Rachel McCleery/Sarah Miller
Nezi Field Excavations
N: 1015.90 N, S: 1006.90 N, E: 264.20 E, W: 255.50 E
April 3-20, 2012

This is a summary of the first session of excavation (April 3-20) in 2012 in the northwest area of Nezi field. Guy Sanders (director) and Heather Graybehl (field director) supervised. The blue excavation team consisted of Rachel McCleery and Sarah Miller (recorders), Athanasios Sakellariou (pickman), Christos Sakellariou (shovelman), and Pavlos Sennes (barrowman).

Excavation began in the area bounded by the Giambouranis house (NB 252, NB 262, 1015.90 N) to the north, wall 540 to the east (264.20 E), wall 366 to the south (1006.90 N), and the baulk of Nezi field (255.50 E) to the west. The lack of preserved architecture led us to interpret our area as exterior space associated with the Byzantine house to the south. The goal of this season is to further explore the Byzantine habitation layers found during earlier excavations in the area (2008 and 2009), with the hope of reaching Late Roman material by the end of the season.

Middle Byzantine (802-1058 AD)

An area to the northwest (724) was covered with broken and redeposited tile mixed with pottery, possibly as leveling fill for an exterior courtyard. A lens of ashy fill (722) was laid on top.

The leveling fill here may have been associated with the construction or use phase of an E-W wall (747) to the south (between 1010.10 and 1010.20 N). The relationship of this wall to the context immediately to the E (745) is unclear, as it has been only partially excavated. Given the high concentrations of tile in 745, some of which were lying horizontally near the nicely-faced E end of 747, a tile surface may also have been laid next to wall 747 at the level of the topmost preserved stone, either as paving or as a threshold. This wall, or its continuation (after a doorway, if the eastern face we exposed is the western doorjamb) along the same E-W line, may have intersected with pier 573 at the pier’s southern end, and continued east to wall 540.
Additional leveling activity took place in the southeast, 2 to 5 meters west of wall 540, where a shallow pit was filled with Middle Byzantine material (668, 678).

Late Byzantine (1059-1210 AD)

This previously open area was closed off to the S by the construction of another E-W wall (366). The shallow Middle Byzantine pit discussed above was cut by the foundation trench (C687) for this wall, and the foundation trench was filled with cultural material of the 11th to mid-12th c. (684 = lot 2012-03).
Later in the period, the inhabitants dug a pit (C686) which intruded on this foundation trench and its fill. The pit (C686) was filled with successive layers of dumped debris, not all of which have yet been excavated. A sandy, pebbly matrix, partially excavated in context 680 by mistake, represents the earliest lens of fill observed, and contained at least three 2nd c. AD coins (2012-23, 2012-26, 2012-28), one 4th c. coin (2012-27), and four illegible coins. The lowest excavated layer of fill (680) contained large quantities of redeposited late Roman pottery (late 3rd to early 4th) along with material from the second half of the 11th c., which may represent dumped fill from construction activity elsewhere. An upper layer of fill (642 = lot 2012-02, 657) with a greater concentration of bone and more variety in its pottery, was then laid on 680 in the early 12th c. This may represent construction debris combined with some habitation debris, given the greater quantities of bone recovered.

In the mid-12th c., this pit (C686) was edged on its northeast side with white clay (638), ca. 20-30 cm in width, which may once have formed a containing barrier separating the contents of the pit from a yellow clay surface (unexcavated) to the north. For later activity in this area of the trench, see 2009 contexts (esp. 447, 449, 454- 456, 465-467, 476-481).

Further along wall 366 to the west, an additional extensive deposit (692, 697, 734) leveled the area between walls 366 and 747, covering a sloping red clay emanating from the area of the well (742, unexcavated) to the east and wall 366 to the south.

Around the same time, an earlier wall running N-S from the area of well 742 (possibly cut by well 742 and continuing south beyond it as seen in stones visible in the north side of the bottom of foundation trench C687) was robbed out and the trench filled with cultural material (728) dating from the late 11th to early 12th c. The area to the east (730) and west (724) of this robbing trench was covered in additional leveling fill, but the chronological relationship between the N-S robbing trench and the leveling fill is unclear. All three deposits (724, 728, and 730) were superficially identical. The N-S robbing trench was distinguished from the other two contexts only by cuts through the deposits which lay beneath 724. We posit that the early 12th c. material in 724 came from the portion in the area of the robbing trench, since the robbing trench itself (728) was dated to the late 11th/early 12th c., the fill to its east (730) was dated to the 11th c., and 724 was overlaid in the west by contexts 722 (ashy semicircle discussed above) and 727 (a patch of reddish soil), both of which dated to the 11th c. The relationship of this N-S robbing trench to the E-W wall 747 below is unclear, though their comparative elevations would lead us to believe that the robbed out N-S wall was both later and shorter-lived than wall 747.

After the N-S robbing trench was filled in, a reddish pebbly deposit (707) was laid over its northern end. Several layers of similar fill (661, 636, 461, 460) followed in the same location, possibly to provide a well-drained, hard-wearing surface in a high-traffic outdoor area. At some point these pebbly deposits were cut by drain 426, but successive excavations of the fill of the drain north of wall 366 (462, 469, 588-591, 635) and more of the fill around it (458, 460, 461, 464, 468, 469, 476, 482, 569, 588, 589, 624) failed to provide conclusive information about its date (due in part to robbing of the stones of the drain to the south).

To the north and east of pier 573, a soft brown deposit (706) was laid on a harder, orangey surface (unexcavated), possibly forming the substructure for a series of floors in this area. This was in turn covered by a darker soil (701) which was laid against pier 573 and extended east to wall 540.

Frankish (1210-1458 AD)

13th c. pottery (744) appeared immediately above the remains of wall 747 in the western half of the trench, possibly representing fill from an episode of robbing. An orangey Frankish surface (576) extended east from pier 573 to wall 540. It was bordered in the S by the eastern portion of wall 747, which therefore was still in use in the Frankish period. A reused block with a cutting for a doorjamb (574) was placed against wall 540 above this orangey floor. This suggests that the similar buttressing block to the south (653) may have been added at this time, covering the 12th c. white and yellow clays noted above. We wildly speculate that the reused doorjamb block was taken from an opening for a door in wall 747, west of pier 573, leading north into an outdoor area with a pebbly surface. This pebbly surface would have been provided with a light roof, as can be imagined from the presence of at least two postholes north of the wall (one discovered in 2009 in context 460, and one visible just W of the middle of pier 573).

Early Modern (1831-1945 AD)

In the early modern period, a second robbing trench was dug and filled (740) along the western half of wall 747, cutting the earlier trench from the Frankish robbing episode. This second robbing trench is truncated by the west baulk of Nezi field at 255.50 E, and ends in the east at ca. 257 E. The cut for this trench had tapered sides and a blunt bottom. The north side of the cut sloped up to the north at approximately a thirty degree angle (see 631) while the south side sloped up to the south at approximately a forty degree angle. The steeply sloping, semicircular cut in the sloping red clay layer southeast of this cut and at a higher elevation (furthest eastern extent: ca. 258.05 E, 1009.50 N) may be the remains of the robbing trench cut at a higher level, sloping down from southeast to northwest.

Another early modern robbing trench in the eastern side of the trench removed the eastern continuation of wall 747. This trench extended from wall 540 (ca. 264.05 E) at least as far as the southwest end of pier 573 (ca. 260.30 E) extending to ca. 1010 N. This modern robbing trench remains unexcavated at the end of this session, but we have dated it based on the small quantities of Early Modern pottery found in contexts 669 and 672 (lot 2012-04) immediately above. During this period, if not earlier, some of the stones in drain 426 were also robbed out.

Finally, a foundation trench was cut for the S wall of the Giambouranis house (719), with Early Modern fill in its upper layer. The removal of this fill revealed a number of unexcavated contexts, the date of which remains to be determined. This wall seems to have been earlier than wall 243, whose foundation trench (C272) has cut or truncated many of the contexts in this area.

For next session:

Excavation in this area so far has been aimed at uncovering G. Sanders’ “pleasing pink” deposits (red clay thought to date to the Late Roman period). With this goal in mind, we recommend that further excavation should begin with the following:
1) Removal of the early modern robbing trench east and south of pier 573 (see context 672).
2) Excavation of the post hole discovered at the bottom of 707, west of pier 573. While it is unlikely that diagnostic material will be found at the bottom of such a small context, one can always hope.
3) Removal of the sandy/pebbly deposit left in C686 (see context 680). We recommend careful 100% sieving, since this is likely the context which produced 8 coins in 2 buckets of soil.
4) Removing the block of soil left to the south of C566, where the arc of a column is visible in the scarp along with a number of boulders and cobbles.
5) Completion of the context begun as 745 (E of wall 747) in order to clarify architectural features and phasing in this area.
6) Excavation around well 742 to clarify the relationship between the well and the surrounding contexts. The well itself cannot be excavated at present since its fill begins 2.96 m below the deposit covering its mouth. We do not recommend stepping on or through it, nor do we recommend excavating more than 0.50 m (at most) immediately to its east, since the well is deeply undercut in that direction beginning at ~1.30 m below the present top of the well.

Further notes:
We have not fully excavated the fill (684) of the foundation trench (687) for wall 366, since it becomes too deep and narrow north of the wall’s preserved western extent. The pit fill excavated as 680 may continue as well; a large handle sherd was visible at its bottom near wall 366 on 26 April 2012. We also have not fully excavated context 745, which was closed at the end of the last day of excavations prior to reaching the bottom of the context.
There are three major questions raised by this session’s excavations which should be resolved by further work in this area:
1) What is the relationship of wall 747 to the N-S robbing trench (728), well 742, and the black deposit (745) immediately to the E of the preserved portion of the wall?
2) How is well 472 related to other activity in this area?
3) Does the softer soil excavated in 703 (mid-12th c.) continue beneath the harder surface exposed by 701, or is it a different (but similar) soil beneath? If it is the same, why does the harder surface above it stop ca. 0.60 m from wall 540, and why is context 706 (which is laid on the harder surface) dated to the early 12th c.?