129-140

The palace of Pella (Pella’s vassileion)

• Χρυσοστόμου, Παύλος

In 2008, with the support of the Municipality of Edes- sa, the 17th EPKA conducted excavations in Plateia Barossi (Fig. 1, 2), the square linking the traditional quarter with the modern city, in order to create an open archaeological site adjacent to the proposed location of the city’s museum. The work brought to light successive segments of fortifications, the foundations of a number of traditional buildings that had been demolished in the 1960s (Fig. 3), and part of the post-Byzantine Church of Hypapande, destroyed by fire in 1823, including, on the floor, a gladiatorial inscription (Fig. 4) that had been considered lost.The Hellenistic-Roman wall, which unfortunately had been pillaged during the years of Turkish occupation, was cleared over a length of 17 metres (Fig. 3, Fig. 5). The sections of its inner face belong to its initial construction phase (Fig. 6), while the outer face belongs to the period of Late Roman repairs. As expected, the outer Early Christian wall, 2.40 metres thick, was found about 6-7 metres from the original wall (Fig. 3, Fig. 7), and was cleared over a length of 20 metres. A probe (Δ.Τ.3) identified a layer of travertine covering a palisade of wooden posts.For the first time a section (19 m long) of the 1.90 metre thick Late Byzantine wall was unearthed, running parallel to the initial fortification at a distance of 13.5 metres from it (Fig. 3). The dating is based on the construction method (Fig. 8), while the vessels from a refuse pit within it (Fig. 9) provide a terminus ante quem. In addition to these segments of wall, the work revealed another three successive reinforcements or repairs in contact with the exterior face of the original wall (Fig. 3), which have been tentatively dated to the early or middle Byzantine period.Interventions made during the post-Byzantine centuries to the area inside the wall meant that very little remained from the pre-Hellenistic eras. Walls I-IV (Fig. 3) are Hellenistic, and below them was a destruction layer (Fig. 10, 11) dating from the period immediately after their construction.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

Πέλλα, συνέδρια

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