Dikili Tash
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Dikili Tash (also known as Dikilitaş) is a prehistoric tell settlement rising 16 m above the Drama plain in Eastern Macedonia, c. 1.5 km east of ancient Philippi. It is about 4.5 hectares.
The tell is a major Neolithic and Bronze Age site (c. 6400/6200-1100 BC), known since the 19th century, and excavated by the French School at Athens and the Archaeological Society of Athens. Among the notable discoveries are timber-framed buildings of the Late Neolithic period. One of these was decorated with a bull's skull plastered over with clay in the manner seen in the building model from the contemporary site of Promachonas on the Greek-Bulgarian frontier.
The name Dikili Taş means "upright stone" in Turkish; it is also called by the Greek name Ορθόπετρα (Orthopetra), which means the same. This refers to the inscribed funerary altar of Gaius Vibius Quartus,[1] a military officer from the Roman colony of Philippi who was buried in the cemetery beside the Via Egnatia, which passes the foot of the tell.
