KLEONAI - 2011

Kleonai. K. Kissas (Director, ΛΖ’ ΕΠΚΑ) and T. Mattern (Trier/DAI) report on the 2011 excavation season.

In the Agora (Fig. 1), a basilica was located in the northwest, adjacent to an open square, and in the south an open area extended to the city wall. After the destruction of the basilica, a chapel was built inside the side aisle, the colonnade in the nave closed in with low wall to create a courtyard with a small structure (perhaps a monastery) in the northeast. The whole area seems to have been abandoned before 700 AD (the inhabitants may have moved to the acropolis).

Earlier construction on the site of the basilica was explored. A late imperial apsidal building may be a church, and Classical-Hellenistic buildings a sanctuary. Another Classical-Hellenistic building northeast of the basilica may have been a stoa (Fig. 2): it defines the northern boundary of a street whose levels range from the Classical to Late Roman periods (Fig. 3). The length is not yet determined, but its orientation determined that of later phases, including the basilica. Another road probably ran to the east of the excavation area from the city gate in the south to the north, between the hills of the city. On the southwestern border of the excavation area, several well-preserved blocks of free-standing exedrae were exposed until 2006 (a further inscription was found in 2010 and more blocks were salvaged in 2011). These were re-used in the construction of the basilica, probably reflecting their original location. Three large exedrae can so far be reconstructed (Fig. 3), some bearing inscribed decrees. Although an attempt was made to erase the texts, they remain legible in part. In Roman imperial times one of the exedrae was used for an honorific statue of an emperor, but this inscription was erased perhaps in an act of damnatio memoriae.

In the Classical- Hellenistic building in the northeast, the destruction layer contained painted wall plaster. Both decorative fields and separator lines in different colours could be discerned.