The underwater research on the eastern coast of Salamis continued in July 2022, for the seventh year, as part of a three-year program (2020-2022), as part of the joint program carried out by the Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology (H.I.M.A.) and the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities (EEA) of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, under the direction of Dr. Angeliki G. Simosi, Head of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Piraeus and Islands, and Yannos G. Lolos, Emeritus Professor of Prehistoric Archeology at the University of Ioannina and member of the Board of H.I.M.A., with Dr. Christina Marabea as main collaborator, field and documentation manager, and with the participation of archaeologists, other experts and technicians. It is the first (since 2016) interdisciplinary underwater research carried out intensively by Greek agencies, in areas of the historic Salamis Strait, in the Ampelaki-Kynosouras marine area.

The 2022 underwater survey was successfully carried out by a 12-member team on the north-western side of the current Ampelaki Bay, where, in recent years, sunken remains of the Classical city of Salamis have been systematically surveyd, including large sections of the sea wall, 3-4 m., and other public buildings.

In particular, archaeologists investigated a large, long and narrow public building, partially submerged, in a general N-S direction, in the northwest corner of today’s Bay, in an area enclosed by the sea wall (from the south and the east), whose course was fully documented in previous years.

This year researchers further investigated the building by combining means and techniques of terrestrial and underwater archaeology.

Based on the size, shape and arrangement of its rooms, as well as other elements, the revealed building has all the characteristics of a Stoa.

It has at least 6-7 rooms, of which the following were investigated: one (almost completely), with internal dimensions 4.7×4.7m., with a large storage pit in its NW corner, as well as parts of two others.

Of its solid walls, about 0.60m. thick, made of large scraped stone plinths, only one or two layers of stones are preserved today, while in the excavated part the western long wall and the transverse walls lie on a well-built foundation/base.

The ancient remains are stripped to a large extent of their building material, because the specific area has been a convenient field for obtaining building material throughout the ages, until the end of the 19th century.

The excavation of the Stoa yielded a number of mobile finds. A large amount of pottery from various periods was recovered, part of which, however, especially objects from the early Byzantine and Medieval period and Modern era, is undoubtedly alluvial deposit, washed up in today’s murky sea area.

The ceramic findings related to the building’s function include abundant fragments of various types of vases and ceramics from the Classical-Hellenistic period. Among them the most important are the Athenian painted vases and shells of the Late Classical period (4th century BC), from the level of use and foundation of the building. Many clay objects were also collected, mainly amphora stoppers, fragments of marble objects and 22 bronze coins, Athenian and others.

Of the marble findings, two are of particular importance and date back to the 4th century:

a) The fragment of a stele with part of an inscription in 2-3 fragmentary verses, and

b) the upper part of a stele, with part of a relief representation showing a bare muscular right hand of a large figure, possibly a hero (of Aias?), crowning a standing bearded man. The scene directly refers to a corresponding relief representation on a marble stele, from 320 BC, in the Archaeological Museum of Salamis (MP 4228), with the hero as the main figure, in the setting of the famous festival of Aianteia.

The identification of the Stoa is a very important for the study of the topography and residential organization of the ancient city. It is open to the west and probably marks the eastern boundary of the Agora area of the Classical-Hellenistic city rather than the port, extending on level ground to the west/northwest of the building. Its ruins were seen and described by Pausanias (1.35.3) around the middle of the 2nd century AD.