Rhizon, 2008 – 2012: Preliminary Report on the Excavations of the Center for Research on the Antiquity of Southeastern Europe, University of Warsaw

Abstract

Archaeological fieldwork in Risan in 2008-12 was concentrated on excavating a sizable area of two Hellenistic-town insulae. A hoard of 4 656 Hellenistic coins, the biggest ever found to date, was discovered in one room, and another hoard of about 120 coins in another. Rubble layers in the corridor of one of the houses (dubbed House of Aglaos) yielded a perfectly preserved golden finger ring of Hellenistic date, deco¬rated with a gem representing Artemis. A stratigraphic test trench in the area of the agora/forum in the central part of the town produced the head of a Caryatid of marble from the 1st century AD, which had constituted part of the decoration of a public building unidentified as yet. The slope and summit of a hill, occupied by a Turkish fortress, was also investigated, tracing the roads that had once connected the lower town with the acropolis of Rhizon and establishing the chronology of architecture on the hill. Underwater research verified and added new elements to the map of Rhizon defenses. Rescue excavations of Tamnica cave revealed pottery and flint tools from the Adriatic Neolithic period, as well as Bronze Age and Roman ceramics