Modern Description:
This is an Early Christian basilica in the SE “outskirts” of modern Paiania. The ruined walls are visible around, and underneath, the Ottoman-dated church of Agios Athanasios; the north wall of the later church rests on the north stylobate of the earlier basilica. The basilica is three-aisled, with a semi-circular apse and a (possibly tripartite) narthex. Its dimensions are ca. 34 x 21 m, with a quite wide main nave. Rectangular annex rooms were excavated to the north of the narthex and of the north aisle, while during a recent excavation, two small rooms and part of an apse, probably belonging to a chapel, also of Early Christian times, adjacent to the SE side of the basilica, were found (see ground plan). The floor of the basilica was paved with square fired clay slabs. The masonry consisted of rubble masonry interrupted with regular courses of tiles (opus mixtum); each course of tiles consists of three or occasionally five rows. Several architectural sculptures from the Early Byzantine basilica have been incorporated and survived in the Ottoman church, thus giving us a chronological clue for the erection of the original basilica. An impost block, now embedded in the built bench along the western façade of the Ottoman church, bears relief decoration of a circle with a Greek cross and the letter ‘R’ growing out of the top of the cross; the circle is framed with acanthus leaves and lily flowers. Pallas dates it before the mid-6th c. An impost block in second use in the Ottoman church bears on its narrow side in low relief a Latin cross in a half ellipsoid frame; on either side of the frame, a large half bamboo leave. Lily flowers crown the junctions between the frame of the cross and the leaves. Pallas dated this capital after the mid-6th c., due to the style of the leaves and the execution in very low relief, tending towards gouged decoration. During repairing works in the Ottoman church, an Early Christian funerary inscription was found incorporated into the built screen (τέμπλον); this most probably came from the immediate vicinity of the original basilica. The chronology of the erection of this church is far from certain, and it is confused by a mixture of architectural features which characterise both earlier and later basilicas; e.g. the emphasis on the width of the main nave points to an older date, and so does the lack of a central door in the western wall of the narthex; however, the close alignment of its side doors with the doors leading to the side aisles points to a later date. At the same time, the re-use, in the Ottoman church, of two architectural sculptures of a certainly different date, makes one wonder whether one of these two spolia may have originally belonged to a church other than the basilica lying under Agios Athanasios. D. Pallas assumes that the style of the later of the two spolia, the capital with the ellipsoid frame and the bamboo leaves, agrees chronologically with the architectural features of the basilica, while the first discussed impost block may have originally belonged to an even earlier, unknown church of Paiania. According to his argumentation, the basilica should be dated after the middle of the 6th c. (Tzavella 2012 p.256)
Archaeological finds attest to the existence of a settlement around the basilica. In its close proximity part of a room, probably used as a cistern, was excavated, which was tentatively dated to the second half of the 12th c. Gini-Tsophopoulou convincingly deduced that a Middle Byzantine settlement existed in the area. It is therefore probable that the basilica of Agios Athanasios was still functioning in Middle Byzantine times. (Tzavella 2012)
Wikidata ID: Q56397736Trismegistos Geo: 37795
Info: E. Tzavella 2012 
Elissavet Tzavella, URBAN AND RURAL LANDSCAPE IN EARLY AND MIDDLE BYZANTINE ATTICA (4TH – 12TH C. AD), PhD dissertation, Univ. of Birmingham 2012, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16292781.pdf
