POROS Kalaureia - 2007

Kalaureia. B. Wells and A. Penttinen (Swedish Institute) report on the first season of the research programme, ‘The Sea, the City and the God’, at the Sanctuary of Poseidon. Objectives are: to define the extent of the sanctuary and its relationship to the polis; to study the local cults through archaeological material; to investigate the relationship of contemporary local residents to the archaeological remains and their perception of archaeologists.
Two excavation areas were selected on the basis of geophysical survey conducted in 2004 and 2006: area I, close to the entrance to the site and S of building D (which had previously yielded a wealth of cult material); and area H, SE of the Temple of Poseidon.
Area I yielded a large building complex, of which 4 rooms/spaces were partly investigated. Two architectural phases may be dated to the 2nd and 1st Cts BC. The collapse of roof tiles indicates ERom abandonment and subsequent slow disintegration. Objects found in the rooms hint at their function. In a room in the SW, 5 coins were found together with 2 bronze fish hooks and a number of lead sinkers from fishing nets. Broken pottery in a small compartment in one corner may have fallen from shelves. The room may have been a fish shop or a tavern. A 2nd room was used for food preparation; a grill was built in one corner, with a pit full of ash and broken cooking pots in front of it. A further room may have been a store; large fragments of jars were found together with ash and charred olive pips. The northernmost space, probably a courtyard, has yielded pottery indicative of earlier activity. It is on a level with the EIA L remains found beneath building D: an EGeo II amphora neck points to earlier presence in the area.
In area H, a large level area was created during the 2nd Ct BC, with a circuit wall similar to that surrounding the temple area but of smaller dimensions. The area’s function is unclear. A LBA bronze Reshef figurine (Fig. 1) was found in the levelling fill for the peribolos: its presence in a context dating a millenium later requires further investigation. In the SE part of area H, 3 unfluted column drums, at 1.07m di. too big to form part of any known building in the sanctuary, are likely the remains of a votive column of the end of the 6th Ct BC. Two large blocks of hard dark grey limestone with mouldings and a large block of soft marl were found in the same area but some distance from each other. The dark grey blocks belong to the same monument, but all 3 pieces were probably removed for reuse in mod. buildings in the Kalaureia area.
Underneath the fill for the peribolos was a cultural layer of the L8th Ct BC. EIA L pottery stratified on bedrock all over the area investigated indicated extensive activity. The 8th Ct was undoubtedly an important period in Kalaureia’s history, when the sanctuary was prominent in the Saronic Gulf area.