Qualla: Berbati Valley https://qualla.com/berbati-valley en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/8/n/berbati-valley-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Berbati Valley https://qualla.com/berbati-valley Berbati Valley: Introduction https://qualla.com/berbati-valley/ Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1936, two Swedish archaeologists clambered up the eastern slope of a hill called Mastos — 'the breast' in Greek, for its rounded silhouette — and began to find pottery. Not potsherds in ones and twos, but thousands of them, packed into dumps beside the remains of a kiln. What they had stumbled into was the working heart of a Mycenaean pottery operation: a place where vessels were produced around 1400 BC, fired in purpose-built kilns, and shipped outward to Cyprus and the Levant. The valley below them, called Berbati, had seemed unremarkable to the eye — a shallow depression between limestone ridges northeast of Argos, hemmed in by the Klisoura pass. It turned out to have been occupied, abandoned, reoccupied, and farmed continuously for most of the past eight thousand years.

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Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/8/n/berbati-valley-wp/sw8n-berbati-valley-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Berbati Valley: Eight Thousand Years of Neighbours https://qualla.com/berbati-valley/ Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Human presence in the Berbati Valley runs from the Paleolithic through to the Roman Imperial period, though not without gaps. After the Mesolithic sites were abandoned, settlement resumed around 6000 BCE with a large Neolithic community in the valley, followed by an expansion of ...

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Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/8/n/berbati-valley-wp/sw8n-berbati-valley-eight-thousand-years-of-neighbours.mp3 0:06 2 full Berbati Valley: The Potter's Quarter on Mastos Hill https://qualla.com/berbati-valley/ Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The Bronze Age finds are the most spectacular. On the eastern slope of Mastos Hill, Late Helladic activity centered on what became known as the Potter's Quarter — a commercial production site dating to around 1400 BC (Late Helladic II / IIIA1 in archaeological shorthand). The fin...

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Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/8/n/berbati-valley-wp/sw8n-berbati-valley-the-potters-quarter-on-mastos-hill.mp3 0:06 3 full Berbati Valley: Swedes in the Argolid https://qualla.com/berbati-valley/ Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The modern scientific story of Berbati is a Swedish story. Axel W. Persson, Gösta Säflund, and Erik J. Holmberg first arrived in 1934 to survey the area and identified Mastos Hill as the most promising prospect. Persson and Åke Åkerström returned in 1936 to excavate the eastern s...

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Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/8/n/berbati-valley-wp/sw8n-berbati-valley-swedes-in-the-argolid.mp3 0:06 4 full Berbati Valley: Rise, Abandonment, and Return https://qualla.com/berbati-valley/ Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The pattern of settlement in Berbati follows a rhythm familiar in the Argolid: Bronze Age peak, collapse, slow recovery. After the late Mycenaean period — possibly before 1070 BCE — the investigated sites were essentially abandoned, with only scattered finds to suggest any presen...

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Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/8/n/berbati-valley-wp/sw8n-berbati-valley-rise-abandonment-and-return.mp3 0:06 5 full