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Fig. 1.
Anastylosis of a section
of the colonnade of the
stoa in the “Walled
City” (photo by
R. Netti, April 2011).
The square’s plan scheme remained essentially unchanged compared
to the previous phase: a large open space surrounded by porticoes
to the east, north and west, with rooms behind, the whole of
it with a principally commercial vocation.
The remains of the eastern portico found out in the “Walled City” 4
area make it possible to give back a white marble Doric order colonnade,
raised on a crepis of three steps the first of which made of
black-blue marble, on a foundation made up of malakòpetra blocks
(fig. 1).
Remains that could have been certainly attributable to the colonnades
of the north and west sides, have not been preserved but the
known elements leave little doubt about the presence of a portico,
not dissimilar from the eastern one. The Agora, at this stage, suggests
a horse-shoe configuration, because it is possible that the southern
side directly opened on to the big plateia, but this keeps being
only a hypothesis, being it not supported by archaeological evidence.
Introduction to the project
The work of Italian archaeologists and architects, interrupted by
the war, was taken over by the Italian Archaeological School of
Athens since 1986, when the verification of existing materials, new
surveys and the study of the area were entrusted to architects Giorgio
Rocco e Monica Livadiotti. The results of this collection and verification
of materials came together into an exhibition and then were
published in M. Livadiotti, G. Rocco (eds.), La ricerca italiana nel
Dodecaneso. La ricerca archeologica, la conservazione, le scelte progettuali,
Catania 1996.
In recent years, research has been further carried out in Kos, parallelly
both for what concerns the study, in stages, of the ancient city’s
topography and what concerns the architectural study of public and
sacred buildings of the “Walled City” area. The research involves
the Polytechnic of Bari within an international project joined by the
Greek Ministry of Culture, the 22th Prehistoric-Classical Eforia,
the 4th Byzantine Eforia, the Institute of Aegean Archaeological
Studies and the Italian Archaeological School of Athens, in order
to publish the topography of the town of Kos from the Bronze Age
to the final medieval stages. These studies constitute the scientific basis
of my degree thesis, entitled “L’agorà ellenistica di Kos. Progetto
di anastilosi e riqualificazione d’area archeologica”. 5
The thesis work aims at studying an important section of the agorà,
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