AMORGOS
Greece.
Island SE of Naxos with
three areas of habitation, centering on Aigiale (modern
Vigla), Minoa (Katapola), and Arkesine (Kastri). Many
Early Bronze Age burials and rich grave goods have
been known since the 19th c., and recently neighboring
islets, Ano Kouphonesi, Donousa, Herakleia, Keros, and
Schoinoussa have yielded extensive finds. Donousa also
had a fortified Geometric settlement.
The Greek inhabitants may have come from Samos
and perhaps Naxos. The Amorgians participated collectively in the Athenian Empire from 437 B.C. on, and in
the Second Athenian Confederacy (Athens garrisoned
Arkesine ca. 357); they issued coins (cf. Lambros) and
certified amphoras, and their cloth was especially fine.
The Battle of Amorgos ended the Lamian War in 322.
Amorgos belonged at various times to the Island League,
and was later attached to the Roman province of Asia,
though the island enjoyed autonomy which was reaffirmed by Antoninus Pius. It was a place of exile under
the Julio-Claudian emperors. Each of the three cities had
an independent constitution and magistrates at least from
the 4th c. on, and in the late 3d c. B.C. a Samian settlement existed at Minoa and a Milesian settlement at
Aigiale. The Naxian settlement at Arkesine is not certainly attested until Imperial times.
Extensive remains have been recorded: architectural,
sculptural, ceramic, and epigraphic, from prehistoric to
late Roman times, and finds continue. So-called Hellenic
towers and Roman tombs appear especially in the center
and E of the island, while at Arkesine, in the W, Greek
walls surround an acropolis. Remains of temples are
cited from Minoa and. Aigiale, but no systematic descriptions have been published. Some finds, are in the Katapola
museum, others in Syros or Athens.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SIG 193; Tac.
Ann. 4.13,30; Plut.,
Dem.
11.3; Poll. 7.74; St. B &
Souda S.V.; schol. Dionys. Per.
525; P. Lambros, “Sur un Symbole . . . ,”
BCH 1 (1877)
216-19, cf.
ArchEph (1870) 352-58; T. Bent,
Aegean
Greece (1885) 469-501; G. Deschamps, “Fouilles dans
l'île d'Amorgos,”
BCH 12 (1888) 324-27; cf. 13
(1889) 40-47; C. Tsountas, “Kykladika,”
ArchEph
(1898) 137-212
I;
BSA 12 (1905-6) 157
I (Hellenic towers); J. Delamarre,
IG 12, 7 (with bibl.); W. Ruppel,
“Zur Verfassung und Verwaltung der amorginischen
Städte,”
KIio 21 (1927) 313-39; L. Robert, “Les Asklepieis de l'Archipel,”
REG 46 (1933) 423-42, esp. 437;
J. Vanseveren, “Inscriptions d'Amorgos et de Chios,”
RevPhil 11 (1937) 313-47
I; P. Zapheiropoulou,
AAA 4
(1971) 210-16
PI; id.,
Deltion 24 (1969) Chronika 390-93
P; C. Renfrew,
The Emergence of Civilization (1972)
520-23, 534-35, cf. 509. For reports of finds:
JHS 71
(1951) 251; ibid. 82 (1962) Arch. Rep. 22;
AthMitt 76
(1961) 115-20, cf. n. 1;
Praktika 1960 (=1966) 268-72.
M. B. WALLACE
