PATRAS - 2000

Patras, Aiolou Street 8−14−16 (Georgiou brothers property). E.-I. Kolia and G. Alexopoulou (Στ' ΕΠΚΑ) report the discovery of fragmentary remains of many periods (Fig. 1: site 1; Fig. 2).

A large well (1.67m in diameter) in the southwest corner of the plot partially destroyed a Roman wall and water channel. The well was filled with post-Byzantine pottery. To the east, three Roman water channels ran northwest-southeast, and east of these again is a large wall on the same orientation, with two, Late Hellenistic and Roman, phases. This wall adjoins a Hellenistic basement storeroom with a stone-paved floor and access steps at the east, which is divided into two rooms. This shows the same two building phases as the large wall (Fig. 3). A pit along the north wall of the west room, which contained Late Hellenistic to Early Roman pottery, postdates the first phase.

In the southwest, a Hellenistic cobbled road (4.5m wide, crossed by a sewer line and a water channel) ran north-south. This road was abandoned in the third century AD when a building bordering it to the west was remodelled. East of the road were two buildings separated by a lane across which ran a water channel. The building to the north contained two rooms with floor mosaics, plus a further two rooms to the north. West of the road, the front part of a third building with two rooms was exposed. In the fourth to fifth century AD, this area was probably given over to workshops (noting the existence of many water channels). Portable finds include many spindle-whorls and coins.