Kerameikos - 2023

Athens - Kerameikos. Jutta Stroszeck (DAI) reports on the 2023 season of research at Kerameikos.

Work this year focused on the south of the Sacred Road in an attempt to uderstand the interconnection of various components of hydraulic infrastructure at this location, their interpretation, and how the city of Athens utilized this area (Fig. 1). The team searched for a mosaic floor mentioned by Stefanos Koumanoudis in 1879, and tried to answer questions about its production, technique, and architectural context. It is a pebble mosaic floor (2.31 × 3.40 m), consisting of white, black and brown pebbles, whose ground level is dated to the 4th century BC, and which can also be dated to this period based on its technique (Fig. 2). The mosaic is severely damaged today and only the depiction of a single fish and a cuttlefish are still clearly recognizable in the nucleus on the west side of the base. Koumanoudis in his report in Praktika (1880) mentions depicted 13 fish and mollusks.