GREECE PELOPONNESE ARGOLIS ASINE ACROPOLIS

Above and below: Agricultural activities within the walls of Asine during the Hellenistic and Roman periods are attested by the discovery of small press installations. Seven such installations have been found on the acropolis, in the Lower Town and recently east of the chapel. All consist of small four-sided rooms, with four-sided or circular tanks set into the floor for the collection of the produced fluid - probably wine - which flowed down the sloping floor into the reservoirs. The liquid that filled the tanks was extracted by applying pressure to the fruit. The grapes would have been pressed by treading on them with feet, but more equipment would have been used for further compression.

Above: Steps lead to the highest point of the acropolis where the Italian occupiers installed a lookout during the second World War.

"During the occupation [1941-43], naval units of the German and Italian fleet were based in Tolo. The Axis forces decided to fortify Asine for fear of an Allied landing on the nearby beaches [...]. The Italians undertook an extensive project of converting the peninsula into a contemporary fortress [...]. They reinforced the ancient walls with dry-stone superstructures, widened the Hellenistic cisterns and wells to store ammunition and supplies, built small auxiliary buildings, stone staircases and paths and built pillboxes, outposts and bases for antiaircraft weapons [...]. The building material used in the construction was taken from the ancient buildings that had been excavated in the 1920s, resulting in the almost complete destruction of the remains in the Lower Town and on the top of Barbouna hill opposite."

The 1946 report by the Greek Directorate of Antiquities and Historic Monuments calls the Italian destruction of Asine "final, radical, and complete".

Below: More remains of the Italian occupants in World War II leaving behind graffiti and pebble mosaics.