SYVRITOS - Kephala - 2006

Syvritos, Kephala. N. Karamaliki (ΚE’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports on work over the last three decades, with particular reference to the Hellenistic and Roman periods (the LM IIIC settlement continued into the EIA, when public buildings were erected.)

An isodomic wall at the foot of the Kephala hill on the east probably forms part of the Hellenistic defences. Scattered Hellenistic sherds spread southwest to the village of Ag. Photini, where chance finds, including figurines, were made at Lagos and nearby Ag. Theotokos. In the 1980s Hellenistic house remains were found on the Health Clinic plot to the northwest of Ag. Photini and the Zabetakis plot to the south.

Further to the east, two badly damaged Hellenistic stone buildings with earth floors and tiled roofs were found on the Neonaki plot in 2002–2003. A corner of one lay in the southeast of the plot, and in the centre were six rooms and an exterior space with a stone-built covered water-channel. Room 1 (3 x 2.5m) had a destruction layer over its floor. At least 30 vases, of different sizes and mostly plain, date to the second half of the second century BC. Three pithoi were found, plus two lids, two amphorae, stands, basins and small storage vessels, lamps, small table wares (bowls, cylindrical cups, an askos, and an oinochoe), a cylindrical beehive, 17 terracotta disc loomweights, and stone tools. A pit below the floor, dating ca.100 years earlier, contained two hydrae, a basin, jug and skyphos, as well as a clay mould for a Pan-head relief attachment. Room 6at the northwest contained mid second-century pottery (two basins, an oinochoe, cauldron and four pithoi), plus four Hadra hydriae of the AS type dating around a century earlier, the first such found at Syvritos. The building was linked with agricultural activity and textile production (noting a total of 78 loomweights and 19 spindle whorls).

The settlement reached its greatest extent in the Roman period, with pottery and building debris distributed along the south side of Kephala hill. On the top of the hill was a sanctuary: a dedicatory inscription at the temple of Hermes was erected by Titus Flavius in the consulship of Gaius Pomponius, late in the first century AD. A stoa approached from the south via a paved road served a public function (parts of an over-lifesize bronze male statue were found): it was destroyed and abandoned in the third or perhaps fourth century.

Settlement remains were found on two plots at Ag. Photini. A structure with successive building phases from the first to third century AD was uncovered on the Kyriakaki property, with parts of two more buildings of the second-third centuries AD on the Markidi plot (House A at the north, and the later dressed stone walls of House B at the south). The earlier House A had walls of small field-stones, and floors of beaten earth and clay over which was the debris of destruction caused by earthquake and fire. The storage room A contained two large pithoi against the north wall, and opposite, vessels perhaps fallen from a shelf (including two Cretan lamps and a third with a scene of Dionysus and Silenus). Many plain vases include amphorae, jugs and jars, plus 12 oinochoae and imports including Arretine plates and a Cypriot basin. A coin of Gordian III was found in the debris. At the east, a stone cist was set into the destruction debris (a Roman tomb is similarly inserted into a Hellenistic house on the Zabetakis plot). Room H at the southeast is another storage area, with pithoi (with and without lids) at the east side, Mauretanian and perhaps Egyptian amphorae, a baking dish, lamps, and terra sigillata.

The city borders are defined by tombs, as at Genna to the south of Kephala. At Tsingouna on the north of Kephala, a monumental tomb set into the ground was approached via a four metre-long dromos with a small rectangular antechamber built and paved in dressed stone. The burial chamber was built in opus testacaeum, with a domed roof, decorative elements as cornices, and a white plaster floor with three rows of brick columns resting on terracotta tiles. The north and south walls held burial niches, and burial remains also lay on the floor. Finds include Cretan-style lamps, four glass vessels and iron nails. The tomb was used from the first probably into the third century AD. The dromos was then filled with debris including funerary plaques and other stone items of the third to second centuries BC including a sarcophagus lid, an unfinished funerary inscription (ΧΑ), and two stelae inscribed ΑΡΧΩΝ ΠΑΝΚΛΕΙΟΣ and ΣΩΤΕΙΡΑ ΡΩΜΑΝΩ ΘΥΓΑΤΗΡ.