KRYONERI - 1999

Kryoneri, Deka-Phounta property. F. Kephallonitou (Director, 8th EBA) reports on excavation in an area of known Byzantine remains.

Early Christian walls containing re-used material were found (Fig. 1), plus sections of a fifth-century AD floor mosaic with geometric motifs. During the sixth century the walling was incorporated into an apsidal structure of likely ecclesiastical character, which has a small antechamber with a mosaic floor. The variety of motifs, the technique and the composition reflect the popular art of the Peloponnese and central Greece, as well as Nikopolis (where there are parallels for all the motifs used here) (Fig. 2). A tabula has a partially preserved inscription. Inside the apse, a large limestone slab may be part of a second, sixth-century, floor surface. Cist graves without goods were found inside and outside the apse, as well as tombs built into the east side of the apse wall where the body was covered with tiles. After the sixth century the entire area was given over to burial (both simple inhumations and tile graves). (Figs 3-4). Simple inhumations were also found on the sixth-century floor mosaic. The cemetery continued into the Middle Byzantine period, when the area fell out of use. During the 19th century, the customs house of Kryoneri was built here; this was demolished in the 1980s.