545-557

The excavations of inspectorate XVI in Diikitiriou square

• Τασιά, Αναστασία
• Λόλα, Ζωή
• Μπαχλάς, Βησσαρίων (Άρης)
• Στάγκος, Αντρέας

Within the historic centre of Thessaloniki, to the west of the Roman Forum and a stone’s throw from the area in which the sanctuaries of the city have come to light, Diikitiriou Square is today Thessaloniki’s third-largest archaeo­ logical site.The work done to date by our Ephorate has resulted in the discovery of an insula of Hellenistic and Roman Thessaloniki extending to the east of a Roman street with a width of 6 metres. Almost all the area of the insula is occupied by a public building consisting of rooms arranged around a peristyle courtyard measuring 24x12 metres. The building was founded in the 1st century BC and stood for approximately 150 years.The numerous portable findings in the destruction stratum and the frag­ ments of wall-paintings found in the south colonnade of the peristyle confirm the monumental nature of a group of buildings which signify a period of prosperity for the city and very probably suggest the position of the Roman administrative centre.Limited in-depth investigation of the site has identified an extensive late Hellenistic core as the sub-structure for the building constructed in the early Roman period, while the Hellenistic period of settlement in Thessaloniki takes the form, in Diikitirou Square, of the superstructure of the building and a different constructional alignment.The observation that the first structure erected in the area was one of importance affects our reading of the subsequent location of the administrative centre of the Roman city next to its religious centre. The selection of this specific site for that centre is the key to our interpretation of the building phases lying below, which may indicate that the area had the same functions from the time the city was founded.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

Θεσσαλονίκη, συνέδρια

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