Aikaterinh Balla Source: C.E.T.I. © Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace

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On the southwest coast of Samothrace, at the position of Mikro Vouni and to the SW of the village of Alonia, a tumulus was found belonging to a prehistoric settlement with circuit walls that was probably built on a cape. The settlement is about 10,000 square metres long and was possibly inhabited by 400-600 persons. It dates around the end of the 6th millennium – 1700 BC.
The archaeological work focused mainly in the investigation of the cultural coherence, as it survives in the excavated stratigraphic layers that form the tumulus. These layers reach the width of 8 m at the top of the hill. The radiocarbon rating demonstrated that the last phase of the Late Neolithic Age is also missing, which is the period that separates the Neolithic layers from those of the Early Bronze Age.
The excavations in the area revealed clay “documents” originating from a Minoan archive, possibly of Knossos that date to the Middle Bronze Age (19th – 18th centuries BC). This finding bears witness to the commercial relations between the islands of Crete and Samothrace as well as the northeastern Aegean. Finds also include a Linear A inscription, one of the earliest testimonies on the use of this script out of Crete, as well as a sealing with the first part of a hieroglyphic script (hieroglyphic signs – syllabic characters of the double axe and the cuttlefish). These finds may imply the role of the religious ideology in the economic activities of the Minoan elite.