ARTA - Anc. Ambracia - 2000

Pouliou Drakou and Zarra Streets (O.T. 416, Tachou descendants property). A. Angeli and Th. Kontogianni (ΙΒ' ΕΠΚΑ) report the completion of excavation on this plot (Fig. 1).

Part of a north-south road leading to the city wall was flanked by buildings on each side. These buildings date from the fourth to the second century BC with small extensions and adaptations but no significant change to their internal arrangement. The cobbled road (5m wide) has a 1m wide pavement along the left side (Fig. 2). The east retaining wall of the road is also the external wall of a roadside house, of which four rooms were explored. All were covered with a thick destruction deposit of the first half of the second century BC which extends over the road. The north room is likely an andron, with a fine gravel and cement floor (the floor elsewhere was of stone chips and tile in beaten earth) (Fig. 3). The courtyard, with a well in the centre, lies immediately to the south. After the second-century destruction, the courtyard was paved in stone; a rubbish deposit north of the well contains Hellenistic tile and pottery as well as building material (Fig. 4).

West of the road two buildings were separated by a sewer which runs north-south parallel to the road. The first building has three large rooms with a street entrance and several smaller rooms to the west of them, although preservation is too poor to restore the plan. These areas preserve traces of stone, tile and sherd flooring, and there is a similar floor in a probable open court to the south. The building was destroyed in the first half of the second century BC: a thick destruction level is ubiquitous, and a large rubbish pit contains fourth to third-century sherds and building debris. The second building, west of the channel, was only partially explored due to a landslip: the south wall follows the course of the city’s defensive circuit, 10−11m away.

Finds include Hellenistic pottery, terracotta figurines and relief plaques, many bronze coins of Ambracia (third- to second-century BC) and two of the Molossian koinon (fourth-century BC), as well as small metal objects. In the north, below the level of the building west of the road, was a layer of Geometric pottery mixed with unworked stones (not connected with visible architecture). This is the first evidence of this date found in the south of the city.