Haliartos Excavation 1931
Excavation: Research excavation
It was found that the eastern end of the temple had been completely destroyed. A mass of structural poros, including fragments of column drums, was found at a distance of eighteen metres from the west end, and it is assumed that this is the ruin of the east facade, and that the temple was about eighteen metres in length. The disappearance of even the foundation blocks at this end of the building has been partly accounted for by the discovery that the temple was erected on ground which at that time sloped upward to the east; it is inferred that the later lowering of the high ground at the east end left the temple foundations exposed and that they were removed. Adjacent to the north side of the existing temple foundations and running alongside of, and beyond, them in both directions at a lower level was found a structure about sixteen metres long and two metres wide composed of heavy squared blocks of poros. It is possible that this is a relic of the foundations of an earlier temple. A votive deposit was found outside the western arc of the peribolos or temenos wall. It contained a mass of pottery, chiefly black glaze, including a number of sherds with incised inscriptions. Among these there was a dedication to Athena. It is indicated thereby that the temple itself belonged to Athena. This discovery has a twofold significance. Since none of the sacred buildings at Haliartos which Pausanias was able to identify by name was a temple of Athena, this find represents the recovery of a fact which had disappeared from general and even from local knowledge before Pausanias' time; secondly, it renders extremely probable the suggestion previously made by the excavator, that this sanctuary was among those other temples which Pausanias saw at Haliartos and set down in his record as being nameless and in a ruined condition. The long rectangular building to the south of the temple was scarcely more than defined in outline in the 1926 excavation; but from the identity in style between its walls and those of the temenos (they are of dry-jointed 'polygonal' masonry) it had already been judged to be contemporary with the temple and to be a part of the sacred precinct. This inference has now been justified. Owing to the considerable length of the rectangular building-twenty-one metres-it was expected that partition walls would be found inside, and in fact it was fairly evident before excavation that there were some. These, however, all proved to be walls of ruined Byzantine houses. Two doorways were found in the east wall. In the interior, four circular stone bases were uncovered, about '75 m. in diameter, disposed at equal intervals along a centre-line running the long way of the building. They were evidently the bases of the pillars supporting the roof, and it is fairly certain that this rectangular building was a single long hall. Excavation outside its north wall revealed a well-preserved passage paved with limestone, leading into the precinct from the west and extending as far as the flight of steps found in 1926.
Active in Apr 1931.
[Journal] The Annual of the British School at Athens, no. 31 (1930/1931).