Activities in the Athenian Agora: 1955

Abstract

the area. The ancient roadway which ran past the south side of the market square was here explored over a length of 80 metres. This important thoroughfare, which followed a natural course from east to west at the foot of the Areopagus and Acropolis, came into prominence with the establishment of the Agora in the 6th century B.c.; it has been in use from that time to the present. On its north side, the road was bordered by a row of public buildings of the 6th and 5th centuries B.c., on the south by houses and small shops. Beneath the lowest road metal appeared the foundations of private houses dating from the 7th and early 6th centuries B.c. which had been demolished as the public square took shape and form. At a still lower level was encountered a thick deposit of the Late Helladic and Middle Helladic periods, the first actual deposit of the Bronze Age thus far found in the Agora proper or its immediate environs. Within the mass of accumulated road metal are two water conduits which served in turn the two principal fountain houses of the Agora. The earlier conduit (pl. 50, fig. i) consisted of round terracotta pipes approximately 0.6o m. long and 0.30 m. in outside diameter (presumably two and one ancient feet respectively). The sections are carefully secured to one another in the usual archaic manner by tongue-and-groove joints, and each section is provided with a lidded, round aperture so placed as to permit the workman in laying the pipes to reach in and seal the joint. The pipes are glazed on the interior. Some have ligatures painted on the exterior; others, of slightly different fabric, have the name Charon incised in the clay while still soft. The date suggested by the letter forms and by the stratigraphy related to the conduit is the last quarter of the 6th century B.c. This early pipeline, which approached the Agora from the east, presumably drew its water from some source outside the city. Its destination was the so-called Southeast Fountain House discovered in 1952 at the southeast corner of the market square (Hesperia 22 [19531 29-35). The confirmation thus given for the early date and the abundant water supply of that structure increase the probability that it was the fountain house referred to by Pausanias (1.14.1) as the Enneakrounos. About a century later, i.e. in the last quarter of the 5th century B.c., the terracotta conduit was replaced by a stone aqueduct (pl. 50, fig. 2) with floor, side walls and roof of massive blocks of soft gray poros. Its interior measures ca. 0.45 m. in width and ca. 1.20 m. in height, i.e. I i/2 x 4 feet. Since the new channel approaches from the same direction as the old, and at the same level, it presumably drew from the same source. After delivering some of its water to the Southeast Fountain House, the stone aqueduct continued to its principal destination, viz. the so-called Southwest Fountain House which came to light in 1934 at the southwest corner of the market square (Hesperia 24 [19551 5254). In view of the date and scale of this installation, it is tempting to recognize in it the aqueduct (agogj) of IG I2, 54 with the financing of which the sons and nephews of Perikles were concerned. Of particular interest among a number of wells of various periods which served the private establishments along the south side of the ancient street is one which was in use throughout the first six centuries of the Christian era with the exception of a brief blank period after the Herulian destruction of A.D. 267. The accumulated deposit in the well comprised great numbers of vases, especially water containers, lamps, glass vessels, household utensils, etc. in chronological sequence (pl. 50, fig. 3). One of the water pitchers, a globular jug 0.174 m. in height, of a type common in the late 4th and early 5th centuries after Christ, has incised on its shoulder the inscription r^7 IIapOE'vov surmounted by the Christian monogram; it was presumably the property of some nearby shrine of the Virgin. Three other ancient wells were encountered and explored this season at various points beneath the south part of the Stoa of Attalos. All three date from the archaic period. Taken in conjunction with several other wells of the same era cleared in previous years in this region, they point to intenive private habitation along the east border of the market square. The vast mass of pottery recovered from one of this group of wells in 1954 (Hesperia 24 [1955] 62-66) and the presence of distinctive potter's clay in one of those explored in 1955 suggest that the wells had served a potters' quarter