the excavation of the athenian agora twelfth season: 1947

EXCAVATION OF ATHENIAN AGORA, 1947 173
Evidence for the working of clay in this area came to light in two small buildings
of the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C. set on the lower west slope of the Areopagus.
In the dirt floor of one of these buildings was a pit containing pure clay, while a coarse
pot full of clay was found in a well that opened in the same room. One room of the
adjoining building had its floor surfaced witb hydraulic cement; in the floor of a
neighboring room was set a terracotta basin and a shallow cement-lined pit suitable
for the working of clay in such small quantities as might be used by a coroplast. In
a house of the Hellenistic period on the east slope of the Hill of the Nymphs is another
large shallow basin and nearby is a well that was filled in large part with clay similar
to the " red clay of Chalandri "' regularly used by the Attic potters of today.
The ceramic tradition persisted in this area even into the Dark Ages. To a time
between the sixth and the eighth centuries may be attributed an establishment with
three kilns set doxvn among the ruins of older buildings on the northwest shoulder of
the Areopagus (Fig. 6). The best preserved of the kilns measured about 2.75 X 5.50 m.
in plan. A fire chamber 0.80 m. wide ran the full length of the kiln, communicating
with the stacking chamber above by means of lateral flues, a half dozen on either side.
Of the upper chamber nothing remains. In the ashes at the bottom of the flues were
found more than fifty small leaf-shaped kiln supports similar to those used in modern
village potteries for separating roof tiles from one another in the kiln. It is probable
that this old establishment also produced roof tiles. The clay for the purpose may have
been dug nearby, and this, indeed, would account for the vast, amorphous pits that
were detected in the course of the excavation in f he valley to the west of the Areopagus.
These pits had been carried dowln into the masses of clay left by the disintegration of
the walls of ancient buildings and the cavities had then been back-filled with small
stones, broken roof tiles, and such other material as would have been discarded by the
mediaeval tile makers.
An establishment of Hellenistic date that may have served an industrial purpose
lay to the west of the trapezoidal enclosure, between the Great Drain and the street
on the slope of the Hill of the Nymphs (Fig. 6). Its overall dimensions are ca. 6 X 9 m.
At the foot of the wall on the south, east and west sides is a channel ca. 0.25 m. wide
and 0.40 m. deep, its sides and floor carefully plastered with hydraulic cement. In
addition to the long channels, there are traces of one large and one small basin with
plastered interior at the north end of the room and of one small basin at the south end.
The floor in the middle of the room was surfaced with mortar studded with pebbles.
The layout of the room has something in common with latrines of a familiar ancient
type well represented by a specimen to the east of the Market of Caesar and Augustus.27
however, this hypothesis would presuppose an inordinate expenditure of effort for the very simple
object envisaged.
27 Orlandos, HpaKrtKa' Tr)' 'AKa8&,/Jag 'AO9qvrv, 15, 1940, pp. 251 if. For latrines of the Greek
period see also Wiegand-Schrader, Priene, p. 294; Hiller von Gaertringen, Thera, III, pp. 157 ff.;
Chamonard, Delos, VIII, pp. 181 if.