TANAGRA
Boiotia, Greece.
An ancient city
some 20 km E of Thebes and 5 km SE of Schimatari.
The city was situated on a hill off the E end of Mt.
Kerykeion, on the left bank of the Asopos where it
meets the Lari stream. The hill, which slopes down in
terraces toward the NE, stands in a rich rolling plain.
Tanagra, which is not mentioned in the Catalogue of
Ships of the
Iliad, is said to have played a part in the
founding of Heraklea Pontica and of Cumae in Italy.
From the 6th c. the city minted silver coins, and was part
of the Boiotian League up to 480 B.C. Not far from the
city were fought the battles of Tanagra and Oinophyta
(457), and Delion (424), where many Tanagrans fell,
their names being inscribed on a stele in the museum.
From 386 to 374 or 372 it was occupied by a Spartan
garrison. After 338 its territory comprised Delion, Hyria,
the sanctuary of Aulis, Salganeus on the Euripos, and
the Tetrakome (Mykalessos, Harma, Heleon, Pharai).
In 145 B.C. Rome granted the city the status of civitas
libera et immunis: in the 1st c. A.D. Tanagra and Thespiai
were the only prosperous cities in Boiotia.
The site has never been excavated systematically. Only
the Mycenaean necropolis (LH III B), at the place called
Gephyra, has been excavated since 1969; a number of
fine painted terracotta sarcophagi, now in the Thebes
Museum, and pottery have been unearthed. The Classical city is covered over with a thick layer of spoiled earth. The rampart, which forms a rough irregular pentagon, runs round the edge of the hill. At
the highest point, to the W, is a tower that overlooks
the city and the Asopos valley. In the W wall, which is
1.90 m thick and built of irregular blocks of dark gray
local limestone, was a gate that looked toward Chalkis;
the N, NE, and SE walls are fortified with a number
of towers (roughly one every 30 m) and surround the
lower city. To the E was the Athens gate and in the S
corner that of Thebes. The SW wall links up with the
great tower on the top of the hill. In 1950 sections of the
rampart were uncovered, intact, in the upper part of
the city when a canal was dug to drain the waters of
Lake Iliki to the Marathon reservoir.
Beside the citadel is a ruined chapel that was built
on the foundations of a temple (of Dionysos?). Both
the black stone of the foundations and entablature and
the crumbly yellowish limestone of the columns and
Ionic capitals were used for the building (remains in the
museum). A little lower down to the NE is the great
theater, without stone seats; here the musical contests
of the Sarapieia were held in Hellenistic and Roman
times. To the NE, on the next terrace down, Leake discovered the well-built foundations of a large rectangular
building, possibly a temple, of local black stone; they
are no longer visible. Beyond the N rampart some 20 m
farther on are the foundations, still standing, of a small
temple “outside the walls.” No trace can be seen of
the temples, public buildings, or statues, including that
of the poetess Korinna, mentioned by Pausanias. Several hundred inscriptions found on the site or nearby are
in the museums at Schimatari and Thebes or are set in
the walls of buildings (Church of Haghios Thomas).
A number of necropoleis were uncovered beginning in
1870, notably on the other side of the Lari, in the plain to
the NW, and along the side of roads leading out of the
city. In these tombs were found the thousands of terracotta figurines for which Tanagra is renowned. From
the pre-Hellenic, then the archaic, period, the workshops
of Tanagra, Rhitsona, Thebes, and Thespiai turned out
statuettes, popular votive offerings that were placed in
temples or familiar objects that were laid inside or on
top of tombs. In the 7th c. the use of molds increased
production and made it possible for these figurines to be
sent out throughout the Greek world. The bell-shaped
idols of the 8th c. were succeeded by flat idols with
modeled, then molded, heads. In the 6th c. appeared
replicas of the great religious statues, chariots, riders,
everyday subjects. From the end of the 6th c. to ca.
350, these familiar subjects disappeared, giving way
chiefly to statuettes inspired by the works of the great
sculptors—Kalamis, Phidias, Polykleitos—offered in the
sanctuaries. Toward 350-330 the production of Tanagra
increased considerably and developed along different lines
from the other workshops, possibly under the influence
of Praxiteles. The beauty of these figurines, representing
women in different attitudes, ephebes, actors, and people from everyday life, accounts for their growing popularity: statuettes and molds were exported in great numbers, especially to the Aeolian city of Myrina. Production slowed down at the beginning of the 2d c. B.C. and ceased in Imperial times.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. G. Frazer,
Paus. Des. Gr. V (1898)
76-91; Fiehn, in
RE (1932), s.v. Tanagra; P. Roesch,
Thespies et la Confédératian béotienne (1965); M. Calvet & P. Roesch, “Les Sarapieia de Tanagra,”
RA
(1966) 297-332
I; W. K. Pritchett,
Studies in Ancient
Greek Topography, II (1969) 24-34
MI; N. Papahadjis,
Pausaniou Hellados Periegesis V (1969) 117-25
MI; Th.
Spyropoulos,
AAA 3 (1970) 184-97;
Ergon (1971) 11-21; J. P. Michaud,
BCH 96 (1972) 695-99
I.
On the terracottas: R. Kékulé von Stradonitz,
Griechische Tonfiguren aus Tanagra (1878); G. Kleiner,
Tanagrafiguren (1942); S. Mollard-Besques,
Les terres cuites grecques (1963); R. A. Higgins,
Greek Terracottas (1967).
P. ROESCH
