ANCIENT CORINTH - 2012

Ancient Corinth. G. Sanders (ASCSA) reports on continuing excavation south of the South Stoa. Early Modern and Byzantine levels were removed between the walls of a Frankish building (revealed in 2009) and the Middle Byzantine House (completely excavated in 2010). A pit under the floor of the north room of the Frankish building contained restorable domestic vessels, including matt painted pitchers and flasks, cooking wares, and glazed sgraffito and champlevé, which date it to the second quarter of the 13th century (Fig. 1). Outside and to the north, a pit probably contemporary with the building contained restorable pottery datable ca 1270, plus objects such as gilded rosette clasps and bone panels (also decorated with gold leaf) from a box (Fig. 2).

The area was bisected by an 11th-century Byzantine wall of rubble and lime mortar which had mostly been robbed out in the Early Modern period. Associated with its construction are several dump fills of Late Antique (fifth- to sixth-century) material, including the fill of a pit used to store lime mortar. In the lime pit were two decorated bone knife handles (Fig. 3), a panelled glass bottle base and a glass jar (Figs 4 centre and right), and a lead curse tablet (Fig. 5). Another of these dumped fills contained the intaglio of a ring showing Artemis riding a deer and reaching for an arrow from her quiver (Fig. 6).

Below the earliest Middle Byzantine deposits lay a cutting filled with earth and eighth-century pottery (handmade ‘Slavic’ beakers, imported micaceous cooking pots and wheel-made amphoras). This cut was made through a sequence of floors datable to the sixth and seventh centuries. The neck of a glass flask (Fig. 4 left) was found on the latest of the floors.

Work proceeded to consolidate and present to the public the larger of the complexes (Fig. 7) excavated in the Frankish Area south of the Museum. Located in a very central position within the site, it represents a single cohesive phase easily understood by the visitor. The complex includes a row of shops with what may have been a bank, an apothecary’s shop and a food seller. One shop preserves a medieval board game (‘nine men’s morris’ or ‘triliza'). These spaces front an enclosed domestic space, perhaps an inn, with a kitchen and storage facilities. The second complex is a small monastery which contained over 200 burials of people who suffered a range of diseases and exhibit a variety of pathologies.