This is the final report for the area excavated by the green team in Temple East – Southeast during the first session of excavation of 2014. Guy Sanders (director) and Jody Cundy (field director) supervised. The excavation team consisted of Colin Whiting (recorder), Thanasis Notis (pickman), Panos Rontzokos (shovelman), and Marios Vathis (sieve). Our excavation area was the unexcavated baulk that formed the north and west boundaries of Harris and Johnson’s previous investigations in 1995 (NB 873) and Brogan’s in 1993 (NB 859). The area extended from the edge of the scarp at (roughly 115E) to a modern rubble wall running north/south at 111.75E (context 11). The adjacent area west of the rubble wall was investigated by the blue team with Hans Hansen and Alex Seufert as recorders. The excavation scarp at (1076N) formed the southern limit of the area which extended to a martyr at (1080.1N). The martyr was created by the need to preserve a pine tree and its roots that we do not yet have permission from the authorities to remove. North of the baulk is the modern museum courtyard, constructed in the 1930s.

The goal of this abbreviated excavation was to determine use patterns of the area above the so-called 'sterile red' layer which was sectioned in the previous excavations and confirm previous excavators' analyses of the surrounding areas. Brogan in particular was interested in more precise dating from debris in the northerly portions of the road (NB 859, p. 122). This was in service of the broader goals of the American School in Corinth, that is, the final excavation and consolidation of Frankish materials at Corinth in order to present the Frankish phase of Corinth to visitors to the site. When the materials above the 'sterile red' layer were removed, the area was turned over to Hansen and Seufert to continue the excavation of the area as a complete unit. The general course of use in this area was fairly straightforward and can be presented in two phases.

Early Modern Roads, 16th-19th c.

This phase of use is represented by a sequence of superimposed north-south oriented roads which covered the whole of the excavation area (111E-115.5E, 1075.5N-1080.5N).

The earliest road had a somewhat irregular surface and its construction was not particularly sophisticated such that it might reflect the result of surface compaction (context 48). The road was originally approximately 3.5m wide, according to Brogan’s excavations directly south (NB 859, B14, 58; p. 121). The dating of this road is somewhat difficult. The pottery within the surface itself suggests a date in the late 14th or early 15th c., but a Venetian coin (2014-61) excavated just below it by Hansen and Seufert (within context 141) dates to the late 15th c. Brogan had put the date of this road between the 16th and18th c. previously (NB 859, B14), but his interpretation based apparently on elevations. In his summary, Brogan allowed for dates as early as the 15th c. (ibid., p. 122) but describes dating this road as “tricky.” Harris and Johnson excavated a small part of the road south of the lime pit but offer no particular date (NB 873, B47). Just beneath this surface they also found a 15th/16th c. sherd (NB 873, B48). Given the coin and the sherd, it is likely that the road represents a very late 15th or early 16th c. result of rebuilding activity after a late 15th c. destruction. The pottery finds in this road contained very little cookware, particularly when compared to the similar, later road (context 24) that overlaid it. Perhaps this reflects settlement pattern in which this surface was some distance from residential areas or other areas of food production.

This earlier road had a dumped fill including large amounts of tile on top of it (context 38, 1075.95N-1080.10N and 111.75E-112.90E). Another dumped fill further east (context 42, 1076.05N-1079.20N and 113.35E-115.15E), which was further away from the wall (context 11 running north-south at 111.75E), and did not have significant amounts of tile in it. However, the eastern side of the road did have significant amounts of tile in a dumped fill on top of it, as reported by Harris and Johnson (NB 873, b49). This suggests that there was a significant period of disuse marked by the collapse of buildings along the both edges of the road and the solidification of the remains. The pottery in both dump fills above context 48 dates to the 18th c., and so suggests that the road went out of use for some time in the 18th c. before being deliberately reformed in the late 18th or early 19th c as context 24. A trowel found within context 38 may be related to this activity.

The presence of later metalled road (context 24) whose construction dates to the late-18th to the very early-19th c. points to a renewal of circulation in the area after a period of abandonment. The road is dated on the basis of the 18th-c. pottery contained in the leveling fill immediately below it (context 46) . Harris and Johnson excavated the eastern edge of the road south of the lime pit although they identified it as a floor (NB 873, B37). They date this surface to the 19th c. but offer no explanation as to why. This early 19th c. date is corroborated by the probable attestation of the road on a map of Corinth prepared by Peytier in 1829. According to Brogan’s excavations to the south, the road was also originally approximately 3.5m wide (NB 859, B11, B53; p. 121) and overlaid the extent of the earlier road (NB 859, p. 121). The center of the road was dipped in the center along the same north-south alignment as the road, possibly due to heavy traffic along the middle of the road compared to its sides. Two dumped fills (contexts 17, 1077.55N-1080.10N and 112.42E-113.96E, and context 18, 1075.90E-1079.48E and 113.15E-115.15E) overlaid the road in the center and east respectively. These both included large amounts of tiles, and suggest that there was also a period of disuse in the 19th c. during which buildings adjacent to the road collapsed and the collapse became solidified over time. The larger stones in context 18 that overlay the tiles suggest the building was on the east side of the road, as Brogan suggested when he excavated the eastern boundary of the road in 1993 (NB 859, b3). It is difficult to further specify when the road went out of use because the excavation of in lenses on top of the road did not yield more precisely datable material.

Modern Construction of the Museum, 1930s.

A modern lime pit (contexts 6, 9, and 10) reflects the latest activity in the area which took place in the northeastern part of the excavation area (1079.1N-1080.4N and 113.25E-114.4E). This was used to mix cement for the construction of the museum in the 1930s. The original size of the pit was approximately 2.5m east-west by 3.5m north-south, judging by present excavations and the excavations of the eastern half of the pit done by Harris and Johnson (NB 873, B35, B66). Due to the aforementioned need to preserve the tree, only the southwestern part of the lime pit was removed (the area bound by coordinates 1079.10N-1080.10N and 113.25E-114.40E). The northern extent of the lime pit is still visible in the scarp to the north (see top plan for context 9). The fill of the pit included several iron nails, perhaps also from the museum's construction.

Conclusions and Future Study

The excavations confirmed previous interpretations of the stratigraphy above the ‘sterile red’ layer, in particular the presence of two roadways occupying roughly the same space, one early modern and one somewhat earlier. Further excavations of the area have already continued under Hansen and Seufert with the full removal of the ‘sterile red’ layer (context 141 represented some general fill on top of the ‘sterile red’ layer, the ‘sterile red’ layer is context 148, and the tumble of rocks within the ‘sterile red’ is context 169). If the tree can be removed at some point in the future, then the remainder of the lime pit can be removed as well as the last of the remaining road surfaces.