Pistiros - Season 2008  

The excavations were running from August 4 to August 22. Besides Jan Bouzek and Jiří Musil, six students of the Institute for Classical Archaeology, Charles University (Bc. Barbora Weissová, Bc. Stanislava Kučová, Pavla Mašková, Petra Tušlová, Marcela Mačková, Marian Matys, Anna Bouzková) and Martin Trefný, PhD, from City Museum Roudnice, participated.

All excavations and cleanings were conducted in the Square B 11.

The profiles on both sides of the new trench B 11 NW were drawn and photographed` two usual upper destruction levels were also found here, the upper of 279/8 and the lower dating from the end of the 3rd century B.C. As we did not descend deeper here, the traces of earlier occupation have not yet been revealed.

B11 NW

Three small soundings were executed in the SW part of Square B 11 into the southern branch of the main canal, to clear the system of it and its bottom, also in hope that it would help us to date the end of its functioning. The canal [7501] had at least two successive bottoms, (or, more probably three?); the upper consisting of stones, the lowest of some kind of hard clay resembling macadam. In the central of the three soundings five coins were found, some of them inside some highly corroded iron object, perhaps representing remains of a kind of closing of a bag or purse. Besides these, some fragments of very thin bronze wire items, which may have come from some decoration of a textile or leather object. Of the coins cleaned so far one of silver is of the city of Damastion, the second of bronze of Thracian Chersonesus, both dating from the second half of the 4th century B.C. Even the newly cleaned sections of the canal confirm that it was repaired several times, and the stones framing it raised with the road after the floods. It was probably not functioning fully after the late 3rd century destruction.

B 11 NE

In the NE part of Square B 11 the last destruction debris deriving from the Celtic attack (mainly originated from the city wall lower fill) was drawn and dismantled [8006], and the narrow drain coming from the SW corner of the Eastern Gate [8009] cleaned; it is much higher than the main canal and was constructed mainly of river stones.. It starts in the NW corner of the Eastern Gate inner tower and is much more rapidly sloping towards SES (descending ca 10 cm in 1 m). It follows the paved pathway west of it and may either be part of its final construction, or it was later added to the existing paved pathway. It could lead the water from the corner of the roof of the gate and may represent a late replacement of the earlier canal system, which probably was not well functioning after 300 B.C., as covered by the ruins in the area under excavations of this year.

Another small sounding was done inside the SW corner of the Eastern Gate Tower [8012] upper, [8013] lower part. It was filled with clay and no paving was found below, so either it was dismantled when constructing the upper floor, or the upper floor was the original level of the arrangement for the guard or alike here.

B 11 SE

In the SE sector of the square excavations [8001] started in order to clean the missing area of the southern branch of the main canal. First the top layers consisting mainly of the mud bricks used for the upper part of the city wall were dismantled. The uppermost layers yielded relatively large number of intrusions of Late Roman pottery (more than ten items), mainly Brittle Ware cooking pots and similar shapes, decorated with horizontal grooves and wavy-line, and also one sherd with imprints of comb. The may well be traces of the looting of the ruins for good dressed stones reused in the Roman station Bona Mansio.

The Roman items were found mainly in the first and second mechanical layer, though the last lot came in the IVth spit [all still 8001], and the last fragment in the Vth spit [Complex 8002]. Of the deposits mainly deriving from the Celtic destruction of 279/8 much household pottery was found, among them interesting fragments with in various ways decorated ribs and plastic bands, some of them combined into complicated patterns (semicircles, wavy/lines, zigzag, etc.), and with rich variety of imprints in the plastic bands, mainly done by spatula and only in few cases by fingerprints. Small fragments of amphorae came here in secondary position; they are much worn, as are the rare fragments of Grey Ware, while one Attic Early West Slope fragment came as addition to the very limited number of sherds of the same category known from earlier seasons which arrived here around or shortly after 300 B.C.

Spit VI [8002] consisting mainly of debris of the previous destruction dating from the end of 4th century B.C. yielded good complex of the last phase of Grey Ware in the “baroque” style with many ridges and ribs, grooves and wavy lines, and a few fragments of Attic pottery of the last third of the 4th century approximately, together with toes and handles of amphorae and also Brown Ware fish plates and the “tea kettle” fragments.

The paving and the uppermost part of the southern branch of the canal was cleaned here. It is interesting that while the previous part was sloping only less than 2 cm per one meter, here it turned to more sharply sloping section. It is clear now that the canal turns more eastwards to join the following section of the main southern canal excavated by M. Domaradzki in early nineties of the last century. Here also the upper part of the debris dating from the Celtic invasion was dismantled, as it was in the NE sector (see below). Among the non-ceramic finds from this area one marble stone of the same material as were the “metopes” published in Pistiros III deserves to be mentioned. The paved pathway along the canal follows here the same direction as in B 11 NE and NW, but it also slopes more downwards.

The main canal had two courses here, the main one following the direction towards what was found by M. Domaradzki; remains of the upper drain were also found here. The most important find uncovered here was a relief of a lion, lying on its plaque, but made separately in free outline. It came from the late 4th century destruction layer [8010]. Another coin was also found at this level, more to the south [8010].

AV II surface survey

Besides the main program, following the invitation of the director of the Septemvri Archaeological museum, we conducted a small surface survey at the site of Adzijska Vodenitsa II in addition to our previous excavations of this sector of the city (cf. Pistiros II). On the newly cultivated land (after a long pause in which it was laid unworked) lying west of the excavated sector a number of sherds and fragments of tile and daub were collected from the field after the new ploughing. The most significant concentration of fragments of pottery and tiles was ca. 25-30 m WNW from our Oikos 2 of Adžijska Vodenica II extramural site and another smaller roughly 20- 25 m N of the same Oikos 2 of AV II. The most interesting items of the lot collected here are: one Attic Black/Glazed sherd, another of North Greek Grey Ware bowl (cf. Pistiros 2), both dating from the second half of the 4th century B.C. Less apparent concentration of sherds was also ascertained between the two spots measured. As our Oikos 1 excavated here was preserved only in modest remains in very this layer (20 to 30 cm), there is not much hope that more significant traces of the dwellings can be uncovered here, as this area was also lowered at the time of collectivisation in early sixties of the last century.

More to the south from AV II, just south of the margins of the supposed territory of the emporion, Maritsa created this winter a new meander and cut away a piece of land here. From the earth fallen downwards into the river bed some 4-5 m below the new terrace the workers of our team found eleven fragments of Corinthian pan-tiles with rib, 14 fragments of Laconian kalypters and three fragments of bricks. The ribs of the Corinthian pan-tiles are of sharper quadratic section than those used in Pistiros, but the whole lot is apparently of pre-Roman date. Nothing more has been revealed here since, but this new site deserves attention. The first impression is that the tiles may date from the Hellenistic period, i.e. be later than Pistiros Adjiiska Vodenica I-II sites.

Authors: Jan Bouzek, Jiří Musil

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