ANCIENT CORINTH - 2008

Anc. Corinth. G. Sanders (ASCSA) reports on continued excavation in the area S of the South Stoa where H. Robinson had revealed a complex of Med and post-Med houses in the early 1960s (Fig. 1).

Work concentrated on 7 rooms and the courtyard of a Byz house, in which successive beaten earth floors were removed to expose the foundation trenches of the original walls (Fig. 2). The house consists of 9 rooms and a central courtyard. Two rooms flank a corridor leading from the entrance on Lechaion Road South to the court. The remainder flank the courtyard. The complex was supplied with water from a well in the court. On the S side of the courtyard, a stair ascended to a veranda and upper storey over the SE 3 rooms. The house was built in the 2nd half of the 11th Ct and remained occupied for 2 centuries. In the 13th Ct, the W range of rooms was assimilated into a property standing to the W, while the E part of the house continued in independent use. Three spaces produced significant metal finds (Fig. 3). The SW room, a semi-basement, had an assemblage of Fr tools including a scythe, a knife, an axe-hammer and a spear point. Beneath the stair ascending to the 2nd storey were a Byz ladle or lamp, an adze-hammer and a keyhole plaque. Outside and to the NW was a dump of iron door fittings, including parts of lock mechanisms and keyhole plaques.