Vertebra from a 200kg tuna found in a well of the Frankish period
With excavation for the third session concluded on June 12, study and clean-up goes on. We are happy to report that the 2009 season at Corinth continued to be characterized by teamwork and dialogue. To achieve our goal of open area excavation, teams worked together to understand the overall stratigraphy of the site and refused to be boxed-in by walls or trenches. Excavation clarified the 10th and 11th century A.C. phasing of the courtyard house, which fell into disuse in the 12th century and was refurbished in the 13th century. Teamwork also resulted in successful strategies for sampling the soil for flotation, sorting the heavy residue, and detailed recording of the inclusions from each deposit. Close to 100 wet sieve samples were taken in order to recover carbonized plant remains, small finds, and artifacts that would normally be missed by hand collection in the field. Our sampling methodology has made cross-site comparison of this season's deposits possible and this should offer a glimpse of the activities and the use of space in the building.
During the third session, three teams worked in the Byzantine courtyard house. Scott Gallimore, Dan Leon, and Karl Goetz excavated a suite of rooms to the north and northwest of the courtyard, and part of the courtyard itself. A particularly interesting rubbish dump included a massive amount of cookware, as well as fish scales, egg shells, and butchered bone. They also found a terracotta fragment that was originally part of the Roman sima of the South Stoa embedded within a layer of leveling fill beneath a Byzantine floor. South of the court, Sarah Lima revealed deposits and structures related to the earliest architectural phases. To accommodate the house’s construction, the original Roman terrace wall was robbed out and the new terrace was expanded southward. Medieval builders constructed first phase of the house into the bedrock and bright red colluvium that contained several Neolithic pottery sherds washed down from the slopes of Acrocorinth over the centuries. East of the court, Marty Wells and Katie Rask continued excavating the fill of a well with an impressive assemblage of Frankish pottery. They excavated to a depth of almost 12 meters, when they hit the water table and digging became unsafe. Conservation in the museum is the next stop for the well's pottery. In other parts of the room, removal of Frankish fills finally exposed the house’s early floors.
Dina Boero and Jody Cundy excavated later levels to the south of the Byzantine house. They removed the last of the disturbances in the destruction phase in a complex of rooms and proceeded to excavate a layer of undisturbed roof-tile collapse. Sadly the Frankish occupants were more tidy than anticipated and they swept the floor clean when they abandoned the structure! Jody and Dina subsequently excavated the floor with consistent Frankish material in various rooms of the complex, confirming a Frankish occupation phase of the building. Work in the field and in the pot sheds was once again ably directed by ASCSA associate members Alicia Carter and Sarah James.
Zooarchaeologist Thanos Webb, Regular Member Katie Rask, and Director Guy Sanders discuss samples for wet sieving taken from a Frankish Well
With the recent retirement of our numismatist, Mark Hammond, Jason Harris, and Lindy Gallimore researched and identified the coins from sessions one and two, but in the third session the task lay with the excavators themselves. Excavation recovered 208 coins ranging in date from Pegasus/trident types to numerous Byzantine and Frankish examples. Issues of Manuel I, Alexius I, anonymous folles of various classes, and dernier tournois of William Villehardouin were by far the most common types. Everyday life in the Byzantine house and its Frankish successor is represented by a diverse range of artifacts: bronze weights of one and half uncia, lead and limestone weights, ceramic wasters, a bronze loom comb and thimble, a stylus, buckles, finger rings and earrings. There were also Byzantine glass goblets and Frankish prunted beakers, bronze and iron keys, iron knives, and three lead seals, one of which dates from the first half of the 11th c. with the name of Niketas, royal spatharokandidatos and kommerkiarios of Thessaloniki.
Osteological finds were processed under the supervision of Thanos Webb. From sea bream to cattle, more than 26,000 animal bone specimens were identified and recorded during this year's excavation. Excavators and staff not only learned how to identify and sort bone, but they could also recognize butchery marks. The most significant butchery practice we observed was the longitudinal severing of sheep and goat vertebrae by butchers using a cleaver or axe.
The success of the 2009 season is due in large part to the enthusiasm and hard work shown throughout by the 19 student members and three supervisors. We wholeheartedly thank them. They also provided much of the text for this report and the news stories for sessions one and two. After Ancient Corinth celebrates the paniyiri, St. Peter and Paul, and the Anargyroi, Corinth Excavations reopens to researchers on July 1st.
Click on the first photo below to start the slideshow.
