Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (15.2003(2004))

NEA PAPHOS

CYPRUS

a Byzantine wall, which was founded on the
rubble of a collapsed ERH wall. Below that
collapsed wall, the whole trench is filled
with clean soil down to 1.15 m and a loose
gray layer down to 1.5 m (at 0.48 m below
the datum). It is only at this level that
structures appear: a gray clayey floor in the
southwestern trench corner with a porous
black lava slab. The finds from the second
layer (i.e., probably still in the clean-soil
fill) are Late Hellenistic, from the 1st cen-
tury BC. The fine wares included ESA base
form 22 or 23 and a gouged wall, probably
of form 19- The latest piece may be
a Roman (pseudo) Koan amphora handle.

A 10
Trench situated immediately south of the
semicircular basin in the south wall of R.62
in the VT baths. An N-S wall of reused
stones appeared under the basin foundation
(i.e., heating chamber under it); it was
0.5 m wide and it constituted the eastern
section of this trench. The foundation-
leveling course (at 1.81 m below the
datum) projected west. There are no clear
traces of a floor corresponding to this wall,
and the bottom of the trench, c. 0.5 m
below (at 2.32 m below the datum),
consisted of large irregular stones, possibly
bedrock.

VILLA OF THESEUS
TRENCHES IN THE EAST WING

The H (hetalita) series of trenches runs
across the service complex of the Villa at
a distance of barely 5.74 m away from
trenches I 8-11.
H 9
Trench situated in the northern part of
R.81 and R.82 (trench H 8 was excavated
in December 2002).30) Once this trench
was extended to the west, an N-S wall was
discovered in the middle of it. The wall
with its wide (0.67 m) leveling course was
identified as the west curb of the
Hellenistic-Early Roman street 9 (with top
at 0.31 m below the datum), over which
the east part of VT was built. The leveling
layer consists of a regular row of large
masonry slabs and a less regular clustering
of medium stones on its west side. West of
the curb, a clay-lined cylindrical bin was
found;31) only its southern part was

uncovered. In the southern section the
foundation of a wall running west from the
curb appeared. The top of the foundation
was 0.2 m below the curb top, and
originally the leveling course must have
been even with the curb. This would
correspond to the partition walls dividing
Late Hellenistic/Early Roman R.I-IV in the
northern part of street 9- The trench east of
the curb wall was dug to a depth of 1.3 m
below the surface of R.82 and revealed
a succession of street levels cut by an N-S
ancient trench. Over this trench, in a gray-
brown layer, a terracotta pipe (diameter
0.17 m) is visible in the south section. Four
street surfaces of pure gray clayey soil could
be observed at depths of 0.72, 0.77, 1.0,
1.2 m respectively below the floor of R.82.
These layers were separated by reddish soil
mixed with crushed plaster. A layer of
heavy red clay appeared at 1.3 m below the

30) Meyza, PAM XIV, op. cit., 261, fig. 1.
31) Called a pithos in W.A. Daszewski, “Fouilles de Nea Paphos (Mission polonaise)”, in: V. Karageorgis “Chronique des
fouilles et decouvertes archeologiques a Chypre en 1980”, BCH 105 (1981), fig. 73; for present opinion, id., “Nea Paphos
1991”, RDAC 1992, 251-253, PI- LXXXVIIL3- E. Papuci-Wladyka, op. cit., 212-218, has published the contents of one
of these bins in some detail.

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