Last week, the Lower Agora South team concentrated on the late-Roman to early-Byzantine dwelling on the eastern portico and its shops. This week, we shifted to the area between this dwelling and the Roman Baths. Here, the street section exposed by the Lower Agora North team was completely excavated as far as the southwest corner of the bath complex. Below a large destruction layer with material from the baths and fourth-to-fifth-century coins, we found the complete street pavement still in place. It is now clear that this street was not completely parallel with the back wall of the eastern portico's shops. In fact, near the southwest corner of the bath complex it turned toward the southeast. On either side of the pavement slabs, the beaten earth covered a continuation of some of the water-supply and drainage systems exposed last week in the Lower Agora North (see report July 20-26).

Along the street's west side, we excavated a tile and mortared rubble drainage system covered with tiles. The material around it proved to be a secondary deposit, as the soil in the drainage trench contained quantities of bone, second- through sixth-century ceramics, glass, and metal. The water-supply system immediately east of the street's pavement slabs was made of two terra-cotta pipes, surrounded by soil containing sherds of locally made sixth-to-seventh-century A.D. pottery. The date of the finds around both water systems testify to building and repairing activities from the second to the seventh century. Near the curve, we partially exposed another structure with a similarly curved north wall. In it we found three immense consoles from caldarium I's south wall.