SKALA OROPOU - 2008

Skala Oropou. A. Mazarakis Ainian (ASA) reports on continued excavation. In 2008, the remaining section of building ΛΒ was excavated and proved to be elliptical (4.3m x 7.3m) with an entrance at the S side and walls 0.5m d. (Fig. 1). To the E of the stone hearth found in 2007 a pit full of ashes was revealed. From these two hearths ash had spread all over the floor of the building. Sherds of the 2nd half of the 8th Ct were found, with loomweights and a serpentine seal depicting a bird. N of the building, two 12m l. stretches of peribolos walls, one contemporaneous with the elliptical building, the other later, perhaps defined the S section of an anc. road.
A few meters away to the NW two other elliptical structures, ΛΔ and ΛΕ, came to light built one on top of the other, along with remains of other buildings and periboloi. Building ΛΔ, 8.6m l. and 5.4m w., built partially on top of the older ΛΕ, belongs to a transitional period from the Geo to the EAr and was in use until the 6th Ct. The interior was paved with large stones and contained much ash and carbonized fruit. In the S part of the building a hearth was found built with fragments of large pots within a circle of small stones. The door, on the S side, had a threshold of large stones. The NE quarter of the interior is separated from the rest by a wall. Inside the building and along the wall were found clay loomweights, beads, stone weights, metal objects, mainly iron, and EAr sherds.
Outside building ΛΒ to the SE was found a pit filled with ash, which may be the remains of a posthole to be associate with another parallel to the building’s W wall, which may have supported a roof to protect the building from rain, or may belong to a 3rd elliptical structure.
Of the older building ΛΕ (9m l., 5.5m w.) only a small section was investigated. Pottery from the structure dates to the end of the 8th Ct., while outside the building part of the neck of a LGeo Attic amphora was discovered. The peribolos, outside and W of buildings ΛΔ and ΛΕ, was 1m thick, remarkable for the site. E of the 2 elliptical buildings, 3 other walls (2 Geo, 1 Ar) were exposed.