Messene - 2019

Messene.  P. Themelis (ASA) reports on continued excavations, conservation and restoration at the site.  W of the theatre in the so-called Prayer House (Efktirios oikos), a Paliochristian building, the mosaic with the inscription ΘΕΟΔΟΥΛΟΣ ΕΠΙΚΣΚΟΠΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ was detached (Fig. 1).  Excavation revealed that the hall had been remodelled to the E and N at the beginning of the 4th century AD and the floors of the new halls decorated with mosaics (Fig. 2).

A structural and topographical investigation of the temple of Isis clarified the shape of the building complex with many rooms of unequal size.  Likewise, NW of the Gymnasium the layout of a large elite residence with a number of rooms, some of which were decorated with mosaics, was clarified (Fig. 3).  One of the floors, in the andron, bears a central panel with Dionysos and Ariadne (Figs 4-5).

The W stoa of the Gymnasium is approached by a tetrastyle Doric gate – now fully restored (Figs 6-8) – built at the expense of a gymnasiarch of the time of the emperor Augustus and repaired by a successor gymnasiarch according to the large-lettered inscriptions from the epistyle:
ΧΑΡΤΕΛΗΣ ΦΙΛΩΝΟΣ ΓΥΜΝΑΣΙΑΡΧΗΣΑΣ
ΤΟ ΠΡΟΠΥΛΟΝ ΘΕΟΙΣ ΠΑΣΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΑΙ ΠΟΛΕΙ
ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΣ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ ΓΥΜΝΑΣΙΑΡΧΩΝ ΤΟ ΓΥΜΝΑΣΙΟΝ ΕΠΕΣΚΕΥΑΣΕ
Further inscriptions commemorating donations are found inscribed on the three central metopes of the triglyph frieze.  Within this tetrastyle propylon, there was a wooden pitched roof which offered protection from the rain.

A chance find comprises a short list of kistiokosmoi and prostatai of Athena Kyparissia belonging to the end of the 4th/beginning of the t 3rd century BC; the lines are separated by engraved lines:
[…]ΙΩΝ
[ΝΙ]ΚΑ[ΝΩΡ]
ΞΕΝΩΝ
ΚΑΛΑΙ[ΣΧΡΟΣ]
[ΝΙ]ΚΩΝΙΔΑΣ
ΔΕΙΝΑΡΧΟΣ
ΧΑΡΜΩΝ
ΜΙΚΥΛΟΣ
ΦΙΛΙΣΤΙΔΑΣ
ΚΑΛΛΙΚΛΗΣ
[ΠΕΙ]ΣΙΣΤΡΑΤΟΣ
[ΠΟ]ΛΥΑΡΑΤΟΣ
[……………………..]