P. Biagi, E. Starnini, N. Efstratiou 2015 - Gunflints from Greece: a few specimens from Lemnos, and the Pindus range of Western Macedonia

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Gunflints – beyond the British and French empires

Occasional newsletter from an informal working group

New series, No. 4 – February 2015

EDITORIAL

The present Newsletter has two parts, namely 1) an update on the Group’s

joint project of producing a monograph on non-British/non-French Europe-

an gunflints; and 2) a paper by Paolo Biagi, Elisabetta Starnini & Nikos Ef-

stratiou on a number of gunflints found in the Aegean region and in the

Balkans.

As you may remember, we agreed that, to further research into less well-

known European gunflint industries, we would as a group produce a series

of papers on our local industries (Gunflints – beyond the British and French

Empires). British Archaeological Reports have expressed an interest in pub-

lishing the volume in their new series Contemporary and Historical Archaeol-

ogy. The following papers have been offered:

1a Introduction (Torben Bjarke Ballin)

1b The general history of guns and gunflints (D. Caldwell/T.B. Ballin) 2 Denmark (Torben Bjarke Ballin)

3 Germany (Jürgen Weiner)

4 Holland (Marcel Niekus)

5 Poland (Marcin Dziewanowski/Michał Adamczyk) 6 Finland (Mikael Manninen)

7 Russia (Evgenij Girja)

8 Ukraine (Aleksandr Kolesnik/Irina Golubeva)

9 Belarus (Aliaksandr Vashanau)

10 Austria (Michael Brandl/Gerhard Trnka)

11 Switzerland (Jehanne Affolter)

12 Northern Italy (Giorgio Chelidonio)

13 Albania (Rudenc Ruka)

14 Romania (Otis Crandell)

15 Turkey (Çiler Altinbilek-Algul)

16 Israel (Joav Arbel/Polina Spivak)

17 Spain (Antonio Morgado/Elena Roncal)

18 Portugal (Jaime Regalado)

19 Summary (Torben Bjarke Ballin)

At the outset of this process, a deadline of July 2014 was suggested, with a

small number of authors requesting a deadline of Autumn 2014. However,

at the present time I have only received and edited three papers, although I

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have been informed that one or two other papers are in progress. To allow

our project to move forward it is necessary that some papers reach me in the

near future, and I would be grateful if Group members on the list above will

get in touch and inform me as to whether they are still going to be able to pro-

duce their contribution, and by which date. It is important to cover as many

general parts of Europe as possible, and I would therefore like to emphasize

that if you do not have the time to produce a longer, more detailed paper, a

short paper would also be appreciated, and it would add to the general cov-

erage of the volume.

I would suggest a final deadline for all papers of July 2015, but I hope

some papers will reach me well before then to allow a degree of editorial

work to be carried out. I would estimate that we are talking about an edito-

rial process which may take a few years to complete, as I believe that it is

important to attempt to ‘streamline’ the form of English used throughout the

monograph, to the degree that this is possible.

So far, the papers I have dealt with have been of excellent academic

quality, and all changes to the manuscripts were linguistic in character.

I am grateful to Biagi, Starnini & Efstratiou for submitting their paper Gun-

flints from Greece: a few specimens from Lemnos, and the Pindus range of

Western Macedonia (below), as it serves several purposes: 1) it is an im-

portant paper in its own right, as it informs us on gunflints from a part of

Europe – the Ottoman Empire – which we all know much too little about;

and 2) it is important to demonstrate that the Newsletter is open for contri-

butions from any Group members – or colleagues outside our Group – which

may have contributions to make. I would be grateful if you would all consid-

er submitting smaller papers and notes for inclusion in future Newsletters,

as it is important that we keep this forum open. There is still so much to

find out about European gunflints so – let’s keep in touch.

Torben Bjarke Ballin

Editor

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RESEARCH REPORTS/NOTES

Gunflints from Greece: a few specimens from Lemnos, and the Pindus

range of Western Macedonia

P. Biagi, E. Starnini & N. Efstratiou

INTRODUCTION

The scope of this paper is to present and discuss a few gunflints and fire-

flints recovered during recent surveys carried out on the island of Lemnos,

in the north-eastern Aegean, and the Pindus Mountains of Western Macedo-

nia. Both the above regions are rich in flakable raw material sources which

were exploited at different times through prehistory.

Fig. 1. Lemnos: Kalògiros chalcedony/opal/jasper outcrop in the uppermost part of The

Havouli Valley (top) and closer views of the outcrop (from Efstratiou et al., 2014b: Fig. 10).

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LEMNOS

A rich outcrop of flakable raw material is well known along the eastern

fringes of Mt. Kalògiros, at the head of the Havouli Valley, close to a saddle

that opens up at an altitude of c. 80m (Fig. 1; Fig. 3.2). It consists of hydro-

thermal siliceous rocks, namely chalcedony/opal/jasper (M. Brandl, pers.

comm. 2013). This lithic source has been exploited at least since the end of

the Palaeolithic period, as shown by the chipped stone artefacts made of this

raw material, recovered from the Younger Dryas site of Ouriakos, along the

present-day south-eastern shore of the island, AMS-dated to 10,390±45 BP

(10,372±175 cal BC: GrA-53229) (Efstratiou et al. 2014b, 3).

Fig. 2. Lemnos: Threshing sledges with Kalògiros lithic inserts on display at the Por-

tianou Museum of Local Folklore (photographs by E. Starnini).

The lithic source of Kalògiros was in use at least until the 1950s. It was the

main source available in the island to produce threshing sledge inserts (At-

aman 1992) which, according to the local population, were manufactured at

the village of Aghìa Marina, not far from Moudros. At present, threshing

sledges with Kalògiros inserts are on display at the Museum of Local Folk-

lore of Portianou (Fig. 2). Lithic waste material, fragmented and complete in-

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serts, and even parallelepiped cores with flake detachments, were recorded

in 2013 from the surface of the eastern edge of the dirt road that runs paral-

lel to the Kalògiros outcrop, possibly one of the areas where such an activity

took place until just a few decades ago.

Fig. 3. Lemnos: Approximate location of the Ouriakòs (1) and Kalògiros (2) gunflints

(from Efstratiou et al., 2014b: Fig. 1).

Apart from its interesting prehistoric elements, and elements mainly dating

to the Bronze Age (Bernabò Brea 1976; Boulotis 2009) and Classical periods

(Ficuciello 2010), the history of Lemnos was quite complicated during the

Middle Ages, the Ottoman period, and Modern times. Initially being part of

the Byzantine Empire, it was fought over by the Venetian Republic and the

Ottoman Empire (Sugar 1977), as demonstrated by the outstanding ruins of

the Myrina Fortress. Given the above premises, and the strategic importance

of the island located on the trade route to the Dardanelles and the Black

Sea, the discovery of gunflints on Lemnos is not surprising.

So far, two gunflints have been recovered from Lemnos. The first comes

from the south-eastern coast of the island. It was collected during the sur-

veys carried out in 2009 a few hundred metres north of the site of Ouriakos.

Its precise recovery point is 39°47’708 N - 25°20’873 E (Fig. 3.1).

The specimen, measuring 35 x 20 x 8.5mm, is made of a small

‘rectangular’ flake of yellow-brown (10YR5/6) Kalògiros material. One of its

two long sides (the leading edge in this case?) shows clear traces of

utilization at two distinct points, most probably due to impacts with metal,

that made the profile irregular and slightly denticulated (Fig. 4.2; Fig. 5.2).

The gunflint was probably re-utilized as a fire-flint (see Ballin 2005).

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Fig. 4. Lemnos: The Kalògiros (1) and Ouriakòs (2) gunflints; Pindus: the VSL-6α fire-

flint (3) and the GRG-130 gunflint (4) (drawings by P. Biagi, inking by G. Almerigogna)

The second gunflint (Fig. 4.1; Fig. 5.1) was found in August 2012 at the

head of the Havouli Valley, on the surface of a steep pathway leading up the

slope of the Hàlikas Hill, just east of the above-mentioned dirt road that

runs parallel to the valley’s dry watercourse. The item is roughly square and

manufactured from a small flake of local material of dark yellow-brown col-

our (10YR3/4). Its dimensions are 43.5 x 38 x 13mm. It was shaped by just

a few strokes, and it does not seem to have been intensively used.

Fig. 5. Lemnos: The Kalògiros (1) and Ouriakòs (2) gunflints; Pindus: the VSL-6α fire-

flint (3) and the GRG-130 gunflint (4) (photographs by E. Starnini).

The two gunflints from Lemnos show very different typological characteris-

tics. Despite the fact that they were both manufactured from local chalcedo-

ny/opal/jasper, and show different wear patterns, the Havouli Valley speci-

men is of special interest. Its size, and square shape suggests that it may be

an Ottoman type (Ballin 2013a), although the Ottoman gunflints were usu-

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ally retouched in a different way, following the method described by A.J. Ev-

ans (1887, Figs 2 and 4) in his presentation of Albanian gunflints. Further-

more, the specimens in the collections of Istanbul Military Museum, alt-

hough of the same shape, were manufactured from a different raw material,

and shaped by flat, invasive, bifacial retouch (M. Özdoğan, pers. comm. 2015). The find spot of the gunflint is also interesting and suggests that,

apart from threshing sledge inserts, gunflints were also produced at Kalògi-

ros, in the Havouli Valley, during the Ottoman period.

The second gunflint does not find any parallels amongst either French

(Ballin 2013b) or Venetian (Chelidonio 2013) types. Given the characteristics

of its raw material, it is undoubtedly a locally produced piece.

Fig. 6. Pindus: Approximate location of VSL-6α (1) and GRG-130 (2) (drawings by P. Biagi).

THE PINDUS MOUNTAINS

Two interesting flint tools were collected during the surveys carried out in

the surroundings of the Vlach town of Samarina, in the Grevena prefecture

of Western Macedonia (Winnifrith 1987). The territory surrounding

Samarina is very rich in prehistoric sites, many of which have been dated to

the Middle Palaeolithic Levallois Mousterian, although finds from other

periods, from the Late Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age and Historical Times,

have also been recovered (Efstratiou et al. 2014a). The region is also rich in

limestone chert outcrops which were only exploited during the Middle

Palaeolithic period (Efstratiou et al. 2011).

The first of the two gunflints was found in September 2003 along the

eastern upper slopes of Mt. Vasilitsa at an altitude of 1772m (Fig. 6.1). More

precisely, it comes from a location named Vasilitsa-6α (VSL-6α: 40°04’06.6 N - 21°04’19.2 E) that yielded chipped stone artefacts of different ages and cultural attribution, such as for example Middle Palaeolithic flakes.

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The small gunflint, made of exogenous brown flint (10YR5/3), is of

roughly rectangular shape (18 x 15 x 7.5mm). The implement is heavily

worn along both sides and also the leading edge shows a few small scars

(Fig. 4.4; Fig. 5.4). It is most probably an exhausted gunflint, later re-

utilized as a fire-flint (T.B. Ballin, pers. comm. 2015)

The second piece is a small, pyramidal block of exogenous pale brown

flint (10YR6/3), found in 2009 at an altitude of 1980m (GRG-130:

40°07’08.1 N - 20°57’40.7 E) along the northern watershed of Mt. Bogdani

(Fig. 6.2). The slightly concave ventral face of the tool, measuring 25 x 22 x

14mm, shows obvious traces of wear along the edges. The wear consists of

small irregular scars due to contact with a metal implement (Fig. 4.3; Fig.

5.3). This specimen is most probably a fire-flint.

It is well known that intensive pastoral activities have taken places in

the mountains around Samarina since at least the 11th century, if not be-

fore, by Vlach shepherds which even today settle the area during the good

grazing season (Wace & Thompson 1913; Chang & Tourtellotte 1993).

Evidence of a high-altitude human presence in the region during a

number of historical periods has been confirmed by archaeological finds as

well as features, including pits formed by the rotting and burning of roots on

the moraines characterizing the undulating slopes just behind (north of)

Samarina. One of the above tree roots (CHR-5) was AMS-dated to 385±35 BP

(1528±70 cal AD: GrA-61778) and it yielded a result that might be indicative

of this.

Given the above premises, the presence of gunflints and fire-flints in this

part of the Pindus Mountains is not surprising at all. It is even less

surprising when we consider the fact that Samarina villagers commonly

practised brigandage, at least from the 17th century onwards, and that many

fights took place in its surroundings, especially aimed at the Albanian

troops of Veli Pasha and Ali Pasha, at a time when muskets were the most

common weapons in use (Wace & Thompson 1913: 147-152).

Both implements described above are made from good-quality,

exogenous flint. The precise location of the raw material outcrops exploited

for their manufacture is currently unknown, although good-quality flint

sources have been recorded from both Epirus (Adam 1997), and

neighbouring regions of Western Macedonia (Doulkeridou 2009).

DISCUSSION

Very little is known of the production and distribution of gunflints on the

Balkan peninsula, with the exception of the above-mentioned old report on

Albanian pieces (Evans 1877). The same can be said about threshing sledge

inserts, although specimens from the Balkan region have attracted the at-

tention of a number of recent archaeologists (see Skakun 2006). The Turk-

ish for flint or chert is Çakmaktaş (the stone of Çakmak, a small Anatolian

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village not far from Bursa: Whittaker et al. 2009) and this name is still used

in some countries of the southern Balkans, such as Bulgaria.

The gunflints presented in this paper have been recovered from two dif-

ferent parts of modern Greece, both characterized by recent conflicts. Almost

nothing is known of gunflint circulation throughout the centuries they were

in use in an area that is of major interest as it is located midway between

different spheres of interest, where the Venetian Republic, the Ottoman,

British, French and Russian Empires all played important parts.

It is interesting to note that the Lemnos specimens were undoubtedly

produced locally. The same cannot be said of the Pindus gunflint. The type

of flint on which it is based, as well as its original rectangular shape, sug-

gests that it may be a British import.

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS

We are indebted to the Greek Ministry of Culture and the local Archaeologi-

cal Services for granting the Department of History and Archaeology, Aristo-

tle University of Thessaloniki, the research permits to carry out fieldwork in

the Pindus Mountains as well as on the island of Lemnos. Archaeological

work in both areas was generously funded by the Institute of Aegean Prehis-

tory (INSTAP), the University of Thessaloniki and the Department Project

Research Funds of Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, the Prefecture of Western Macedonia, and the General Secretariat of the Aegean Islands.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Ataman, K. 1992: Threshing sledge and archaeology. In Anderson, P.C. (ed.):

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Ballin, T.B. 2013b: Characterization of gunflint industries through attribute

analysis – a proposal. Gunflints - beyond the British and French empires.

Occasional newsletter from an informal working group 2, 4-15.

Bernabò Brea, L. 1976: Poliochni. Città Preistorica nell’Isola di Lemno II. Monografie della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Archeo-

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Boulotis, C. 2009: Koukonisi on Lemnos: Reflections on the Minoan and Mi-

noanising Evidence. In Macdonald, C.F., Hallager, E., & Niemeier, W.D.

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Chelidonio, G. 2013: Recent Findings and Observations on Firestones and

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Paolo Biagi

Department of Asian and North African Studies

Ca’ Foscari University, Venice

Ca’ Cappello, San Polo 2035

I-30125 Venezia, Italy

e-mail: [email protected]

Elisabetta Starnini

Department of Historical Studies

University of Turin

Via S. Ottavio 20,

I-10124 Torino, Italy

email: [email protected]

Nikos Efstratiou

Department of Archaeology

Aristotle University, Thessaloniki

GR-54066 Thessaloniki, Greece

email: [email protected]