75-90

The agora of Pella

• Ακαμάτης, Ιωάννης Μιχ.

The Agora of ancient Pella, which is located north from the old archaeological site, has been under investigation since 1980. This paper aims at the brief presentation of the Agora building complex and focuses on the archaeological results of the excavation of 1988.The Agora comprises a group of porches extended over ten building blocks around a central square, measuring 200.14x181.76 m. Pottery and terracotta workshops and shops selling various products were located in the rooms behind the porches. The stoas of the Agora are gracefully incorporated in the ancient grid of the city. Its buildings used simple construction materials, while its strictly orthogonal layout was pierced byroads and stairs, providing ample access to the various parts of the complex. The excavation of the northern stoa revealed its formal character, which is also suggested by the architectural organization of the rooms and the finds. A semicircular construction used probably for worship, as well as fragmentary marble monuments, pieces of inscriptions and a clay papyrus sealing bearing the inscription ΠΕΛΛΗΣ/ΠΟΛΙΤΑΡΧΩΝ, were all found in the central part of this stoa and hint to its formal character. Another semicircular structure (14.50 m. diam.), used probably for the assembly of magistrates, was partially uncovered towards the western part of the same stoa. Finally, the same hypothesis concerning this side of the Agora was also supported by the discovery of fragments of monuments to the south of the north stoa stylobate. The building occupying the southwestern corner of the Agora is of special interest. It comprises rooms organized around a peristyle of Doric columns, where several dozens of papyrus sealings were found. A number of them represent a grazing bovine, bearing the inscription ΠΕΛΛΗΣ ΕΜΠΟΡΙΟΝ, which implies the systematic organization of the commercial center; the building, therefore, may be associated with an archive. The paper also provides additional evidence for the dating of the destruction of the buildings, which was probably caused by a violent natural event, an earthquake, about the end of the first decade of the 1st century B.C. The stamp of a Roman amphora from the destruction debris of the Agora at Pella seems to be identical to a stamp on anamphora from the destruction debris of the Agora in Athens by the Romans. This evidence is supplemented by an Athenian tetra drachm of the New Style, dated in 116/5B.C., also found in the destruction debris of the Agora in the Macedonian capital.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

Πέλλα, συνέδρια

Περιέχει σχέδια και εικόνες, Το άρθρο περιέχει ευχαριστίες για το επιστημονικό και εργατοτεχνικό προσωπικό της ΙΖ ' Εφορείας Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων