Patras - 12 Syntagmatos Street - 2011

Patras - 12 Syntagmatos Street, (private property of the Church of Panagia Alexiotissa). Georgia Alexopoulou (ΣΤ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports on the rescue excavation which took place on the occasion of excavation works for the construction of a building on the aforementioned plot, where ancient tombs were excavated. The excavation was held in the E part of the plot, and five Roman tombs were revealed. An unguentarium was found, which was considered to be dated in the first century BC (Fig. 1).

Tomb I was a tile-roof one, oriented E-W, and it contained nothing but a poorly conserved skeleton.

Tomb II, was also the tile-roof type, and it was oriented in the same way as tomb I. The deceased individual was poorly preserved, but in the N exterior side of the tomb, two perfume vessels (uguentaria) were revealed. They were dated between the late first century BC and the mid first century BC (Fig. 2). On the NE end, a circular lead object was found, and after its removal, another two perfume vessels, similar to the previous ones, were found (Fig. 3). They were dated as the previous ones.

This type of vessel was often used as a grave-good for the Late Hellenistic tombs of. The discovery of these five tombs is important because they confirm the use of the site as a cemetery, continuing W to Kalavryton St.

Another glass perfume vessel was found in Tomb V (a tile-roof tomb, oriented NE-SW). It was dated in the second half of the first century AD (Fig. 4).