| The Excavations Excavations in the area have brought to light a Hellenistic settlement that stretched from north - west to south - west. It was about 800 meters long its greatest width was 150 meters and was split in two by a central street, from which many side streets branched off. Because of the sloping terrain, many of the alleyways were stopped. Of the buildings that have been discovered, the public ones were constructed of dressed limestone blocks, a material found in abundance on the island, while private houses were made of small stones of irregular shape.
| The Arts |
The earliest art form found in Ancient Thira is pottery from Geometric period. Thanks to the burial customs many works of pottery have survived in reasonably good condition. Thiran ceramics of that period and later, in the oriental style, were influenced by neighbouring Naxos. Nevertheless, the pottery from this time is perhaps the only work that can be attributed to Thiran craftsmen. This is because from the 5th century BC and afterwards, the development of ceramics in other region (Attica, Rhodes, Corinth, Ionia) and the location of Thira at a crossroads on trade routes made it easy for the island to accept the wares of potters of other regions, and so local production stagnated.
Apart from ceramics, examples of the plastic arts (sculptures) have been also found in Thira. Although it developed after pottery, perhaps because of the absence of the raw materials needed, such as |
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