PATRAS, 114 Lontou Street - 2006

Patras. 114 Lontou Street. L. Papacosta (Στ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of a destruction layer beneath which lay three rooms of the Roman period (preserved part of the walls of room 1 were in opus mixtum set on lower courses of unworked stone, tile and cement). A storm drain lay to the west of the building, abutting the exterior of the walls (which preserve trace of its hydraulic cement and tile).

Room 2 is the atrium of a Roman house with a floor mosaic: a small part of the superstructure of its north wall is preserved, in cloisonné brickwork. A doorway and threshold are preserved in the west wall, which does not belong to the initial phase of the structure: the original wall is, however, preserved on the same alignment just to the south, with its western face in opus testaceum. In the south part of the room, the floor was damaged by later incursions. An Early Christian double cist grave, one cover slab of which was in secondary use, had walls in opus mixtum coated in plaster: it contained only scattered bones on the brick floor, with no grave goods. A further rectangular brick-clad structure to the west, with a floor of tile fragments was probably an ossuary as it contained the co-mingled bones of adults and children. A Byzantine wall built over the southern preserved part of the mosaic: to this period also belongs a section of tiled floor laid over the double grave. Despite these successive interventions, the preserved part of the mosaic (4.75 x 3.28m) has a background of geometric motifs with a separate figurative area surrounding an octagonal pool (brick-built and clad with Carrara marble). The figurative area had (from outside in) a red band, a band of black linked circles on a white ground each containing ivy, a band of alternately black and white spiral maeander, and around the central zone, a band of geometric star motifs. The central scene depicted a marine-scape with erotes (including one in charge of a dolphin), made in tesserae of limestone and red-brown, yellow, black, blue and grey glass paste. The subject is unique in the present record from Patras.

Room 3 communicated with room 2: the threshold was exposed, but the room was not otherwise excavated.