Measuring Vessels from Hermonassa
Anna Kovalchuk
Between 1967 and 1983 a large building covering the area of about 450 square meters was excavated in the central part of Hermonassa, it consisted of an open courtyard, restricted by a roofed gallery on one side and a group of rectangular rooms on the other sides. Analysis of the archeological material gives us grounds to date the construction of the building to the first half of the fourth century BC and its demolition by fire to the middle of the third century BC. Among the findings we can highlight particular fragments of Oinochoe with rectangular stamps on the body. Prominent inscription in the legend consists of two rows with personal names and the title of agoranome. The rows are limited by the horizontal lines above, below and in between, which is very similar in style to the tile stamps of the first half of the third century BC, produced in the Asian Bosporus. Oinochoe have been produced from the local clay; however, they differ in morphology and metric parameters. Those findings, as well as other discovered fragments of panathenian amphora, lead us to suppose the public purpose of the construction complex.