TEGEA - Palaia Episkopi - 2010

Tegea, Palaia Episkopi. A.-V. Karapanagiotou (ΛΘ' ΕΠΚΑ), D. Athanasoulis (25th EBA) and K. Ødegård (Norwegian Institute at Athens) report on the third campaign of excavation in 2010.

The most recent documented feature was a flood channel which ran south to north across the site: flooding had in the past seriously disturbed the stratigraphy. The flood layer deepened towards the north of the excavation area, and the bottom had not been reached at a depth of 1m. The stream fill contained pottery, tile and stones probably redeposited from nearby house structures. A post-Byzantine date for the stream is probable as it had over time demolished part of a Late Byzantine wall.

A number of Byzantine wall bases were uncovered: these simple, narrow constructions of rough irregularly sized stones are interpreted as foundations for mud-brick-walls. Finds connected to walls in square D17 suggest that the walls were in use in the 12^th and possibly into the 13^th century, and thus represent the last building phases recorded at Tegea. The walls have the same orientation as the presumed city plan, based on the Norwegian magnetometer survey from 2003-2006. The main axis of the ancient city was thus respected in later periods, including the final phases of Byzantine settlement.

A tile-covered surface partly excavated in 2009 and thought to represent
the last paved phase of the agora, was reinterpreted as a road surface since it is less extensive then first assumed. The corner of a larger structure built of rough stone blocks runs parallel to this road. This building was probably abandoned in the 12^th century, and the road might therefore be contemporary with, and connected to, the Basilica of Thyrsos.

A solid, concrete-like floor and a rough north-south wall discovered in the northernmost part of the excavation area in 2009 were further explored. The entire floor was uncovered, together with another wall running east-west which perhaps connected to the north-south wall further east. Pottery from contexts immediately above the concrete floor and connected to the structure (mostly small storage vessels and larger jugs and jars) indicates a Late Roman/Early Byzantine date (from the end of the fourth to the beginning of the fifth century). The concrete floor is likely earlier, perhaps Hellenistic. It was reused in the Byzantine period when the north-south wall was laid across it. To the east of the wall lay an almost square area of soil with pieces of charcoal and several whole vessels, including a Megarian bowl and terra sigillata which date the context to the first century BC. The character of the finds in this area indicates that this floor was in use in the first century BC but was not reused thereafter, unlike the concrete floor to the west.

A trial trench (5 x 10m) opened in the far north part of the field revealed no building remains. However, many cuts and fills may in part be the result of industrial activity (noting remains of charcoal and layers of clayey silt). The area may have been a clay pit for the production of tiles or pottery. Most of the pottery from this area is Roman, including several Corinthian lamp fragments of the second to third centuries AD.