Trench 3B

Craig Barker

View of South baulk, with collapsed wall; side drain below, main drain to right

Trench 3B was a 5 x 2.5m trench excavated as one of a series of three trenches behind one of the dighouses on the opposite (southern) side of the modern road in the 1996 season. The aim of all three (3A, 3B and 3C) was to attempt to gain some understanding of the setting and the structures surrounding the ancient theatre both in the time of the use of the theatre for performances and later. The upper deposits of Trench 3B, the topsoils, had been badly disturbed by tree-root activity, as had a mixed layer of fine grey ash and a yellowish sand. This layer of grey ash was also visible in Trench 3A. Beneath this was a quite deep deposit. It was filled with stones and stone blocks including two enormous blocks from a wall in situ running east-west at the southern end of the trench (at the top of the picture on the left). They represent the bottom courses of a tall collapsed wall the remains of which were also found in 3A. Behind it, to its south, was uncovered an 8 cm-high bronze figurine of the goddess Athena. The entire trench was very rich in finds of ceramic sherds, including the base of a Late Roman amphora. We also uncovered some architectural pieces, including fragments of a carved cornice and of a granite column that had been re-used in the poorly-built wall which had fallen forward towards the north.

View to South. Main drain runs across bottom of picture. Branch drain emerges from block with hole at top of picture.

At the northern end of the trench was the edge of the stone roadway first met in Trench 3A. Many of the large stone blocks making up the roadway were lifted mechanically, and underneath we were able to reveal two drains cut into the bedrock. The larger and better constructed drain runs west-east across the northern end of the trench as a continuation of that found in Trench 3A. The second, smaller drain ran into this from the south, close to the western side of the trench (where it had been protected by stone slabs not seen in the photograph). It flowed underneath the southern stone wall, from a stone with a carved circular pipe through the centre of it (still in situ in the southern baulk). Within this drain were recovered an intact Late Roman lamp and a pottery mug. A number of coins were found in the larger drain. A sample of the drain-fill has also been taken for scientific analysis. The material from the trench seems to date no earlier than the third century AD when the ground must have been cleared down to bedrock.