Ayios Ermoyenis, Discovery of Trench 43, V. Grace 1941Virginia Randolph Grace

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footholds were cleared, cut in the side of the shaft next the dromos. The filling of the well consisted of fine red sand with an occasional "Cypro-Archaic" potsherd. The crumbly rock in which the upper part of the well was cut is part of the not very solidly petrified deposit of a torrent which in geological antiquity cut through the soft fine-grained sandstone of earlier sedimentation. The stream ran north-south, scouring the eastern part of the Trench 43 area, laying strata of small stones the spreading margins of which are visible against the south wall of Tomb 1. The nature of this loose conglomerate may be seen in several pictures. The sharpness of demarkation between the two types of rock shows best in the upper right corner of Figure 1. Wall C made a firm handsome facing which concealed and retained the unsightly and unstable pebble rock and the fill of the apparently shortened dromos. The wall is a separate piece just over three meters long, with a short return toward the east at each end. The fine ashlar construction visible on its west and south sides (Figure 6) has been the subject of part of a study by Mr. McFadden, who exposed part of the west face in Trench 75. It rests on sandstone, its foundation course stepping down toward the south to follow a descent in the rock. Its top level as remarked is that of the pebble-rock margin of the well; and its short north side is concealed by the rock in which the well was cut. The east face is completely rough (cf Figure 5). The wall must have been built to keep clear a lower level west and south of it. Its orientation suggests a connection with the dromoi to the northwest of Tomb 1; possibly it followed the east side of the outer part of the deep dromos so far incompletely excavated.

Whether the dromos of Tomb 9 was used at the same time as Wall C has not been proved. But it seems to have been filled from within about 0.20 of rock bottom at a later period, when Wall C was covered: no clear break was distinguished in the soft stony earth up to about 0.60 above the top of C, where it was sealed by a heavy layer of broken stone (0.50 or more in thickness) laid in the 2nd century AD or possibly later, of which more below. The filling belonged predominantly to the first half of the 2nd century BC, according to lamps, pottery and Rhodian amphora stamps (see Figure 7); … continues