PIRAEUS - 96 Eleutheriou Venizelou Street - 2006

Piraeus, 96 Eleutheriou Venizelou Street (N. Pitsos and I. Stampolis Co. property). Kornelia Axioti (ΚΣΤ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of an ancient quarry which continues onto the Arapou property, 64 Zeas Street. Four block courses were extracted: the extraction channels are preserved, and in situ (incompletely extracted) blocks attest to the size range of those extracted (1.2 - 1.4 x 0.5 - 0.65 x 0.5 – 0.75m). A bell-shaped cistern lay on the east side of the quarry (mouth 1.15 x 0.80m, bottom diameter 2.4m). A deposit (covering an area of 7.5 x 6m in the south of the plot) postdates the use of the quarry. Finds, which date from the fifth to the first century BC, include 86 figurines, 25 lamps, 106 miniature vessels, 34 phialae, 33 plates, 190 loom weights, seven kantharoi, 44 lead foils, two weights decorated with tortoises (one of which bears the inscription ΔΕΜΟ), and numerous fragments of mud brick and pottery. In the part of the quarry found on the Arapou property, the extraction channels ran in two different directions, suggesting separate phases of extraction. In the centre of the plot lay a pyramidal cistern (2.5 x 2.4m at the bottom) with a rectangular shaft.