THEMATIC SECTION

Houses Η and Γ

Houses H and Γ are founded in the late 4th-early 5th cent. AD, a prosperous period for the district and for the whole of Athens. These are comfortable but not luxurious buildings – the dwellings of perhaps middle-class people. Developed over the remains of older houses, they are in use until the beginning of the 6 cent. AD, when Building E is constructed in turn over them, causing major disruptions.

House H, on the left, is a small residence with six rooms. A corridor leads from the street into a courtyard, the center of family life, equipped with a well for drinking water and surrounded on three sides by stoas. The chamber to the north of this peristyle courtyard may have been the triclinium, the room where the owner enjoyed meals with his guests.

House Γ, on the right, is a larger house with ten rooms. Here, a corridor leads down from the street into a lower-level courtyard with a well. The courtyard’s floor is paved with marble slabs and multicolored plaques. A terracotta pipeline originating in the courtyard distributes water and allows the cleaning of the latrine, whose sewage is channeled into an underground sewer below the street. The courtyard has stoas on three sides, with rooms behind. The largest of these, in the south, may have been the triclinium of the house. The corner room, at the intersection of the two adjacent streets, is equipped with its own well and street door and probably functioned as a shop or workshop, which the homeowner either rented or managed himself.

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