Отново за ямите от елинистическата епоха от Кабиле

Once again on the Hellenistic time pits from Cabyle

Abstract

The subject of this article is the pits from the Hellenistic period, found within the fortified area of the ancient city of Cabyle. These are registered close to tenements and service buildings and were discovered during the excavations in Sector 9 in the 80-ies of the 20th century, as well at the central portion of the city (Sector 5), where the Hellenistic agora was supposed to be.
The pits in their upper parts cut through a cultural layer, while their lower sections enter a sterile layer. Their plan is circular, although they vary between 1.20, and 1.80 m in diameter. Most of them are 1.30–1.80 deep. Their profile is a truncated cone, or a turned-over truncated cone, or cylindrical in few cases. The fill-in consists of brown or grey-brownish earth, mixed with decayed or hardened adobe, ashes, coals, fragments of pottery and animal bones. According to the stratigraphic observations, the terminus post quem for their digging would be the end of the second quarter of the 3^rd c. BC, while the upper limit for their filling is defined by the materials found there – the 1^st quarter of the 2^nd c. BC.

Part of the pits were directly connected with the ceramics production, others may have served as a source for material for the production of adobe, while another group might have served as an access to stones from earlier constructions. The similarities in size and shape (hive-like) of most of the pits, which are the optimal characteristics of depository pits imply the possibility that they might have been used as supply storages.

Their later filling with waste objects and destructions might have had some symbolical meaning, where the remains of previous habitation are deposited underground (buried), before the start of new building process during the 1st quarter of the 2^nd c. BC.