Alassa-Ayia Mavri: the Department excavation of the basilica and Byzantine buildings

A bronze jug with a fishbone-patterned shoulder and three seals lay on the floor of the northernmost room of a building at Ayia Mavri that a fire partly destroyed between 630 and 634.¹ Pavlos Flourentzos directed the work for the Department of Antiquities at Alassa. Metcalf counts three campaigns in 1984 to 1986, and the annual notice calls the 1984 work the second season.^1,2

The 1984 season investigated the area about 1 km east of Alassa, on the west bank of the Limnatis. It exposed a three-aisled basilica of the early Byzantine period, of which the central and north aisles survived, with a fragment of the sanctuary arch and part of a multicoloured geometric mosaic from the first phase. The church was rebuilt in the late medieval period, reusing material from the basilica. Five medieval tombs lay east of the church, one holding three pairs of glass bracelets; a room added north of the sanctuary served as an ossuary with remains from seven burials, and two earrings among the bones. Two more tombs in the central nave had no grave goods.¹

About 25 m north of the basilica stood a building of six rooms around a courtyard paved with pebbles. The rooms included a storeroom and a hearth, and the finds included stone basins, a bronze bowl, ironworking slag and an iron chisel. The report dates the fire to 630 to 634 from Heraclius coins in and above the ash and charcoal, and says the building was repaired and remained in use at least until 641.¹ Metcalf describes the site as well stratified, with Byzantine layers protected by the destruction deposits, and suggests that the destruction might be linked to the Arab invasion of 649 or the reprisals of 653; he cites coins minted between 629 and 640 and one of 641.²

The 1986 campaign looked for earlier late Roman floors beneath the buildings north of the basilica, and for their earlier plans. Earlier occupation was identified only in the southern rooms near the basilica peribolos. Room 2 of Building A had a stone-paved floor, and room 8 of Building B had been a storeroom in the late Roman period as in the early Byzantine. A wall 90 cm thick was described as probably defensive. The finds included pottery, glass and an ivory amulet incised with groups of concentric circles.³

Flourentzos published the basilica in Excavations in the Kouris Valley, II: The Basilica of Alassa (Nicosia, 1996).⁴