Excavations in the Lower City of Olbia, 1985–1992: Preliminary Results

Echos du Monde Classique/Classical Views XXXIX, n.s. 14, 1995, 23-44 EXCAVATIONS IN THE LOWER CITY OF OLBIA, 1985-1992: PRELIMINARY RESULTS N.O. LEIPUNSKAYA The northern part of the lower plateau of Olbia, it turns out, has scarcely been studied until recently. The only excavation was a small one, some 50 m2 in area, undertaken in 1930. It consisted of two small digs in which were found some fragments of stone walls. Yet this part of the city is of great interest from the point of view of research into such problems as the character of the city and the chronology of its construction, its historical topography, and the general conception of city-building in Olbia. A feature of the territory is its location close to the northern fortification wall of the Hellenistic period, the western part of whjch was discovered in the Upper City (sector 1).1 Finally, one of the most important factors which deterrruned the site of excavation is the active course of several hostile natural processes: the destruction of the shore by the waters of the liman, wind erosion and landslippage. The excavation received the designation NGS (Lower City North) and was initiated in the extreme north part of the plateau (fig. I, pI. 1). On the east it is bounded by the timan, while in the west it adjoins the Terrace region of the city (Kryzhitskii 1971, 98-99). The North Ravine runs a short distance to the north. The sector is distinguished by the character of its relief; it has a steep slope to the east (with a fall of about 1.80 m) and to the south (fall 0.20 to 0.50 m). The excavated area now totals about 2,000 m2 • Building remains of the Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods have been found and studied. The clearest and most immediate picture is given by the remains of the end of the fourth to the second century B.C. and their description is the subject of this article. Remains of the Classical period are extremely fragmentary and still insufficiently investigated. Their interpretation is a task for the future, but it is now clear that the occupation of this area began no later than the fifth century B.C. The majority of fifth-century buildings were erected on hitherto unbuilt land and often directly on the subsoil. From the buildings of the fifth century and the first half of the fourth only isolated parts of structures (fragments of walls, sometimes forming 1 See plan of Olbia, S. Kryzhitskii and V. Krapivina, "A Quarter Century of Excavations at Olbia Pontica," EMC/CV 13 (1994) 186. 23 rn Preserved Walls Fig. 1. Plan of sector NGS EXCAVATIONS IN THE LOWER CITY OF aLBIA, 1985-1992 25 PI. 1. General view of sector NGS from the west the comers of rooms), holes, pits, floors and hearths are preserved. All these remains have come down to us in a very ruinous condition. They were destroyed by early Hellenistic construction, though sometimes partially included in later buildings. No picture of the concrete plan of this part of the city in the fifth century and the first half of the fourth can be reconstructed. However, the material finds of the fifth and fourth centuries and even the sixth are quite broadly represented in the sector. They consist of plump-necked Chian amphoras in early and late variants (with relatively few other types of the sixth century and beginning of the fifth), fragments of Ionian, Attic black-glazed, Black Figure and Red Figure painted pottery, lamps of early types and so on. The find of a silver coin of the second or third quarter of the fifth century particularly stands out. It is one of the so-called staters of Eminako with a representation of Herakles drawing a bow on the obverse, and on the reverse a square with a four-spoked wheel inside it, surrounded by dots and with four dolphins in the comers. In front of the figure of Herakles is the name EMINAKO (Leipunskaya, Nazarchuk 1993, 115-18). These were the first struck coins of Olbia (Karyshkovskii 1988,50,51; Anokhin 1989, 15-17...