ANCIENT SIKYON - 2006

Ancient Sikyon, Vasiliko, football stadium. A.-M. Anagnostopoulou (ΛΖ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of house remains on a number of building plots, plus further evidence of quarrying.

Property of P. Tsoulpha: house remains comprise five well-built walls which contained a mixture of fieldstones, worked blocks, quarry residue, and in one case six pieces of column in secondary use. These defined two rectangular rooms, a larger space, and the angles of further rooms extending beyond the plot.

Domestic (mostly plain) pottery, late Classical and Hellenistic black-glaze sherds, ten bronze coins, loomweights, an intact terracotta lamps and the mouth of an early Hellenistic oinochoe were recovered.

Property of Ph. Paschalidou: two walls (one of re-used fieldstones in the east of the plot and one of well-finished small blocks and tile in the northwest) represent the edge of the domestic complex discovered on the neighbouring plots. The wall in the northwest was founded on bedrock which does not appear to have been quarried. Finds dater to the Hellenistic period and mostly comprise a variety of plain domestic shapes mixed with gravel and tiles and a few fragments of glass vessels, as well as a bronze coin and an illegible terracotta stamp.

Property of P. Sidiropoulou: remains of a house comprise five walls (one of which was well made of cut blocks, the rest of fieldstones, cut blacks and quarry waste) plus a stone water channel with a plaster lining and tile along the base. Finds include plain (mostly domestic) pottery of the Roman period, Hellenistic black-glaze, a little Archaic pottery from the lowest level, a Roman miniature vessel and terracotta lamp, five bronze coins, two column fragments and a fragment of a kioniskos.

Property of K. Gousidi: part of a domestic complex with internals rooms/spaces, a continuation of that on the neighbouring plots grouped here and shows the same construction. An open water channel ran east-west on the north side of the plot, was built of tile and cement, and rested on a layer of small stones. A rectangular basin (1.42 x 0.65/0.72m, 1.23m deep) lined with hydraulic cement, and rectangular cuttings on the interior on the two long sides and a hollow (o.3m in diameter) on the east. To the east and south of the basin was a waterproofed floor mosaic. The form of the basin is compared to those used for purple dye production on Delos. Finds date to the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and consist mostly of plain domestic pottery, noting also a two-nozzled lamp of Corinthian Type XVI (first century BC-first century AD), terracotta figurines (of a rider and a female), terracotta loomweights and an iron point.

Property of I. Chionidi: eight quarry pits were found, varying in depth from 0.36-0.92m, plus two walls of unworked and worked stones in secondary use, and a water channel built from fieldstones founded in a red layer containing fourth-century BC pottery. The channel had tile in the base and was covered with tile and stones set in cement. Fines (mostly plain pottery) date to the Hellenistic period.