MENIDI - 2000

Menidi (ancient Acharnai), G. Ritsou and Chalkidikis Streets. Continued excavation of a Roman farmstead (see ADelt 45 [1990] Chr, 78−80) uncovered many storage areas and cisterns (Fig. 1). The northeast room (1) had outer walls of stone, brick and mortar, incorporating earlier material from the neighbouring Classical peribolos to the west. On the east side was the lower part of a staircase leading to an upper floor. West of the house, where trials had located many sherds, excavation revealed small walls and a packed layer, probably of a road. A rubbish pit contained much pottery (lamps, plates, prochoes and cups), as well as millstones, marble revetments, fragments of marble sculpture, tile, brick and ash.
East of the house were two fifth- to fourth-century BC funerary periboloi (Fig. 2) oriented northwest-southeast and much pillaged for building materials for the Roman house. Peribolos 1 (6.4m x 7.5m) contained two pyres with lekythoi and a strigil. Peribolos 2 (8.65m x 5.55m) contained two pyres and two sarcophagi, much damaged. Tomb 4 (Fig. 5) produced a black-figure lekythos, a bronze mirror and an iron nail, while sarcophagus 7 contained an aryballoid lekythos, a stone alabastron and an iron nail. On the east side was a small offering box with tens of miniature vessels.