ARTA - Anc. Ambracia - 2003

Arta (anc. Ambracia), Komninon Street (Kaliakatsou-Lambrou property). P. Gouni and M. Karaba (ΙΒ' ΕΠΚΑ) report the discovery of settlement remains dating from the mid sixth to the late third century BC, with post-Byzantine re-occupation represented by three rubbish pits, a well, and traces of a potter’s kiln (Fig. 1: 279).

The beginning of settlement ca 550-525 BC is attested by pottery found during cleaning and the removal of a destruction level over stereo in the northeast corner of the plot. The first recognisable building remains date to the end of the sixth century (525-500 BC) – two parallel walls around a stone-lined storm drain. The drain itself was built in the second half of the fourth century and remained in use until the mid-third. One of the walls belonged to a structure of which nothing further survives. The other was the substantial exterior wall of a house, preserved to a height of five courses, which remained in use until the end of the third century (the date of a general destruction across the building). The few preserved traces of this house suggest a series of extensions and modifications (with, for example, one wall of the early fifth century, a late Classical white pebble floor, and a paved Hellenistic floor). Two further parallel walls of the first phase probably defined a room inside another house: this building underwent further changes (one wall was demolished early in the fifth century and the other in the early fourth). The function of a structure built of tiles in the north corner is unknown. This house underwent remodelling during the first third of the fifth century, and again some 50 years later. Partially over this site is the rear part of a strongly-built rectangular structure, built in the mid fifth century and in use until the mid-fourth. Its construction is unlike that of most contemporary private houses in Ambracia, but its function remains unclear. The pottery from the structure was, however, a typical domestic assemblage: cooking and storage vessels, with much black-glaze, some black-figure and lamps, noting also terracotta figurines and glass vessels. Finds from the site in general include a fourth-century silver stater of Taranto (with a horse and rider on the obverse and a human figurine riding a dolphin on the reverse), and part of a third-century with palmette and lotus flower decoration.