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Toumba, Thessaloniki : excavations on the trapeza and in the ancient cemetery

• Σουέρεφ, Κώστας

The chronological limits of the stratigraphy extend from the early 2nd millennium B.C., from which there were only a very few finds, to the late 4th century B.C., a period which produced abundant finds. Rescue excavations from 1985 to the present have yielded some information from stratigraphy concerning the settlement s size at various moments in its life, chiefly from the 9th to the 4th centuries B.C., when it is estimated to have reached an area of 95,000 m2.The excavation evidence provides us with information about building activities and traditional construction practices. Architectural remains of the years after the 6th century comprise an indicative example, where we have successive building phases, the remains of repairs and re-used buildings and rooms. During the archaic and Classical periods at the settlement of Toumba, Thessaloniki, we see a predominance of stone-built foundations and brick superstructures, characteristic of four-sided houses. Greek-style houses in the settlement on the trapeza of Toumba normally include a portico (propylon) and threshold, a stone- paved atrium, an internal corridor-covered portico (stoa), storeroom, bathroom, kitchen, rooms for other uses, and a household workshop with millstones. Floors were often made of packed clay earth, and flat, circular stones marked the positions of wooden columns supporting an attic or second floor, reached by an interior wooden staircase so that other rooms, probably the womens quarters {gynaikonitis) and the area for the loom, could be used.The formation of the city grid plan with building blocks with four-sided houses allowed for both wide and narrow passageways between them, frequently in parallel with dirt drains bordered by vertical stones set close to house walls, in a practical attempt to provide drainage and limit the consequences of flooding. The continuation of excavation research and study will more clearly incorporate the architectural-technical tradition of the houses at Toumba among the cities that developed before and after the Persian Wars in the Northern Aegean - such as Olynthos and the colonies - and those in the zone around the Thermale Gulf.

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

νεκροταφεία, Θεσσαλονίκη

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