ARTA - Anc. Ambracia - 2000

Priovolou Street (Manakanata property). A. Angeli (ΙΒ' ΕΠΚΑ) reports on excavation in the centre of ancient Ambracia which revealed most of a house (18.50m long) and part of a north-south cobbled road to the east of it (Figs 1-2).

The external, street wall is built of roughly-worked blocks with a drainage channel to remove rain-water from an internal paved courtyard out to the road. The house had at least seven areas: a courtyard with a well, two rooms to the west and northwest, and, to the east, a room which had, hollowed into the bedrock, a deposit of Classical pottery sealed with a clay layer. The southeast room was a kitchen: beneath a thick layer of stone chips lay a closed deposit of domestic pottery, especially cookware. A room further to the east was damaged by a Byzantine deposit.

The house was built in the Classical period and remained in use throughout the Hellenistic. Archaic pottery (chiefly skyphoi and small kotylai) was also found, but not in association with architecture. Small finds include eight silver coins and 183 bronze, mostly Hellenistic in date, plus a gold ring. Byzantine occupation is represented by a number of walls, part of a hearth and two deposits.