the excavation of the athenian agora twelfth season: 1947

162 HOMER A. THOMPSON
most ample evidence comes from wells of which two were cleared in 1947. One of
these had been used in the third century, abandoned at the time of the Herulian sack
in A.1. 267, but re-opened and used again in the Byzantine period. Among the many
objects from its earlier filling are a terracotta statuette of a standing youth (below,
p. 185) and a jug inscribed $e'o-rTrj &iKatoa (below, p. 191). The other well was
dug in the second or perhaps early third century A.D. through the floor of a Hellenistic
cistern, the chamber of which was largely packed with wine amphorae by the well
diggers. The well was abandoned on the occasion of the Herulian sack of A.D. 267
and used as a dumping place for objects damaged at that tinme, among them a gilded
mlarble head of a goddess (p. 177, P1. 53), a marble statuette of the Herakles Farnese
type (p. 180, P1. 59, 2), a smiiall bearded head of a divinity, a head of a youthful
goddess (p. 180. P1. 59, 1), a massive marble mortar, and a marble pedestal.
One of the latest, and most agreeable, evidences of ancient habitation on the north
slope of the Areopagus consists of a garden court set in a terrace cut from the hillside
about half way up the slope (P1. 43, 2). The house to which the garden belonged
would appear to have lain chiefly beyond the limits of the present excavation.
The garden court formed the central feature of a walled area that may be
restored as a square approximately 13 metres to the side. In the middle of this area
is a rectangle, ca. 3.20 X 3.90 m., paved originally with slabs of white and blue marble.
A garden bed 0.50 m. wide enclosed the floor on all four sides, save only for a narrow
entrance in the north wall. This bed in turn was bordered by a narrow water basin,
floored with marble and walled with a low curb on either side. Water was supplied
through a fountain that may be restored on a large marble slab set in the east side
of the basin: from the basin the water passed into the flower bed through lead pipes
set one in the middle of each side, while drainage was provided by a terracotta channel
leading out from the northwest corner. A substantial block at each of the outer
corners may be supposed to have carried a post for the support of a trellis. The north
side, except for the doorway, was closed by a parapet, while a niche with a bench
occupied the northwest corner just inside the entrance way.
Most of the stone and marble used in the construction was second-hand material,
and, since the little pottery found in association runs dowvn into the third or even the
fourth century after Christ. the garden court mnust date from the general reconstruction
of the Agora region after the Hertlian sack of A.D. 267. The pottery found
in the ruins of the garden indicates that it was abandoned within the late Roman period.
Among the re-used material in the east wall of the enclosure around the garden
court were three large blocks of coarse-grained brown granite that seem certainly to
be of Egyptian origin, perhaps Syenite from Assuan. Each block has one face picked
to a fairly smooth plane surface; the edges are treated with a rough anathyrosis which
suggests that the blocks were intended originally for a heavy retaining wall. The use
of Egyptian stone, imported at vast trouble and expense, can best be explained on the