Agia Paraskevi
of Arachamitai

• Introduction

• Reports

2014

Courtyard Building

AGIA PARASKEVI OF ARACHAMITAI

Report of work conducted in 2014

The South Wing

This year work was continued in the southern wing only in Room 6A, where work had begun already in 2013. The room had in its last phase a floor made of stamped soil and a fireplace in the centre. The floor layer and the cultural layer on top of it contained large amounts of pottery and coins (including a silver coin hoard in a small jug), on the basis of which we could date the last phase of use to the first century BC. Below the uppermost floor level we found a thin second cultural layer and a second, older stamped soil floor level, which we only managed to begin to excavate.

In 2014 we removed the second floor level, below which we uncovered a rich third cultural layer. During this first phase of use of Room 6A there was no fire place in the room and the room probably also included what later was made into Room 6B. Instead there was along the middle of the west wall a low bench or offering table (?). There was also an offering pit or bothros in the southwest corner of the room. The bothros contained large amounts of figurines, lamps, and pottery, all dating to approximately between 325 and 275 BC. Some of the vases which include a miniature vessel, kantharoi, guttui, one-handlers and a whole series of round-mouthed juglets, were preserved nearly intact and were placed upside down in the bothros. A Phoenician glass bead in the shape of a male head and a bronze figurine in the shape of a ram belong to the more spectacular finds from the bothros and the third cultural layer.

The finds from the third cultural layer of Room 6A are similar in character and date to those of the bothros, which must have been dug and filled during the construction of this first phase of use of the room as the bothros partly continues below the foundations of the southern long wall of the courtyard building. Two coins were found in between the two stone layers of the small bench or offering table, where they obviously had been placed in connection with its construction. One of the coins is struck in Athens 350-300 BC, whereas the second one in Elis 340-330 BC.

Room 6A was during its first phase of use between ca 325 and 275 BC clearly connected with cult activity. A more detailed study of the very clear stratigraphy of this room will give us valuable information concerning the local pottery chronology but also clarify the function of the room during its last phase of use.

The Courtyard Building

The Temple/Altar