Thorikos
ancient Athenian deme
Thorikos or Thoricus (Ancient Greek: Θορικός) was a city, and later a deme in the southern portion of ancient Attica, one of the twelve original settlements that were united in the synoikismos attributed to Theseus to form Archaic Athens. It was later a deme of the phyle of Acamantis. Near it are the mines of Laurion, where lead and silver was mined from Neolithic times, and worked in the industrial quarter of the settlement. There is a theatre dating from c. 525–480 BC. The modern site is Lavrio.
History
The site was inhabited from the Neolithic Age (4th millennium BC). Thoricus was the mining centre of the Laureotica. There is evidence of lead extraction from the Early Helladic period (3rd millennium BC) and of silver (now exhausted) from 1500 BC. Mycenaean tholos tombs (15th century BC) and a Late Mycenaean installation (12th century BC), probably connected with the mines in the area, have been uncovered. The finds are housed in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
It continued to be a place of importance during the flourishing period of Athenian history, as its existing remains prove, and was hence fortified by the Athenians in the 24th year of the Peloponnesian War.
“Thorikos” enters the record as ancient Athenian deme. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thorikos, ancient and Athenian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 2, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q353184. VIAF identifies the subject as 146745909. The Library of Congress control number is n96006861. Authority coordinates are 37.738, 24.054. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1500.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thorikos” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.