Thessaly Excavation Records

The British School at Athens holds excavation records – notebooks and miscellaneous loose items – from seven excavations conducted in Thessaly and the Spercheios Valley (near Lamia in Fthiotida). The first, Theotokou, a site on the southeast coast of the Pelion with early Geometric burials near a ruined Byzantine church was excavated by A.J.B. Wace and J.P. Droop in 1907. The prehistoric magoula or mound of Zerelia was next in 1908, excavated by Wace, Droop and M.S. Thompson. In the next two years, Wace and Thompson excavated four more magoules at Lianokladhi and Tzani in 1909, and Tsangli and Rachmani in 1910, aimed to shed light on the chronology of the region's 'early civilisation'. The resulting publication in 1912 by Wace and Thompson was Prehistoric Thessaly: being some account of recent excavations and explorations in North-eastern Greece from Lake Kopias to the borders of Macedonia. A final excavation at the site of Halos (near Almyros in Fthiotida) in 1912 consisted of early Geometric burials.