ANCIENT CORINTH - 2011

Ancient Corinth. C.K. Williams II (ASCSA) reports on excavation in the western part of the West Hall of the theatre conducted in 2011 to investigate observations presented in the primary publication of the Roman theatre concerning the deposition of vast quantities of sheep and cattle bone in the area in medieval times, and the heavy transverse walls of reused blocks that blocked the west parodos (see Corinth II, 53, n.24).

Some of the west analemma of the Greek theatre was exposed immediately beneath the earliest Roman levels of the West Hall, with the sequence of occupation levels capped at the top by two 12th-century Byzantine levels. The stratified dump of bovine remains that covered the West Hall lay inbetween, dating between AD 450 and 600. Over a ton of skeletal remains was removed, from which it is inferred that at least 10 tons were discarded in the area. A deep fill of Late Roman amphorae against the north wall of the West Hall was partially excavated: the two-handled Late Roman water jar from Asia Minor was the most numerous form recovered. A market area or warehouse should be expected in the vicinity.

Additional evidence was found in the west parodos adjacent to the West Hall for the two different types of buttresses added to reinforce the theatre within the first and second centuries AD. A line of the late sixth- to early seventh-century city wall that follows the north and west sides of the peribolos court north of the theatre was revealed. This new segment securely places the site of the theatre outside the Early Christian defense system.

Part of a half life-size female head in white marble and a complete head of a satyr were recovered from the West Hall, along with many architectural fragments to aid the paper restoration of the structures immediately west of the scaenae frons.