Southeast of the Agora
2024 season
Research in the area to the southeast of the Agora started with geophysical prospection and continues with excavation.
Geophysical prospection
The agora of Ancient Sikyon with the areas of this year’s investigations
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The investigation of the new field to the SE of the agora (Area A) and of its adjacent section towards the north (Area B) with geophysical methods (magnetic and electromagnetic) covered a total area of 3,230 m2 (grey-shaded in figure). The instruments used are a Bartington G601 Fluxgate Gradiometer able to detect targets up to a depth of 2 m and a Ground Penetrating Radar Noggin Plus-Smart Cart (Sensors&Software) with an antenna of 250 MHz and penetration capacity up to 4 m. Measurements were taken along parallel lines set 0.50 m apart. Magnetic prospection revealed subsurface features over a large area, oriented along the cardinal points. These results are complemented by the readings produced by the GPR which identified structures at a depth from ca. 0.70 to 1.80 m. A sturdy wall is easily identified running along the north side of Area A over a length of ca. 65 m. Manifestly it is the continuation of a wall that we excavated further to the west and which defines a street of E-W orientation. On the eastern half of Area A we also distinguish a building complex, ca. 28 m long, with a series of rooms along its north side. The building traces seen to its south and partly overlapping it likely belong to a separate building, remains of which can be seen also on the ground surface. It is a small part of a wall, made of tiles and mortar, suggestive of its dating to the Roman period. More structures were detected in the Area B, that is to the north of the street, among which a wall of N-S orientation which belongs to the eastern retaining wall of a street that we excavated further to the north. By processing the results of the magnetic prospection, we took notice of the presence of magnetic hot-spots. The hot-spots that had been detected during the geophysical prospection of the area of the ceramic workshops were similar with regard to their intensity and dimensions. Their excavation showed that they correspond to the combustion chambers of the ceramic kilns. It is therefore very likely that in this area as well ceramic workshops were planted, perhaps at a later date.
The results of the magnetic prospection in the new field to the SE of the agora
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The results of the prospection with the GPR for the depth of 1.10-1.20 m.
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The results of the magnetic survey with the hot-spots marked with red dots (Sarris 2024)
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Excavation of Trench 21
To the southeast of the agora, where Sikyon excavation will concentrate exclusively from next year onwards, we continued to explore the industrial installations towards the east, by opening a trench 5 x 11 m, adjacent to Trench 16 that we had dug in 2017. We divided the new trench (Trench 21) in two squares (21.1 and 21.2), each measuring 5 x 5.5 m. Having dug the top soil (Contexts 7000 and 7002) we came upon the upper surface of Walls 1526, 5021 and 5022, that divided the trench in 3 sections, each of which was dug separately: the north section, between Walls 1526 and 5021, the middle section, between Walls 5021 and 5022, and the south section, between Wall 5022 and the southern limit of the trench. All three walls are a continuation of those that we had excavated in trenches to the west of the new trench. The northern wall (Context 1526) is built with ashlars 0.4 m wide, and had been identified as the northern wall of a sizeable and oblong building and as the southern limit of a street. Wall 5021, 0.4 m wide, is casually constructed, with spolia, irregular stones, tile fragments and mortar. It has an opening on its eastern side, 0.9 m wide, which allowed access to the space to its north. Wall 5022 is built almost entirely out of spolia with irregular stones filling the gaps, and preserves the low part of a regular doorway, 0.90 m wide, with stone jambs and a stone threshold. Excavation in the space between the two walls (Contexts 7008, 7009, 7015), which though has not yet reached floor level, as well as to the south of Wall 5022 (Context 7014) recovered many discarded architectural members along with irregular stones, which suggests that this was a place of concentration of architectural members that were intended for calcination, perhaps in the lime kiln (Context 5056) of Trench 16. In these deposits, with ceramic material that dates down to the 7th century CE we also found 17 coins of various periods. The earliest are Sikyonian issues of the first half of the 2nd century BCE, but the majority date from the reigns of Septimius Severus and Commodus (late 2nd century CE) and mostly from the period of emperor Constantius II (mid-4th century CE). The architectural members that we recorded from here include many fragments of columns and semi-columns, one capital of a double Ionic anta, a fragment of a corner triglyph and the marble leg of a table with relief decoration.
Orthophoto of Trench 21 after the completion of the 2024 season and of part of Trench 16 that we had dug in 2017.
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Trench 21 looking north with its two cross-walls. The inscribed stone is marked with an I
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The northern section of Trench 21 looking west
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In the northern section of Trench 21, between Walls 1526 and 5021, under top layers (Contexts 7001, 7006) we came upon dump deposits (Contexts 7012, 7013, 7016) with pottery of the Late Roman period and seven coins, of which three date from the reign of Septimius Severus and at least two from the 4th century CE. Under this fill, an olive-press installation came to light that includes a stone basin set in a built bench (Context 7019) at the NE corner, and a large, almost square stone (Context 7020) to the west of the basin. The limestone basin has a diameter of 0.70 m. Its interior features grooves radiating from the center and has a concave channel around the edge, 5-8 cm deep, which leads to a protruding spout manifestly for the runoff of the juice. A vessel would have been no doubt placed under the spout to collect the juice, but no traces of it has been found yet as we have not yet reached floor level in this room. The surface of the square stone block (Context 7020) lies almost 0.40 m higher than the surface of the stone basin. The purpose of this stone and how it was involved in the olive-making process is still to be determined. It is possible that this is where crushing of the olive pits took place, perhaps with the use of a simple, cylindrical stone crusher. In addition, at the SW corner of the room, we found one of the two millstones (orbes) that were once fastened to the middle of the large saucer (mortarium) of an olive-mill, placed against the vertical side of Wall 5021. Obviously, the millstone of our trench is in secondary use and none of the other apparatus of the olive-mill has been found yet. We hope that with the continuation of the excavation here at least some of our questions will find an answer.
A rather unexpected find of this year’s excavation in this trench is an inscribed limestone block reused upside down in Wall 5022, directly to the east of the eastern jamb of the door. Inscriptions from Sikyon are rare and this is just the second fragmentary inscription that we find since the beginning of our excavations in 2013. The preserved dimensions of the stone are 0.60 m (Length) x 0.468 m (Width) x 0.345 m (Height) and has a rectangular cutting, 0.25 x 0.22 x 0.12 (Depth) m. The preserved length of the inscription, which is written on the south face of the stone, is 0.54 m, the height of the letters is 8.5 cm and the distance between them is 9 cm. Four letters are clearly visible and traces of a fifth one:
[---] ΤΟΗΡẠ [---]
On the basis of the letter forms and the Ρ with serif the inscription should date from the Hellenistic period, possibly from the 3rd or 2nd century BCE. The restoration of the inscription on the basis of the preserved letters is difficult if not impossible. One possibility is that we are dealing with a dedicatory inscription: [... ἀνέθεσεν] τὸ ΗΡΑ […]. The dedicatee could have been a sanctuary, to Hera or to Herakles, and in such case one could restore it as follows: [--- ἀνέθεσεν] τὸ Ὴρα[ῖον] or [--- ἀνέθεσεν] τὸ Ὴρα[κλεῖον]. Pausanias mentions a sanctuary of Herakles in Sikyon (2.10.1) but without specifying where this stood in relation to the agora of the city.
