ATHENS - Kolonos - 2003

General Information

Record ID

2187

Activity Date

2003

Chronologies

Antiquity - Classical

Key-words

Pipe/drain - Tomb - Hydraulic installation - Cemetery

Type of Operation

Excavation - Rescue excavation

Institution

Γ' Εφορεία Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων (Γ' ΕΠΚΑ)

Localisation

Toponym
Académie de Platon, Academy of Plato

Linked Record

2003

Report

132 Liosion Street. E. Baziotopoulou-Valavani (Γ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports on continued excavation in an area where a cylindrical marble box containing a late fifth-century kalpis had previously been found. Tombs, offering deposits, a funerary structure and a channel date from the mid fifth until the end of the fourth century BC (Fig. 1).

Nineteen graves, three pyres, and part of an offering trench were uncovered. The tombs were in two clusters in the south and north parts of the plot. Following the original excavation, six of the graves in the south cluster (1,15-19) were destroyed by drainage work: the others were mostly without goods. Graves 1, 13, 17, and 18, cists of limestone slabs, contained sherds of white-ground and aryballoid lekythoi. Graves 2 and 19 were child burials in larnakes. The remaining graves in this cluster produced tile, bones, and sherds of the second half of the fifth century. Of the three pyres in the same area, two contained sherds of skyphoi, and red-figure and white-ground lekythoi of the third quarter of the fifth century.

The 9m-long offering trench, which dates ca. 430-420 BC, contained sherds of white-ground and aryballoid lekythoi in a layer of ash.

The northern cluster of tombs consisted of a series of tile graves oriented east-west. Three of these graves each contained a single aryballoid lekythos and are dated to the end of the fifth century, while grave 8 dates to the third quarter of that century.

Immediately southeast of the northern cluster of graves lay the foundation of a rectangular structure built in two phases. In the first, the structure was Π-shaped with walls to the west, north, and south, while on the outer side of the west wall, a square (sides 1.6m) delineated by irregular small stones was probably the base of a platform. In the second phase, an east wall completed the rectangle, and a small wall of river stones was erected in contact with the west wall. A few fourth-century sherds and fragments of Laconian roof tile were collected.

East of the southern tomb cluster, two pits (the larger elliptical and the smaller almost circular, 1-1.1m in diameter) contained sherds of mostly undecorated household vessels. Pit 1 contained a large quantity of undecorated fourth-century BC pottery (chytres, amphorae, plates, phialae, prochoes) but also black-glazed skyphoi, phialae, lekythoi, lamps, and plates, and a number of (mostly pyramidal) loom weights. The pit seems to have held pottery discarded from a nearby house and is unconnected with the cemetery (or a potter’s workshop). Pit 2 contained a few sherds, mostly unpainted but with some black-glaze of the first half of the fourth century.

A terracotta channel (34m long) inset into bedrock was found at the southern edge of the property. It contained a few undecorated fourth-century sherds.

Author

Robert PITT

Bibliographic reference(s)

AD 56-59 (2001-2004) Chr., 251-253.