PREHISTORIC PERIOD

Source: Municipality of Alimos

According to tradition, the name Kolias came from a young man who was captured by pirates and tied “kata kola”, that is by his limbs, by the legs. The daughter of the pirate chief then fell in love with him and set him free, and out of gratitude the young man founded the first sanctuary in the area, which took the name “Kolias”.

According to Hesychius there was a sanctuary of Demeter in the area. Pausanias also mentions the statues of Aphrodite Kolias and of the Genetyllides, the goddesses who protected pregnant women and childbirth.

The worship of Demeter and Kore at Cape Kolias is also attested by a story according to which, on the day Demeter was celebrated, Solon deceived the Megarians in order to take Salamis from them, using as bait the beautiful Athenian women dancing in honour of the goddess. He dressed armed young Athenians in women’s clothes and, when the Megarians went to seize the women, they found themselves facing Athenian knives.

According to Herodotus and later Pausanias, the Persian wrecks were washed up in this area after the Persian defeat at Salamis. So far, excavation research has revealed very few finds of the classical period in the area.

The excavation by Professor G. Mylonas in the spring of 1930 and 1931 and in the autumn of 1951 showed that the peninsula of Agios Kosmas was already inhabited in the Bronze Age (Early Helladic times) and later in the Mycenaean period. The settlement extended along the southern shore of the peninsula and had cemeteries in its two coves.

The first inhabitants must have settled in the area around 2,300 BC and came from the Cyclades, as the finds show. The Mycenaean or Late Helladic settlement began in the middle of the 2^th millennium and reached its peak in 1200 BC, when the settlement acquired a wall and survived for another century. After 1100 BC there was no place for permanent settlement.

The excavation brought to light pits for storing food, a gravelled road and houses with narrow streets. The discovery of many pieces of obsidian, worked and unworked, in the Early Helladic settlement of Agios Kosmas shows that the inhabitants of the coastal and inland settlements of Alimos had frequent and organised contacts with the islands of the Aegean and above all with Melos.

One of the most important finds, however, was a deme decree inscribed on a stele of Pentelic marble, dated to the second half of the 4^th century BC, which came to light in 1919–1920 and led with certainty to the identification of the ancient deme of Halimous with the area of Kalamaki.

Agios Kosmas
Source: Kaza K., Kladia M.

Source: https://epalalimou.wordpress.com/2018/06/14/giros_alimou2/#jp-carousel-2703

In 2003 a Mycenaean chamber tomb was uncovered which appears to have belonged to a larger burial complex associated with the settlement of Agios Kosmas. In this tomb, which had been partly destroyed by the German gun emplacement built over it later, several vessels were found, together with an interesting group of figurines, jewellery and two engraved seals.

Mycenaean tholos tomb
Source: https://www.alimosonline.gr/αναμνήσεις/22919-μυκηναϊκός-θαλαμωτός-τάφος-κάτω-από-γερμανικό-πολυβολείο-είχε-βρεθεί-στο-καλαμάκι

Kontopigado, remains of the prehistoric settlement
Source: Kaza K., Kladia M.

The low hill at Kontopigado lay 1.5 kilometres from the sea and was inhabited in the last Neolithic years and throughout the 3rd millennium BC. Kontopigado, that is an area with shallow (konta) wells, was the name of the wider area around the hill, whose summit lay roughly at the western carriageway of Vouliagmenis Avenue.

Four pits of workshop use belong to the Neolithic – early Early Helladic period, as does the filling in of the bed of a torrent that crossed the site from north-east to south-west. On the western bank of the torrent, remains of early Early Helladic houses survive, together with a strong retaining wall along the bank of the torrent that protected them from possible flooding.

Torrent in the Kontopigado area
Source: Kaza K.

In the north-western sector of the settlement a partly dug-out house — a hut — was uncovered, and at the south-western end of the hill part of a hut pit. In the fill of these spaces, stone vessels for preparing food were found.

More complete and extensive building remains survive from the second phase of the Early Helladic period (2,800–2,300 BC). At the southern end of the hill, stone foundations of houses were found, divided into small rooms and laid out on either side of a narrow street. One of the rooms had a built niche in a corner for keeping and protecting the fragile clay utensils of the house, while in another room a clay seal was found with an incised cross-shaped motif on its surface. The existence of this seal indicates a developed system for controlling the movement of goods and therefore a distinct organisation of society.

A complex of spaces and rooms with straight and apsidal walls was also found, adjoining a large hall to the west of the settlement. This hall was probably the central building of the Early Helladic settlement, which was particularly flourishing thanks to intensive exchanges and contacts with other settlements of the islands and the mainland.

On the site where the Early Helladic settlement had developed, the Mycenaean settlement was established at the end of the 14th century BC and lived on throughout the 13th century BC.

The central point of the Mycenaean settlement was a megaron-type hall with a monolithic threshold and bench that extended along the whole length of one side of the hall, and a stone column base to support the roof. Small rooms were laid out around the hall and also around a large space, which must have been an open courtyard, at the north-eastern end of the complex.

The workshop areas of the settlement were located on the top of the hill, while the residential core of the installation was surrounded by an enclosure wall with at least two entrances.

It is a typical Mycenaean complex in miniature, where the ruler of the area would have lived. The settlement must also have had a cemetery, which has not been located.

Today these settlement remains are preserved, visible and protected, in the unified basement of the Stavropoulos and Atlantic stores. The antiquities of the third plot are also preserved visible, but exposed, in the courtyard of the OAED Apprenticeship School.

Kontopigado. Megaron-type hall
Source: Kaza K., Kladia M.

Mycenaean complex of Kontopigado (Stavropoulos property)

Mycenaean workshop installation at the Alimos Metro station
Source: https://alimos.gov.gr/dimofili/simia-arxaiologikou-endiaferontos/

At Alimos metro station, 300 m south of the Mycenaean settlement, an extensive workshop installation of the Mycenaean period came to light. It consists of a system of communicating conduits and trenches cut into the rock surface, so that water, which appears to have been channelled from a stream coming down from Mount Hymettus, filled the system in a controlled way. Archaeologists have also interpreted this system as an installation for processing flax or other raw materials used in basketry, mat-making, weaving and similar crafts.

In the southern part of the station the bed of a large torrent was uncovered, with workings cut into the rock and stone structures that served workshop and household craft activities.

The Pani hill is one of the highest hills in the Athens basin and is of great archaeological interest, since its key position meant it was inhabited from the end of the 4th millennium BC (Final Neolithic period). It appears to have been chosen because there was no other way to watch over the Saronic Gulf and the whole Athens basin, while at the same time it had direct visual contact with the other two prehistoric sites of the area, the small peninsula of Agios Kosmas and the hill of Kontopigado.

Pani hill
Source: www.atticacoast.gr/2014/08/αλιμος-καλαμάκι-η-γοητεία-της-παραλί/

At a height of 50 m there is a wide circular wall dated to the 4th millennium BC, which served a fortification purpose: it protected the hill from the sea side and oversaw movement in the Saronic Gulf.

The foundations of houses, the abundant fragments of clay vessels and the countless pieces of obsidian testify that habitation on the hill continued during the Early Helladic period (3rd millennium BC).

Agia Anna hill lies between the former western airport and Alimou Avenue (halfway along it), with its main access from Melpomenis Street.

Agia Anna hill
Source: Municipality of Alimos

It is a declared archaeological site, on and around which many important antiquities have been found; thanks to them it has emerged as the centre of the ancient deme of Halimous.

On Agia Anna hill, Early Helladic and Late Helladic sherds, fragments of figurines and obsidian blades have been found from time to time, evidence of life in the area.

Some sections of walls that run around the hill and have been uncovered from time to time date to the Mycenaean period. But because the hill has been in continuous use from antiquity to the present day, later structures and uses destroyed the earlier ones, so that the sections of wall survive only in fragments. It appears that in the Mycenaean period the hill was laid out in terraces, with fairly strong retaining walls built on its steep southern side.

area of Trachones can be attributed with certainty, on the evidence of inscribed finds, to the deme of Euonymon, whose centre lies within and around the remaining area of the Geroulanos estate. Today this area is the property of Sklavenitis SA.

Trachones estate (today)
Source: Municipality of Alimos

In this area Ioannis Geroulanos has collected obsidian, while scattered sherds of the Early Helladic and Mycenaean periods respectively have been found on its surface.