NAUPAKTOS - 2003

Naupaktos. Pharmaki Square, 1 Athinon Street (Phrangou-Pantazi property). F. Saranti (then Στ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports on excavation in the east cemetery of the city, on the south side of the Varnarrachis hill. Ten graves were excavated, and the remains of at least two more noted. Five Hellenistic tombs (I, II, IV, V and VII) include a small cist containing a pithos built into a modern well. Two Hellenistic funerary periboloi were found, built of worked blocks: one contained the intact late fourth- or early third-century tombs I and II. Tomb I, a slab cist, contained one burial in situ and a second displaced. Grave goods comprise 11 vases, a silver coin, a gold ring with a depiction of Nike, a bronze strigil, and a set of bronze symposium vessels (an oil jug with a goose or swan head, a cup-kantharos, and a stamnoid kados with figurative attachments). Tomb II, a cist of roughly worked stones, contained one burial with six vases, two silver coins, and four gilded terracotta beads.

Part of a Late Roman building was found, along with five graves (III, VI, VII, IX, X) – pits, tile graves, and brick-built cists. These graves lay a black layer (created in landscaping of the area) which contained much pottery from destroyed tombs, principally Hellenistic but with Protogeometric sherds also.