LAZARIDES - 2012

Lazarides. N. Sgouritsa (Athens) reports on the 2012 excavation of rooms 2, 3 and 6 in the so-called Papadimitris area of the Mycenaean settlement (a small plateau on the top of the slope explored also in 1979 and 1980). (Plan 1).

Rooms 2 and 3 were fully excavated (Plan 2). Room 2 was probably accessed both through an opening in the west wall now blocked with stones and through a doorway in the east wall which is aligned with that in the west and has a rough threshold. An opening in the north wall gave the only access to room 3 (it too had a stone threshold). The floor sloped from west to east, with a pit in the northeast corner. Finds in room 2 were restricted to pottery (including one Middle Helladic and one early Late Helladic sherd), plus a few animal bones and shells. Room 3 yielded similar finds.

A further room, 6, was revealed immediately to the east of room 2. The common south wall of the two rooms was uncovered to its full length (4.3m), and the north and east walls of room 6 partially uncovered (to 2.8 and 3.8m respectively), revealing the north doorway. Room 6 was a large room which yielded many sherds in the fill, plus animal bones, part of a goat horn, shell, a few obsidian blades and flakes (significantly more than so far found elsewhere in the settlement), steatite spindle whorls, a biconical terracotta spindle whorl, two lumps of flint and of a whitish semi-transparent stone, grinders and grinding stones. In the south-west corner were: a large andesite grinder plus grinding stones (Fig. 1), red pigment as that previously found in room 5, pottery (including many legs from tripod cooking pots), animal bones, and a terracotta disc or token (Fig. 2). Along the south wall were many sherds from other types of cooking pots (including one large vessel with a vertical handle at the base of which was a potter’s mark) (Fig. 3), with unpainted kylikes as the next most common form. The southeast corner produced most of the animal bones and shells found in room 6, many andesite grinders of various sizes, and a large quantity of grinding stones. Near the northwest corner was a fragment of coiled lead wire in coil. In that corner, a quadrilateral structure was revealed but not fully investigated. Similarly, a narrow, slightly curved built conduit (Fig. 4) (average width 0.17m), partially covered with stones, requires fuller investigation to resolve questions about its origin (e.g. whether it relates to the pit in room 2) and destination, and to determine whether it is associated with a secondary use of the room.