PATRAS, 44 Agiou Demetriou Street - 2006

Patras. 44 Agiou Demetriou Street (property of Ch. Koutsokosta). L. Papacosta (Στ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of part of a house in use from Early to Late Roman times. The walls were carefully built in opus reticulatum and opus quasi reticulatum. One room (room 2), the floor of which survives (of plaster over a course of unworked stones and tile), was divided in two probably during the Late Roman period. An enclosed drainage channel found to the west of room 2 probably belongs to the period of the building’s use.

Towards the end of the Late Roman period, after a destructive fire and a phase of abandonment, room 2 was converted to a workshop. A rectangular hearth in room 2 may have served as the firing chamber of a kiln (with walls of a single course of fired brick and a clay support in the centre). In Early Christian times the area formed part of an extensive cemetery (previously located on a number of nearby plots). Ten tombs were found (six built cists, three tile graves, and an inhumation in a transport amphora). A water channel significantly above the level of the modern road attests to activity in the area during the Byzantine period. Spolia used in this included a stone lion-head of Imperial Roman date. Parts of a column base, a marble sima, and an Early Christian capital are reported among architectural remains found in fills or in secondary use. A quantity of bronze coins date from the Hellenistic period (coins of Sikyon, 251-146 BC) to Late Roman times (coins of Constantine II, 337-361 AD). Late Classical (?) and Hellenistic sherds collected from deeper levels attest to earlier activity in this area.