and privileges were transmitted, or at least manifested after death, within the same family line from an early age.
Other tombs in the necropolis continue to provide valuable data on the practices and beliefs of this community. A female grave from the mid-6th century BC revealed ceramic objects of great interest, including a kylix or Siania-type cup decorated with a scene featuring roosters, and a three-bladed cup with images of mythical creatures and the god Hermes in his role as psychopomp or guide of souls. In addition, the material heritage includes bronze phialai (ritual cups) with a central navel and a series of vases with black figures and black enamel, which researchers directly associate with the pottery workshops of Acraifia, providing important information about local craft production and trade networks.
The archaeological site of Spitia-Katavotra thus becomes an exceptional archive for understanding the transition from the hierarchical societies of the medieval era to the complex political structures of the archaic era. The lady with the inverted diadem is a silent but eloquent testimony to this paradigm shift, when the symbols of ancient power were ritually abolished in the same act that was intended to honour those who once wore them.
