CULTURAL HERITAGE: - Macedonian Information Centre

GoleM Grad in PreSPa (FroM oreStianS to roManS) - 51
showed a long chronology of human presence and life in this area starting
from the first millennium B.C. up to the Middle Age. The cultural layers
cannot be always monitored vertically, but the horizontal stratigraphy
marks a long continuity of life on the island.
The oldest findings, which were incidentally discovered, are related
to the Neolithic epoch, only in the shape of stone arms used by the
fishermen living on the coast of the Lake and travelling to the island only
for the sake of fishing. From the first half of the first millennium vessels
of ceramics have been discovered with characteristics of the Iron Age,
which indicates that there was life on the Island, that is to say attempts
for inhabiting it; further researches may produce more results concerning
the remains of the settlement from this period.
More intensive traces of life in the settlement are discovered from the
4 th century B. C. In this context, we would like to indicate the defensive
walls on the southern part of the Island, made of roughly processed stone
blocks that protect the access to the coast of the Island, and therefore
the settlement itself. The Island itself, with an area of 18 hectares, 600
meters long, 350 meters wide, is a naturally protected area, because the
height of the rocks from the level of the lake to the plateau is 30 meters.
The fortification, made in dry wall, had to be placed only on the southern
steep access that led from the Lake to the settlement situated on the
plateau.
The settlement started to live in the 4 th century B. C. and this
conclusion has been drawn, for now, because of the discovered necropolis
on the southern part of the Island. Many years of hard work were needed
to discover the oldest necropolis where the ritual of burning was practiced
for burials. This burial ritual was frequent with other Macedonian tribes as
well. This is a sign of some changes in the Macedonian society, especially
in the upper-Macedonian regions. We first find analogies with the
closest neighbors, for instance: in Lincestida and Pelagonia, like Petilep
and Beranci, in Elimeja, in Dasaretija, connected with the rich graves in
Lychnidos (Upper Door). However, we must not exclude the ritual of
cremation in rich graves in lower Macedonia, either in burials in cists
(Derveni, Pidna, Aineia) or in the “Macedonian type” of graves, as the
ones in Aigai.
The modest grave “architecture” on Grad, the remains of the cremation
left in the holes of the rocks, which resemble the burials in Lychnidos near
Upper Door, are accompanied with rich contributions of gold and silver
jewelry (pendants, fibulas), arms of soldiers, ceramic vessels, but also coins,
as a didrahma of the city of Tanagra, bronze of Halkidic league, drachma of
Philip II of Macedon, posthumous, all from the middle of the 4 th century
up to the end of the century. The excellent commercial connections of this
modest settlement with far away regions were confirmed with the discovery