ATHENS - Acropolis area - 2003

Informations Générales

Numéro de la notice

2113

Année de l'opération

2003

Chronologie

Âge du Fer - Géométrique

Antiquité - Archaïque - Classique - Hellénistique - Romaine

Période byzantine - Médiobyzantine - Tardobyzantine

Mots-clés

Canalisation - Citerne - Puits - Maison - Sépulture - Lampe - Monnaie - Parure/toilette - Sculpture - Pierre - Verre - Installation hydraulique - Espace public - Habitat - Voierie

Nature de l'opération

Fouille - Sauvetage

Institution(s)

Α' Εφορεία Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων (Ière éphorie des antiquités préhistoriques et classiques)

Localisation

Toponyme
Acropolis, Acropole

Notices et opérations liées

20032004 2005 2007

Description

Athens, Acropolis area. K. Preka-Alexandri (Α’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports on work undertaken in 2001 in connection with the pedestrianization of Dionysiou Areopagitou – Apostolou Pavlou Streets.

Trenches were opened along the north and south sides of sections of Dionysiou Areopagitou (sections AI to AIII run sequentially from east to west: for section AII see Fig. 1). The most important discoveries from east to west were:

I. At Plateia Makrygianni, a well, built of irregular stone blocks, filled with modern debris.

II. In the south section of AI: a wall (6m long, 0.7m wide, 1.3m high) of irregular blocks and un-mortared brick, oriented southwest-northeast, lies 46m from the intersection of Makrygianni and Dionysiou Areopagitou Streets. To its south was a 16th-century AD glazed skyphos with incised decoration on the interior. Four metres to the west of it,a squared stone channel and (to the west of that) a rounded terracotta channel ran northeast-southwest. Five metres west of these, a stone-covered channel ran southwest-northeast, and a second terracotta pipe ran northwest-southeast: both were square in section. A section of road (4.8 long, 4m wide) 55m to the west of Makrygianni Street, ran northwest-southeast. This intersects with Dionysiou Areopagitou and runs into the area east of the second temple of Dionysos, where it joins the ancient Tripodon Street. As excavation in the Makrygianni plot has shown, this road was in use from the fourth century BC to the 12th century AD. Marble geison fragments were uncovered in its fill.

III. In the north of section AI: 45m from the junction of Dionysiou Areopagitou and Thrasyllou, were the remains of walls of the residence of the Leneia, and a silo built of irregular stones and ceramics. Ten metres to the west were the remains of a house and part of a large stone-covered channel coated with hard mortar. Five metres further south, a deposit contained 19 lamps of the fourth to sixth centuries AD and two identical plain skyphoi. From the building remains north of the road came three kioniskoi and a fragment of a marble column drum.

IV. Thrasyllou Street – AI. Excavation west of the road found the following remains from south to north. 1. Scant building remains and a modern stone channel; 2. To the north, 7m from the stone channel, a silo built of stone and ceramics contained a glazed lamp: west of the silo was a glass unguentarium. 3. Two metres north of the silo were remains of a four-roomed building with walls of irregular stone without mortar. Within this area was found a hoard of 67 bronze coins with Christ Pantokrator on the obverse and the patriarchal cross on the reverse. These belong to the H class, weigh 7.8g, and date to the period of Nikiphoros 3rd Votaneiatis: they were restruck on coins of Michael Doukas (ca. 1070-1075). 4. From a trench in the middle of the road came four marble fragments of the torso of a large statue of Dionysos.

V. In section AII, ca.15m southwest of the second temple of Dionysos Elefthereos, a section of the Nymphaion (known since 1879) was excavated with three of its six apses (Fig. 2). All apses have three inner niches (one semicircular and two rectangular). The apses form a hexagon surrounding the centre of the monument, with a small hexagonal tank. A section of the fourth apse with a middle internal niche was revealed, built with series of radiating bricks.

VI. In the east of section AIII lay the apse and two halls (to the west of the central hall) of the House of Proklos, built at the end of the fourth century AD and in use during the fifth and sixth. A small section of the northeast of House Στ (begun in the third century AD) was also excavated. At the north-northeast boundary of House Ω, two Subgeometric skyphoi, two prochoes and further sherds were discovered below a floor which probably belonged to a further building.

VII. In northeast section at AIII, finds from east to west were: 1. A series of squared clay pipes leading to a well, from which a large number of undecorated, mostly amphora, sherds were collected. 2. Two metres west of the pipes lay a silo. 3. West and 13.10m from the silo, a well connected to a drain, with an almost intact trefoil-mouthed oinochoe and a clay perfume bottle. 4. Five metres west of this well was a squared stone channel, oriented southwest-northeast. 5. 9.2m west of the pipe was a silo. 6. Southwest and south of the Shrine of the Nymphs was a small part of the thick sherd deposit previously detected by Miliadis, which was formed in the second century AD but contained material from the beginning of fifth and fourth centuries BC. Most of newly discovered sherds are red-figure, but part of a marble vessel, two marble statue fragments (one a foot), three loom weights, and two bronze coins (one modern) were also found. 7. Southwest of the Geometric tombs excavated by Miliadis and published by Charitonidis, in the area of the west Roman cistern and beneath the Classical polygonal wall, was a Geometric cremation within an amphora, set southeast-northwest in a round cutting in the bedrock. Five metres to the westwas a stone channel running southwest-northeast, and to its east a well containing a late Hellenistic-Early Roman lamp, a bronze buckle, a lead weight, and a loom weight. 8. To the west of Dionysios Arepagitou Street, rich remains of the 12^th century BC were found. Five complexes were distinguished, of which one with an apse to the east is probably a church: around the apse were three graves of two children and one adult. 9. At Trigono Partheni Street various relief fragments and architectural members include a relief of Athena with a giant of the first decade of the fifth century BC, a Roman relief of a female face which resembles stylistically and in size the heads on metope VIII from the east frieze of the Parthenon.

In 2002 work began to pedestrianize Apostolou Pavlou Street. 900m of the road surface was removed from the junction with Robertou Galli and Dionysiou Areopagitou to the junction with Eptachalkou and the metro station at Theseio, as well as the paving of Plateia Thesiou.

Finds in sequence south to north, beginning from the south edge of the road at the junction with Dionysiou Areopagitou, were: 1. At the junction of Apostolou Pavlou and Dionysiou Areopagitou were four underground vaulted channels which drained into a further channel running towards the Peisistratid cistern. 2. Some 50m north of the cistern were a marble well-head, part of a small terracotta pipe oriented south-north, parts of four limestone walls oriented east-west, and a 10m westwards extension of the Peisistratid channel. 3. At the junction of Apostolou Pavlou with Ag. Marinas and Akamantos Streets was a series of limestone walls. 4. At the junction with Akamantos Street, on the south side of Apostolou Pavlou, a rectangular pit contained utilitarian pottery, with 0.5m to the north, drains oriented east-west. 5. At Plateia Theseiou, near the entrance to the anc. Agora, was a limestone well with a pavement of terracotta tesserae around it. 6. At the junction with Phaidras Street was part of a wall oriented east-west. 7. At the junction with Vasilis Street, was the lower part of an oval drain, oriented east-west. 8. At the junction between Apostolou Pavlou and Poulopoulou and Eptachalkou Streets was a small part of a limestone wall oriented east-west.

Auteur de la notice

Robert PITT

Références bibliographiques

AD 56-59 (2001-2004) Chr., 152-156.