KARTHAIA - 2014
Kea, Keos, Zea, Céos, Tzia
Karthaia. E. Simantoni-Bournia (Athens) reports on excavation of the ancient theatre. Built of local stone, the theatre has fifteen rows of seats divided by three stairways into four kerkides; seating in the koilon rests on a weak supporting structure of small stones. A narrow stone-paved corridor (diazoma) marks the upper limit of the koilon. The orchestra forms a complete circle ca. 11.6m in diameter with a shallow covered canal (evripos) around the perimeter. The few remains of a stage-building (skene) border the orchestra on the west side.
Wherever it was possible to excavate beneath the supporting structure for the seating, an 0.08-1m thick stratum of light red earth was revealed, thin in texture and containing small pebbles and numerous prehistoric to Late Classical sherds. The nature of the pottery and its distribution within this stratum indicates that it was debris transported from some earlier structure in the vicinity and laid over the slope to level irregularities. Over half of the pottery in the red layer is Middle Cycladic, while the other half dates to the historical period and consists almost entirely of fine ware (mostly open shapes). The vast majority of this pottery was imported from Attica while Corinthian imports are numerous during the sixth and early fifth centuries BC. The latest sherds in the red stratum provide a terminus ante quem for the construction of the theatre, which can now be fixed before the mid-fourth century BC.
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