PIRAEUS - 27 Mavrokordatou Street - 2006

Piraeus, 27 Mavrokordatou Street (property of K. Pitakas & Co). Kornelia Axioti (ΚΣΤ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of part of an 8m-wide ancient road running northeast-southwest. This is one of the wider roads in the Hippodamian grid and it is identified with Ηöpfner and Schwandner’s Road E. A further part of it is located on an adjacent plot (22 Mavrokordatou Street).

A small section of an exterior house wall was excavated on the east side of the road, whilst on the west was the corner of a seven-couch andron (4.45 x 4.65m; traces of its eastern and western walls survive, while the north side was delimited by bedrock). The stepped floor for the couches and part of the pebble floor of the andron were decorated with concentric squares. Part the pebble floor of the courtyard was also revealed. A narrow drain ran under the outside wall of the house and into the road. A shaft with an overflow channel which led to a second, shallower shaft in the ancient road was apparently intended to divert rainwater, since the house was built on an incline and was liable to flood. A second complex of shafts in the ancient road was evidently to collect rainwater, as it fed the cistern of the adjacent house.