ARTA - Anc. Ambracia - 2003

Arta (anc. Ambracia), Herakleitou Street (Georgoula property). P. Gouni (ΙΒ' ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery in the course of rescue excavation, of part of the city wall with a semi-circular tower (Fig. 1: 251). At the north edge of the plot, the rear part of a potter’s kiln was found, with a few glazed sherds in the firing chamber.

The wall, which runs east-west across the plot, is the eastwards continuation of the sector previously discovered in the course of pipe-laying on Herakleitou Street (ADelt 52 [1997] Chr 572), on the Chroni, Lambrou and Bouranda plots (ADelt 48 [1993] Chr 274, 569; 54 [1999] Chr 468-70) and on the Chouliara plot on Melaneos Street (ADelt 42 [1992] Chr 264-5). At 3.8m wide, it had two dressed faces around a rubble core: the very well-finished external face was preserved to three courses on a krepidoma (a single course of the less well-finished interior wall was revealed). The tower, built out from the exterior face, is preserved to eight courses of isodomic masonry (with anathyrosis) on a projecting krepidoma. Along the north part of the plot, a destruction level contained many of the tiles from the roof which protected the wall’s mud-brick superstructure. The position of the tower likely reflects either a weak point in the fortification requiring reinforcement, or the presence of a gate yet to be located. Despite the discovery of many stretches of the city fortification walls, only three other towers have so far been found.

The high water table prevented full investigation of the foundation, making precise dating impossible. A little fourth-century pottery at the level of the lowest course and the krepidoma (amphorae, pithoi, chytres, and few black-glaze sherds of skyphoi and lekythos) likely provides a terminus post quem for the construction. The wall and tower belong to different construction phases, since they do not bond and their foundations lie at different depths.