KENCHREAI - 2011

Kenchreai, Koutsongila Ridge. E. Korka (Ministry of Culture and Tourism), J.L. Rife (Vanderbilt), and K. Kissas (Director, ΚΖ’ ΕΠΚΑ) report on the 2011 study season.

A series of studies was initiated on glass (M. Papageorgiou), metal items (G. Panelas), architecture (construction techniques, materials and membra disiecta: J. Rife and D. Andrikou), and ceramics (M. Morison). Plant remains were extracted from soil samples taken from domestic and burial contexts: cooked figs were present in the chamber tombs. Study of human skeletal remains covered remains from the Late Roman multiple burials and revealed the presence of infant bones in contexts such as the Area B well. Animal remains included a preponderance of shellfish in all deposits.

Five new illicit excavations had been made in the northern and central areas of the ridge over the previous winter and spring. A long rectangular cutting in the bedrock exposed in one may represent an unfinished dromos of a chamber tomb. Looting to the south had removed the western half of a Late Antique cist grave (G71). The disturbed finds from these illicit excavations were mostly coarseware body sherds, plus numerous pulverized bones from the grave.

Cleaning following looting at the south end of the site revealed the continuation of the northwestern wall of the Octagon along the trajectory predicted from the building’s symmetrical plan. Debris from looting contained the same quality and density of collapsed structural matter (mortar, rubble, tile, and brick) found elsewhere over the floor of the Octagon in 2009.