PIRAEUS - AKTE MIAOULI - 2006

Piraeus, Akte Miaouli, Botsari, Hatzikyriakou and Flessa Streets (NAT property). Maria Petritaki (ΚΣΤ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of a) Classical to early Hellenistic and b) Roman urban structures at the Grand Harbour (Kantharos), west of the area identified as the Emporion (fig. 1).

Two roads were excavated by Hatzikyriakou Street. The first runs east-west and is 5.65m wide. A sewage pipe runs along its south side. The second runs north-south and is 4m wide. They border a domestic complex (12.4 x 19m) which had three phases dating from the second half of the fourth until the end of the third century BC. Remains comprise limestone walls, a double gate facing north, part of a paved yard and a small rubble building from a later phase which incorporated a boundary stone inscribed:

A quarry in the northwest corner of the complex had two periods of use, Classical and Roman (the latter severely disturbed by two modern firebrick kilns built on top of it).

A Roman (second- to third-century AD) complex to the north was founded on bedrock (a few Classical sherds indicate earlier use of this area). The complex (33 x 18m) had 27 rooms arranged in three rows: all contained destruction layers. Most were used as shops and/or workshops, and some appear to have had two or three periods of use. The walls show several construction techniques, including opus caementicium, opus testacaeum, rubble walls, brick, and opus mixtum. Eight rooms contained the same types of finds (hearths, terracotta plaques, tiles, vessels for water and pipes running through the walls) and may have been used for the same purpose. Room 3 had three hearths. Room 9 contained a hearth and a floor paved with tegulae mammatae: a hoard of 837 coins (silver and silver plated) was found in the south part of it. A second hoard of 236 coins was found in room 2. Rooms 7, 8, 1, 6 and 22 appear to have served a different function to the rest of the complex. Room 7, originally a workshop, was later converted into a tablinum:painted wall plaster, including a scene depicting a bird with a bunch of grapes (fig. 2), postdates the conversion and belongs to the Fourth Style. A cistern was excavated in room 8.

The complex is characteristic of the use of this area in the Roman period, when the Grand Harbour remained in use even though the Piraeus had decreased in size and the harbour installations were not fully functioning.