POLYMYLOS Anc. Euia - 2006

Polymylos (anc. Euia). G. Karamitrou-Mendesidi (Director, Λ' ΕΠΚΑ) reports on renewed site conservation and excavation following the redesign of a major road junction on the Egnatia Odos. Five of the Hel−Rom kilns plus surrounding buildings were conserved in situ and reburied, while the most monumental kiln was removed to the Archaeological Museum of Aiane. A total area of ca. 1,500m² was excavated, in 2 locations. At the first, trial trenches revealed tombs and the upper part of a marble funerary stele. Two retaining enclosure walls, 4.3m apart and with a stone fill between them, may in part utilize building material from earlier settlement (part of another marble stele was built into the northernmost wall). A LRom date for the construction is confirmed by domestic pottery, loomweights, iron and bronze shafts, bronze sheet and clasps, along with many fragments of glass and 5 coins. These walls were probably built in an attempt to stabilize ground eroded by water run-off. Further W and down-slope, 2 pit graves, belonging to a known ECh to post-Byz cemetery, contained the burials of very small children with no grave goods. In one case, the child was laid on a tile; the other tomb held 2 concentrations of bone. In the 2nd location, further W, were remains of LNeo−EBA settlement, possibly extending into the first phase of the MBA, with much handmade pottery, along with animal bone and stone tools. Hel housing was revealed in the E part of the excavation area. The largest of the 3 preserved rooms contained a large quantity of pottery and animal bone, plus a hearth and in situ pithos which date to a subsequent phase of remodelling. The area to the E was divided into 2 rooms, the N of which produced ca. 30 pots preserved especially in a destruction layer. Storage, food preparation and other daily activities are indicated by storage and cooking vessels, carbonized grain, some 50 loomweights, a stone hand-mill and stone mortars. Ca. 15m E of these rooms was a rubbish pit. Close by was the burial of an adult, with no grave goods. A 19m l. section of water main consisting of clay pipes (one stamped ΝΙΚΑΝΔΡΟΣ) forms part of a supply network fed from springs in the foothills of Mt Vermion. A L3rd−2nd Ct BC date for the use of the complex is indicated by the pottery: after a violent destruction, with extensive evidence of fire, the area was not resettled.