Vroulia

Not much to say, not much to see here sadly and you can’t even chill n swim on the beaches near by during the summer season. The beaches are meant for kite- and windsurfers.

There’s a booth meant for ticket sales but by the looks of it, it has never been used and the excavations and restorations also seems to have just stopped at some point years ago.

History of Vroulia

Source: Tidsskrift.dk

The excavations carried out by Kinch are thought to have revealed the most important part of the Archaic settlement of Vroulia and made the understanding of its basic plan possible: the settlement is enclosed in the northeast by a fortification wall (in fact a peribolos wall), which borders the natural prominency of the Vroulia hill into the sea. The fortification wall, which runs NW–SE, is visible for a total length of about 300m, most of which (about 220m) was excavated by Kinch. The fortification wall seems to have been cut off abruptly at the brow of the steep cliffs on either side, which surround the Vroulia hill.

It is obvious that a large part of the Vroulia hill (probably together with part of the settlement) has fallen into the sea. A similar geological phenomenon is in progress on the opposite coast of Prassonissi, where a piece of land has been cut off and is almost ready to fall into the sea.

Although not yet fully documented, the human skeletons found very recently buried under the collapsed stones of the south cliffside of the Vroulia hill may prove to belong to residents of the Archaic settlement, who were possibly victims of a landslide . This natural disaster was probably the reason for the short life of the settlement, which seems to have come to a rather sudden end, as can be indicated by the high quantity of well-preserved pottery that came to light in the habitation rooms.

The row of habitation rooms, or rather apartments (“pièces d’ habitation”) – 43 units have been revealed – were located in contact with the inner side of the fortification wall. A second parallel row with only 10 units was revealed at a distance of about 20m to the west of the first one. The rectilinear arrangement of this type of so-called Reihensiedlungen can be distinguished from the settlements of the preceding phases and shows an early, tentative attempt at a planned layout of the houses, a feature otherwise mainly known from western Greek settlements at this time. The individual houses appear generally to have consisted of a two- or three-room unit, possibly with an open courtyard in front, as suggested by Hoephner’s reconstruction drawing.

On the top of the hill, a rectangular building was excavated, which was identified by Kinch as a fortification tower. Southeast of this building was a well-defined area, where the remains of two rectangular altars were found. This was interpreted as an open-air sanctuary, whereas further to the south, another extended empty space was thought to have functioned as a public meeting place, an agora.
Outside the town gate (not actually located but supposedly in close proximity to the fortification tower), the cemetery of the settlement was found.

The excavation of the graves gave important information about the age and sex of the inhabitants of the settlement, as well as of the burial customs. Altogether Kinch estimated the burials of around 125 individuals, and of these no less than 43 were tombs of children below the age of six, usually – as the tradition prescribed – buried in large storage vessels with only a few burial gifts. The rectangular cremation tombs usually held several subsequent cremations, in some cases up to eight or nine (e.g. Tomb 2 and possibly 6), and only two adult inhumation tombs were identified (Tombs 18 and 30). Burial gifts consisted of various types of pottery (alabastra, aryballoi, drinking cups, oinochoai and plates), including a distinct group of pottery classified as “Vroulia style pottery”. Among the finds were also fibulas, beads and scarabs.

On the southeast foot of the Vroulia hill, Kinch had investigated the poor remains of a small Archaic temple ‘in antae’ (“la chapelle”), belonging to the early 7th century BC and therefore considered to be one of the earliest temple-buildings known from the Archaic period. Further to the east, on the side of the opposite hill, the remains of an early Christian basilica with mosaic floor were located.
Between the southeast side of the Vroulia hill and the opposite slopes, a cove protected from the north and south winds may have served as the settlement’s harbour.

The harbour and the access to the sea in general undoubtedly had a great significance for this otherwise isolated settlement. As is the case for all main sites on Rhodes in this period, the archaeological material from Vroulia clearly demonstrates the island’s strategic location on the sea-routes between the eastern and western Mediterranean region. This connection can be further emphasized by examples of the otherwise only limited distributed and produced ‘Vroulia’ style pottery that has been found in Naucratis and Tell Defenneh in the Nile Delta, in Cyrene in North Africa and in Tell Sukas along the Levantine coast.26 One particular find from “la chapelle”, a limestone sphinx with an inscription on the right wing, has furthermore led scholars to argue for the presence of Phoenicians in Vroulia. Although it has proved impossible to decipher the exact meaning of the inscription it is clear that the text is of Phoenician origin, while the sphinx is of a Cypriot type.

Considering the isolated location together with the distinctive structures of the settlement at Vroulia, Kinch defined the function of the site as that of a residential military garrison, an interpretation later accepted by Melander, who described it as “a point of military interest as the last port of call on the territory of the city state or polis of Lindos…”. Ian Morris on the other hand, based on a demographic analysis of the tomb material, came to the conclusion that “the age structure of its cemeteries would fit a ‘normal’ agricultural population far better than a putative garrison.” His analysis and treatment of the archaeological evidence has subsequently been discussed and questioned by Lone Wriedt Sørensen, who among other things emphasized the fact that the landscape surrounding Vroulia is barren and thus not suitable as farmland. Nota Kourou, who stresses the possible function of the site in the trading network, suggests that a commercial installation might best explain the character of the Vroulia settlement.