We subsequently moved to the Southern Plateau, which was less covered in 2004.
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We investigated more of the ceramic workshop area that we had spotted in 2004 and have probably found its boundaries.
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Ceramic wasters were found in many tracts (SP4, 6, 10, 14-18, 20, 22, 24, 26) over an area of 3 ha. The pottery counted in the center of the ceramic industry, which is in Tracts 16 and 17, reaches 2,000 sherds per square (that is 5 sherds/m2), whereas other tracts of the southern plateau average 600-800 sherds per square (1.5-2 sherds/m2). Among the hundreds of overfired and misfired sherds that we have collected, at least 198 are diagnostic pieces. Their preliminary study showed that their majority belong to transport amphoras, and the rest to plain and cook wares. A good number of the amphora sherds belong to the Dressel 1B type which was widespread in the late 2nd and 1st century BCE. This is also the period of abandonment of Corinth (after its destruction by L. Mummius in 146 BCE and before its re-foundation as a colony in 44 BCE).
Other classes of artifacts recovered from this area in the 2005 season include rooftiles (mostly glazed or unglazed Laconian), loomweights, lamp fragments, and stone grinders, as well as eight coins, seven bronze and one silver, six of the Hellenistic period, one of Roman Imperial, and one of Early Byzantine date.
Architectural blocks, most of them scattered and few in situ, were found in most tracts, and many of them are being used by the modern inhabitants in order to fill in ancient wells. Some of the blocks have traces of anathyrosis, while others belong to thresholds and door lintels.
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Among the hundreds of fragments, we can single out a capital of a double Ionic half-column, 0.44 m wide, found in SP19.5. The capital resembles the ones found by Orlandos in the palaestra complex of the ancient agora.
In two adjacent tracts (SP12.7 and 13.26) we found two cylindrical wells, 0.77 m and 0.85 m wide, and approximately 7 m deep. We were able to investigate the interior of one of them down to the bottom. It is bottle-shaped and has cuttings carved on its cylindrical part that serve as a ladder for inspection and maintenance.
In the same tract we found two fragments of a wellhead with light grooves on the inner side for ropes.
From several in situ walls that we recorded in the Southern Plateau, especially important is the one traced for 25 m in adjacent squares SP13.33 and 13.34, and oriented east-west, because it most likely defines part of a city-block. A second wall, 15 m long and of north-south orientation, was found in adjacent squares SP 19.3-5. Together with the other architectural remains recorded and mapped so far, they confirm the orientation of the urban grid along the cardinal points.
