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Modern Description: This small road-side shrine of the Classical period, excavated in 1971-1972, was originally identified as the Leokoreion. The precinct survives in good condition, sealed in the foundations of a 3rd cent. CE Roman building. It consists of slender orthostates of soft poros stone, supported on a low base. The wall enclosed a rock outcropping. At some point in the late 5th c. BCE, a floor of stamped earth covered most of the rock. In the late 4th cent. BC, the precinct was buried. The finds from the area of the enclosure (mostly black-figure and red-figure ware), date to the third quarter of the 5th cent. (approx. 440 BC). There are no signs of an earlier cult. In all, 360 artefacts were discovered, most of them vessels: aryballoid lekythoi, kylikes, skyphoi, cups, choes, ‘yo-yos’, knitting-weights, astragaloi (knucklebones), gilt pebbles and jewellery. The prize find was the head of a Herm. (excerpted from FGW http://project.athens-agora.gr/index.php?view=ktirio&pid=39&lang_id=en )
[Judith Binder: Northwest Orthostate Enclosure (commonly called Crossroads Enclosure), an abaton built ca. 430 B.C. enclosing an earlier open sanctuary centred on a sacred rock-altar, east of the Stoa Basileios: Shear Jr., T. L. 1973a, 126-134 with fig. 1 (plan), pls. 25-27, and 164-165 with pl. 35 (herm); idem 1973b, 360-369 with figs. 1-2, pls. 65-67 and 400-402 with pls. 74:a-c (kore head broken and repaired in antiquity), 75:a-b; Kron, U. 1976, 199-200; [implausibly] identified as the Leokorion, H. A. Thompson, “Athens faces Adversity,” Hesperia 50 (1981) 347-348; Travlos, J. 1988, 25, figs. 36,39,41; S. Batino, “II Leokorion: Appunti per la storia di un angolo dell'Agora,” Annuario LXXIX (2001) 55-82 ]
Trismegistos Geo: 364

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(JBK)

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