Anc. THOURIA - 2008

Anc. Thouria. E. Greco (Director, SAIA) and P. Arapogianni (Director, ΛΗ' ΕΠΚΑ) report on a further season of research at Ellenika, anc. Thouria, focused on a sector of the anc. city located on the northernmost hill.
Three trenches were opened immediately behind the longest and best preserved stretch of the inner circuit of the city’s fortification wall. The aim was to define more precisely the chronology of the wall, which is generally dated to the 4th Ct BC, and to reconstruct the structure and confirm the existence of an inner curtain wall. Significant results are noted from trenches 1 and 2.
In trench 1 (close to the top of the wall) there was a marked difference in findings between the N and S parts of the trench. In the S was a vault, which had been partially removed in mod. times; on the top of it, roughly worked limestone blocks were placed between, but not joined to, the arch centre. Over this lay a compact greyish stratum with lenses of burning, within which were LCl−Hel sherds and a Cor coin of the E Imperial period.
Trench 2 was placed at the foot of the curtain wall in order to confirm the relationship with the layers of fill present and the rock beneath. Over the entire area, a uniform stratum of rather soft clay lay directly upon the rock on which the wall was founded. In the northernmost area there emerged collapsed material which probably relates to the supports and wall super-structure; underneath it, a stratum probably formed in mod. times consisted almost exclusively of pieces of brick.