PLISIOI - Ag. Dimitrios Katsouri - 2004

Plisioi. Church of Agios Dimitrios Katsouri. B. Papadopoulou (8th EBA) reports the completion of excavation inside and around the walls of the church. Upon complete lifting of the present floor, an earlier terracotta tiled floor (or the bedding and impressions of it) was revealed across the main naos – these near-square tiles were laid east-west with the exception of the two sides of the sanctuary where they were set diagonally. This floor was raised in the altar area.

The Ionic bases of the colonnades on the east and west of the monument were revealed, as were the threshold blocks of the south and central doors in the west wall which communicated with the narthex. In the sanctuary apse was the two-stepped semi-circular synthronon, the upper step of which remained visible above the later floor level. This consisted of a cement and stone core clad with terracotta tiles, with alternating red and blue diagonal lines painted on the face. A stone column drum in the centre of the sanctuary supported a massive Early Christian table top which formed the base of the great altar. In the altar area were thr ee floor levels which predated the tiled floor. Associated with the most recent of these was a brick structure, probably an ossuary, at the north end of the axis of the apse of the side altar.

Excavation revealed that the building had two main construction phases. The long sides of the building in the two phases almost coincide (there is a slight adjustment of alignment in the last phase towards the northeast-southwest). These long walls were supported on the exterior by three buttresses and two more (now built into the later narthex) added to the outside of the west wall. The west wall of the first building was found inside (in contact with and partially beneath) the west wall of the later building, covered by the terracotta tiled floor. The exterior walls of phase one were used as foundations for the later phase, which was thus built as a three-apsed church of irregular, rectangular plan, of almost the same dimensions but moved very slightly to the west. Smaller buttresses were built over those of phase one. The Middle Byzantine church was supported by new columns set on the old west stylobates and by the eastern columns. A terminus post quem for the second phase is provided by Early Christian spolia incorporated into its walls. The narthex was not an original feature of the building, but was subsequently added, reaching its present form in four stages.

Fill from across the interior of the church and from the perimeter trenches contained a number of reburied and scattered bones. A free burial was found in the north transept in a hole in the terracotta floor. The area around the outside of the church was freely used as a cemetery. In addition to the graves found in 2003, a free burial and a cist grave were found on the east side of the church just north of the narthex. The cist grave was a Hellenistic construction re-used for burials and reburial of bones during the Late Byzantine period (as confirmed by glazed pottery and two tornese coins found inside it). Finds from the excavation in general date from Late Byzantine times onwards, rather than from the first phase of the monument.

ADelt 56-59 (2001-2004) B5, 169-71.