Isthmia - 2024

Jon Frey (Michigan State University) reports on the first of the two seasons to survey various parts of the site at Isthmia.

Survey of a small plot of land at the intersection of the road to New Corinth and the road to Hexamilia, located 0.7 km southwest of the museum revealed at least five distinct anomalies, which may represent graves at the out limits of the area excavated in 1968-1970 as the West Cemetery. More extensive survey in the area to the east of the temple temenos, in the area known as the East Field, showed a cluster of structures, resembling the remains of walls that meet at right angles along E-W and N-S axes, indicating a possible presence of rooms. These structures are evident at 1.15m below the surface, which seems to corelate well with the excavated features in this area. The absence of other features at a similar depth to the north and south of these anomalies may be due to the presence of routes of passage through the site in the area to the south of the cavea of the theater. Finally, survey to the south and east of the Roman bath also yielded indicators suggestive of buried architectural features. To the south of the eastern rooms of the bath anomalies that are oriented north-south and east-west may represent the eastern continuation of a possible courtyard that is known on its western and southern sides.  More intriguing still, exploration of the area to the east of Rooms VII and XII revealed an unexpectedly dense cluster of anomalies that cannot be explained at the present moment. This will likely be the location of limited excavation to take place next season.