RACHI - Platania - 2000

Egnatia Odos, section 2.2: Pedini-Drosochori Rachi, Platanias Pamvotidas. G. Pliakou (ΙΒ' ΕΠΚΑ) reports continuing excavation of this settlement on the northern slopes of the Rachi hill, ca. 2km southeast from the modern lake shore.

Settlement remains lay immediately beneath the surface in the southeastern part of the site and deeper to the northwest. A destruction deposit covered the entire area. The western limit of the site was established, the eastern almost so, but continued work is required to the north and south. Settlement developed as a dense concentration of houses and support areas arranged around an open area or square. In the eastern part, a narrow lane running east-west was defined by the exterior walls of the buildings on each side of it.

South of this lane was a complex of 14 rooms from which a thick layer of tile was removed and the area cleaned (Figs 1-2). The rooms were irregularly arranged and tightly concentrated, making it hard to distinguish individual buildings which shared walls. To one house probably belonged the central room 12 with a hearth and the secondary areas 1, 8 and 9 to the south, 5 and 13 to the north and 4 to the west. Rooms 2 and 3 furthest to the west probably form a later addition used as a storeroom for pithoi. To the north, rooms 5 and 13 were also adjunct areas with large quantities of tableware. In the southwest corner of room 1 were 22 loomweights. Four coin finds date the use of the complex from the last quarter of the fourth century to the first half of the second.

A second house immediately to the east had area 10 at its centre, with the smaller rooms 6 and 7 to the south, 11 to the west and one further room to the east. Only the northwest corner of a third house was exposed. North of the lane and the buildings so far described, lay the fragmentary remains of the eastern part of a house with two rooms. The building was likely destroyed and the debris removed since so little survives in the area.

The western part of the settlement consists of a 12m x 12m open square, bounded by a double wall to the north (and probably also to the south). A layer of fallen tile along the east side likely comes from rooms 2 and 3: these are stamped with dolphins or baetyls and Y.XA, MH, AM and other combinations.

Facing the square at the west are two large rooms (16 and 17) with at least two building phases. Room 16 has a wide entrance to the square and, inside, two successive destruction deposits: a terminus ante quem for the first building phase is provided by black-glazed pottery of the second half of the fourth century and a post-mortem Macedonian coin of Alexander the Great. Room 17 does not communicate with the square: it was originally part of room 16 but was later separated. To the west are substantial retaining walls.

Portable finds include, in addition to black-glazed pottery and coins, two figurine fragments, an iron door key and a bronze pin.