Last Use and Abandonment of the Cistern No. 1 Ergasterion at Thorikos: Finds from the Lowest Levels of the Cistern’s Fill

Abstract

The cultural and historical significance of the Laurion as well as its exceptional position as one of the major sources of silver, lead and other mineral resources in the eastern Mediterranean since the Early Bronze Age have repeatedly been invoked in numerous publications. In a field such as mining archaeology, scientific progress can only be achieved through interdisciplinary cooperation. With its abundant material remains, the Laurion offers particularly good research conditions for the collaboration between the natural sciences and the humanities. Based on funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG), an international conference on "Ari and the Laurion form Prehistoric to Modern Times" was held in Bochum in November 2019. Speakers form Europe and form Australia presented new research results on Laurion in 23 lectures. Eleven of these are published here, while other contributions are especially written for this volume. Topics address the history of exploration from prehistoric to modern times as well as the entire range of research activities in the Laurion, starting from geoscience and material sciences to history, field archaeology and archaeometallurgy.