ZOMINTHOS - 2014

Zominthos. E. Sapouna Sakellaraki (ASA) reports on continuing excavation in the Central Building (Fig. 1,2).

In the paved corridor 21 were found floor slabs from the upper floor as well as plaster fragments with polychrome decoration; similar fragments were found between rooms 8 and 9. The long (25 m) paved corridor 10 (Fig. 3) was found during excavation to be full of wooden beams and schist slabs from the upper floor. A steatite seal with an image of a bird-headed, winged female figure (Fig. 4) and a bronze double axe were recovered here.

Investigation of room 41 was completed and the following were found there: ceramics of the floral style, a portable hearth with incised decoration (Fig. 5), an alabastron, loomweights, stone tools and a fragment of triton shell. Finds from the adjacent room 42, paved with a column base, included conical cups and juglets, part of a kernos and an elaborate stone lamp.

Space 35 was revealed for the first time and preserved a staircase leading to the first floor. The space was notable for its careful construction and the finds, which included a lentoid bowl for heating water (pyriatirion).

Rooms 26 and 53 seem to have formed a unit, with 2 columns in the middle and a stone bench. In the E wall was a crypt which held a bronze tool, a pyxis lid and a bronze vessel for sprinkling liquid (according to Evans).

Room 11 was rich in small-finds, notably concentrations of jugs on piles of charcoal in 3 corners of the room.

Work also began in rooms 19 and 57, corridor 18 and the kiln just beyond the central building’s NW corner. Found in 1990, this structure appears to be a ceramic kiln, dated to MM I on the basis of a vessel found outside it.