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In the area of the West Stoa, the northern part of which we had excavated in previous seasons, we exposed the rest of the building covering a surface area of ca. 900 m2. All this area was heavily disturbed mostly because of old, patchy and unsystematic excavations, so that before this year’s excavation the area presented a rather confusing sight. The foundation of the stylobate had for the most part been exposed since the 1930s, whereas our excavation of the north and much less disturbed side of the stoa established that the stoa had been dismantled already since Roman times. On account of the fact that the rest of the stoa was heavily disturbed and did not allow a stratigraphic approach, in the course of this year’s excavation we used a Bobcat machine so that digging by hand was limited to the level overlying the foundation, to rooms of the stoa where the use of machinery was not safe as well as to test trenches.
In order to have a basic spatial control of the finds we divided the area in four excavations units (Trenches 19.1-4, Fig. 2). From a stratigraphic point of view there was no marked difference among the four units, where we observed three distinct layers, the upper one of dark brown color and the lower one, more compact, of dark red color overlying bedrock. On the west side (Trenches 19.1 and 19.4) we also encountered, under top layer, a layer containing much rubble, which we suspect that originates from the destruction of Wall 3003 built of rubble and mortar. We found pottery scattered in the areas that were excavated, mostly in the two upper layers, without obvious concentrations, whereas the tile fragments were few and very worn.
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The pottery was mixed, with the earlier sherds dating to the Early Hellenistic period and the latest to the 7th cent. CE, whereas from the top layer we also recovered modern artifacts. We are obviously dealing with contaminated layers, because of various human actions (already since antiquity) in combination with the weathering of the soil. Very characteristic is Context 6502, one of the upper layers of the north section of Trench 19.2, where we found products from a ceramic workshop of the first half of the 7th century CE, similar to the ones that we found in the easternmost kiln of the ceramic workshops to the SE of the agora. This year’s examples, from specific types of stewpots, pitchers and lamps, cannot obviously originate from that kiln given its great distance (ca. 270 m), but from a kiln installed in the vicinity of the West Stoa, mis-fired products of which were tossed in Context 6502. Unfortunately, this year’s excavation failed to produce definite evidence for the date of erection of the West Stoa and its attribution to the early Hellenistic period continues to be based on typological characteristics and topographical considerations.
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The greatest gain from this year’s excavation was the uncovering of the remains of the Stoa throughout its length, which allowed us to make observations on its architecture and degree of preservation. The length of the Stoa, which extends on the N-S axis and has an eastern orientation, comes to 43.23 m. Its front is preserved at foundation level, and consists of a double line of ashlars, 1-1.20 m of average length and 0.8 m wide. The façade features two, slightly projecting wings (by 1.2 m) at its two ends, each 6.9 m long. The wings are also preserved at foundation level but have one line of ashlar blocks, 0.8-0.9 m wide. The calculation of the width of the stoa is not obvious, as we are not absolutely certain about its west side. If we assume that Wall 3066, which can be discerned under the later Wall 3003 over a length of 17 m, is indeed the back wall of the stoa, then its width comes to 21.3 m.
In this case, the stoa is divided across its width in three parts, with two walls oriented N-S. The eastern wall (Context 4503), 42 m long and 0.7 m in average width, is built with ashlars 1 – 1.2 m of average length and 0.7 m wide. The wall is preserved for the most part at foundation level except for its central section which is preserved at the level of the floor of the stoa. The western wall (Context 4502) is preserved to a length of 24.9 m, and is built with stone blocks 0.4-0.6 m wide. The eastern part of the stoa, 6 m wide, had a colonnade along its front, possibly of Doric order. A number of cross-walls separated the central and western part of the stoa in rooms of various sizes, from just 4.8 m2 for Room 8 to 74 m2 for Room 3 (the room with the well). These cross-walls are, as a rule, thinner than the eastern (Context 4503) and western (Context 4502) walls, with an average width of 0.4 m, and their points of contact show that they were built after the eastern and western walls. We identified 12 rooms, of which the one centrally located (Room 7) preserves the foundation of a curvilinear exedra, 10 m long and 2-2.2 m wide (Fig. 3). The foundation (Context 6506) consists of 3 rows of stone blocks, whereas another block (Context 6508) connects the center of the curve to the western wall of the room (Context 4502). A logical assumption is that the foundation supported the base of a sculptural group. Directly south of the room with the exedra, excavation in Room 12 revealed a clearly defined layer of compact rubble (Context 6529) running NW-SE, over a length of 8.30 m. This layer is 1.5 m wide and ca. 15 cm thick, and clearly antedates the walls of the stoa which cut through it. A longer segment of the same layer had been found in a trench to the west of the stoa but there too we were unable to confirm its purpose or date. A small test trench that we opened this year directly to the south of this layer (Context 6530), within Room 12, failed to produce diagnostic finds. The characteristics of this layer and its linear course befit a path, perhaps built prior to the refoundation of the city by Demetrios Poliorketes.
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In the south part of the stoa no cross-walls defining rooms are preserved and even the south wall of the stoa (Context 6524) preserves only three of its stone blocks. Small test trenches that we opened directly to the west of the preserved section of Wall 6524 (Contexts 6523, 6527) did not reveal the continuation of the wall, which betrays the extent of stone looting and the level of dilapidation of the monument.
Near the south limit of the trench we exposed part of a wall (Context 6522) of different masonry and orientation, the purpose of which is still unclear. In the same area, during removal of the excavation heap, two architectural members were discovered, both of fine limestone, that seem to come from the same monument. One is an ashlar block and the other is a triglyph-metope block (AF_NW013) which sits on a level lower than the foundation level of the West Stoa (Fig. 4). How these two blocks ended up here and what is their relation to the West Stoa if any remain to be clarified but based on the characteristics of the triglyph-metope block it is probably of pre-Hellenistic date.
