Little known today to the wider public, the glorious ancient Greek city of Europos in northern Greece has started to unveil its secrets in a new wave of excavations that started in 2020.
Built on a strategic spot located 45 and 58 km (Approximately 28 and 36 miles) from the modern Greek cities of Kilkis and Thessaloniki respectively, Europos played a major role in its area and beyond for at least a thousand years as a commercial crossroads between the Aegean Sea and the Balkan mainland, enabling the transfer of goods between different cultures of the ancient world via the river Axius that runs through the region.
The area’s rich forests provided additional wealth for its citizens, allowing Europos to continue to prosper for centuries.
The city’s identity has been epigraphically confirmed by archaeological finds, and should not be confused with the Hellenistic city of Dura-Europos in Asia, which was named after this original Greek metropolis by Seleucus, one of the most important successors of Alexander the Great.
“Europos was a close distance, only 18 km [11 miles] away from Pella, the capital of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon,” Dr. Georgia Stratouli, Director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Kilkis, told Greek Reporter recently as she guided us through a temporary exhibition on Europos at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Discoveries at Europos include cemeteries, tombs, workshops, coins, gold jewelry, funerary wreaths, depictions of Greek gods and heroes, apotropaic statuettes, children’s toys, and a famous inscription—a copy of which has been offered to the European Parliament. These finds have been dated to various historical eras.
Myth and history of the ancient Greek city of Europos
Founded in the Early Iron Age, Europos developed into a prominent city of the ancient kingdom of Macedon, in northern Greece, and started to flourish during the classical era, in the 5th century BC.
The city’s name, clearly related to the etymology of the word Europe, is believed to originate from the local hero Europos. According to Greek mythology, Europos was the son of Macedon—a descendant of Prometheus—and one of the daughters of the Athenian hero Kekrops, thus linking the city to two of the most powerful bloodlines of ancient Greece.
A very small area of the ancient city has been searched so far, however, archaeologists have determined that it was inhabited from the 5th millennium BC, with prehistoric ruins dated to 3000 BC. The first recorded mention of Europos appears in the writings of ancient Greek historian Thucydides, in his account of the Peloponnesian Wars.
Archaeological finds suggest that Europos spanned over 500 densely built hectares throughout classical antiquity and the Hellenistic years, but so far only ten hectares have been excavated and opened to the public.
“We know from our digs, in particular from the ancient city’s stratigraphy, that there have been continuous residential phases at the site from the 6th century BC until the 6th century AD,” Dr Stratouli explained.
The Visitors’ Information Center launched in 2019 at the archaeological site of Europos, accessible all year, tells the story of the ancient city through multimedia.
Astonishing finds at Europos’s cemetery of aristocrats
Although the classical-era cemetery of Europos has yet to be excavated, a distinct cemetery for local aristocrats of the Hellenistic era, located outside the city walls and along the ancient road to Pella, has yielded spectacular finds. These include a gold bracelet with engraved ram head decorations at its ends, and a golden wreath featuring olive leaves.
“We know of a series of six or seven burial monuments for aristocrats along this ancient road to Pella, three of which are closer to Europos, found inside two different tombs,” Dr Stratouli described. Her team excavated the tomb that contained two burial monuments in 2020 and 2021.
Archaeologists garnered valuable cultural information from their discoveries, confirming, for example, cremation as the burial custom for the noble, as in other nearby cities. A few finds, such as a burial inscription on Pentelic marble from Attica, indicate the northern Greek city’s connection to the Greek south.
“In one of those monuments, we found a clay pot from Boeotia, central Greece, dated to the second half of the 5th century BC. The fact that these burials took place between the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 3rd century BC, in the Hellenistic era, suggests that this pot must have been a family heirloom, possibly a valued present, which was deemed important to bury with the deceased individual,” the archaeologist added.
Daily life in the ancient Greek city of Europos
Among the 17 items from Europos exhibited last year at the temporary show at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens is a marble statue of the semi-god hero Hercules, featuring an exquisitely sculpted lion’s skin thrown over his shoulder, and a terracotta head of Dionysus, adorned with grapes—a typical depiction of the Greek god of wine and amusement.
“The ancient Greek pantheon has a strong presence in Europos. We also found an inscription for the goddess Artemis, whose sanctuary must have been someplace close, inside or outside the city,” Dr Stratouli commented.
Europos’ citizens appeared to fear evil energy, which they believed would stay away from them if they used apotropaic statuettes. Two such items were found at the site of a ceramic kiln used for construction materials, a type of industrial unit that operated outside the city walls.
“These were talismans, put there by the unit owners, to keep disaster away and secure a good production for their business,” Dr. Stratouli pointsed out.
Another terracotta figurine, that of a chariot and rider, shows what children’s pull-along toys looked like in the Roman era.
A thousand years of wealth and power
According to experts Europos, with its very strong walls, never fell to its enemies until the 1st or 2nd centuries AD, despite numerous efforts by aspiring conquerors over the centuries.
As the place of origin of Seleucus, the distinguished general of noble birth who became one of the most significant army officers and successors of Alexander the Great, the wealth and resources of Europos supported his military campaign to reunite Alexander’s fragmented empire after his untimely death.
In the Wars of the Successors of Alexander, Seleucus, who had been granted dominion over the satrapy of Babylonia, defeated his rivals and gained control over the former Persian Empire, annexing parts of Asia Minor and advancing into Thrace and Macedonia, before the son of his former rival Ptolemy assassinated him in 281 BC. Thus, Seleucus did not make it back home to Europos, whose name he gave to at least another three cities in Asia.
“After falling into Roman hands, Europos kept all the institutions of a Greek city,” Dr Stratouli notes. Its Roman rulers played an important role in keeping the city safe, and the people often expressed gratitude by making statues to commemorate these events with inscriptions.
In one of those, the “people of the city of Europos”—calling themselves with the same Greek word that means “Europeans” today—honor “Marcus Minucius, son of Kointos Roufus, general and consul of the Romans, victorious over the Galatians, the Scordici, the Bessi, and the other Thracians, for his benefaction towards them, his virtue, and goodwill.”
The city started to shrink around the end of the 6th century CE, archaeological evidence shows, however “its burial monuments remained glorious” even then, as evidenced by Early Christian burials.
Local archaeologists are seeking additional funding to expand the excavation area at Europos, a site with a rich past and many more ancient secrets yet to be uncovered.
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