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

Continued from scan 3

… later items have not been recognized except wherethey might have come from close to the surface under the stony layer, or next to Wall A which bounded it to the south. The latest descent into the dromos may have been from the north, across the well: [handwritten: xxxx] removal of the stony dromos fill left the red sand surface in a steep slope, and the inner well margin of pebble rock nearly a meter lower than the outer. Below this loose fill, two others were distinguishable at the bottom of the dromos. The upper of these layers sloped down from the backing of Wall C; it contained a few sherds, which seem to be as late as the 2nd century BC. The lower layer produced no sherds, and consisted of crushed stone levelling the floor of the Tomb 9 dromos after it had been cut into by the entrance to Tomb l, but not filling the latter passage; it indicated alternating uses of the two tombs.

Wall B succeeded Wall C in forming a west face to the terrace. Further excavation would be necessary to clear up its history. The ashlar construction of its southern part breaks off opposite the middle of Wall C, and B was continued northward in small stones. Certain evidence in the filling immediately behind the ashlar portion suggests that the surface of the terrace was the ground level from which the northwest dromos to Tomb l was cut; the date indicated by the potsherds may be as late as the 1st century BC. Further east, a loose stony fill descended to the bottom of the deep dromos. The sherds here are mainly of the 2nd century BC, though they included lamp fragments of the 1st century AD, found within 0.50 of the presumed top of the terrace; some blown glass (Gl 63) found slightly lower down was in a very loose part of the filling close to the stomion of Tomb l, and may have slid from a somewhat higher level when the roof of tomb and stomion collapsed.

By the 2nd (or possibly 3rd) century AD, the original Wall B had been submerged by the rising ground level. This is the date of the stony layer found covering the area north of Wall A, the preserved top of A being at its level. To the west, the layer continues to the line of Wall B, this part of which had been raised to the necessary height. Stony stratum and walls seem to have formed a platform or open "square" of an irregular shape (note that Walls A and B do not form a right angle). To the north, the platform has not been fully excavated, but is to be seen in section in