the excavation of the athenian agora twelfth season: 1947

150 HOMER A. THOMPSON
Once more the Agora acknowledges its indebtedness to Mr. Sophokles Lekkas,
Chief Foreman, for his faithful and energetic services, and likewvise to the experienced
group of sub-foremen and technical assistants. on whose efficient work so much of
the success of the enterprise depends. Some eighty workmen were employed in the
clearing of the Museum site. some twenty in completing areas of excavation, the total
number never exceeding one hundred.
The officers of the School, Professor Gorhani Phillips Stevens and Professor
Oscar Broneer as Acting Directors, Mr. A. Kyriakides as Administrator, and Mr.
E. Athanassiades as Book-keeper, by their ready help and counsel have continued to
make the direction of the undertaking not merely possible but pleasant despite all the
difficulties of the present time.
It is a pleasure also to record the visit in mid-summer of Professor Louis E.
Lord, chairman of the Managing Committee of the School, and to acknowledge the
lively personal interest which he took both in the present progress and the future of
the Agora Excavations.
The results of the season's work were varied. In the field of topography (P1. 37)
the plan of the south-west corner of the market square was clarified, the west end of
the Middle Stoa was cleared, and a complex of civic offices was brought to light. In
the valley between the Areopagus and the Hill of the Nymphs, the " Museum Site,"
were exposed the foundations of a large peribolos of the fifth century B.C. that must
have served some public purpose. In the same general area appeared the remains of
miany houses and workshops of both the Greek and Roman periods, so that the excavation
of this section has provided an instructive glimpse into the private life that
impinged so closely on the public square. Two more chamber tombs of the Mycenaean
period were found on the north slope of the Areopagus close alongside the two discovered
in 1939. The high quality of their furnishings increases the probability that
this cemetery served the royal family that lived on the Acropolis in the fourteenth
century B.C. Another chamber tomb of the same period, its offerings intact, came to
light at the foot of the Hill of the Nymphs. Several later graves, including a particularly
rich burial of the early Geometric Period, were found on the slopes of the
Areopagus.
Among the categories of the season's finds sculpture was outstanding. The late
archaic period, the second half of the fifth century, and the Roman period are represented
each by several outstanding pieces. The yield of pottery was, as usual, enormous.
In addition to the compact groups from the graves, several particularly good
lots were recovered from wells and cisterns, notably a group of the mid-sixth century
and one of the third to second centuries B..C. Important additions were made to the
collection of marble inscriptions and the number of ostraka was virtually doubled, tlhe
total standing at 1,089 by the end of the season. Many terracotta figurines, especially
of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, were found and, still more interesting, many