ATHENS-Hill of the Nymphs - 2010

Hill of the Nymphs, Akamantos 29 (property of E. Zarkadoula). Olga Dakoura-Vogiatzolgou (Α’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports on the discovery of a Hellenistic piriform cistern and adjacent shafts (Figs.1, 2). All these hydraulic installations were rock-cut on the soft limestone bedrock and further supported structurally with rubble walls. A skeleton was dug from inside the cistern. The layer containing the human remains is dated to the 2^nd-3^rd c. A.D. It therefore appears that the dead person was placed there after the cistern had fallen out of use. In addition, a pi-shaped drain and a sewage tank were found (Fig. 3). The latter date to the 1^st c. B.C. - 1^st c. A.D. This area appears to have been continuously inhabited from the Hellenistic until the Late Roman periods.

Finds from the area include pottery sherds, roof-tiles, glass sherds, slags, fragments from lamps, bronze artefacts, 10 bronze coins, nails, loom weights, 14 fragments from Archaic terracotta figurines, 4 bone pins, a bone spoon, an artefact made of agate, part of a marble grindstone, a marble figurine missing its head, and an intact miniature vessel.