DELOS Aphrodision of Stesileos - 2008

Aphrodision of Stesileos. C. Durvye (EfA) reports on excavation undertaken to clarify the chronology and articulation of buildings within this complex.
Excavation between the E wall of the temple and the corner of oikos 2 provides the first archaeological date for the temple. This confirms the hypothesis that the temple was built to house the statue dedicated by Stesileos, which first appears in the accounts of the Hieropes in 304 BC.
Excavation within the ramp between oikoi 2 and 3 showed that the bedrock was high at this point, thus explaining the difference in level between the E part of the sanctuary and the temple court, separated by a rock ridge. Ceramic evidence indicates that all of the fills revealed in this trench are later than 150 BC. The fills which formed a ramp in front of the doorway of oikos 2 covered a ditch running under wall 21 in which were found 93 fragments of terracotta figurines (draped, body fragments, fish, bases with moulded decoration and one fragment of a plaque depicting a seated female in bas relief). Pottery from this ditch dates the fill to the Hel period.
A sondage inside oikos 4 revealed that the fills which supported the floor of the oikos (which post-date 150 BC) rest on traces of previous occupation with, in particular, a 3rdCt BC sequence resting on a still older sequence which goes back to the 6thCt BC. The division of space was different during the oldest phase: 3 walls were discovered within the sondage.
Cleaning was undertaken in oikos 5 before the laying of concrete paving to support the stray blocks of the temple. A jumbled destruction and abandonment horizon was distinguished which covered, in irregular fashion, the 3 floors. On these floors was abundant material, including storage vessels, cooking equipment, pottery and lamps, which will sustain a general study of the furnishing of a room probably used as a hestiatorion at the end of the 2ndCt BC.