DESCRIPTION
INFORMATION
PHOTOGALLERY
 
 
The Tomb of Troias Street was revealed in 1976 and is the first in situ monument of the Hellenistic era to be found in the city of Drama. The entrance is set to the SE and consists of a road with built sides, an antechamber built with limestone bricks and a chamber chiseled in the hard clay soil.

Road: 0.95m wide and 2.15 m. of length. Its sides are built with limestone bricks and coated with white mortar that is preserved in many places. Four steps lead from the road to the entrance of the tomb, which had a marble threshold and was closed with a wall of rushed construction. The facade was coated, while decorative issues on free ground were preserved over the lintel: 3 palmettes and 2 circles divided into quarters. The decorative themes are rendered with watercolor on the plaster and their outline is engraved.

Antechamber: It is built with limestone bricks. Its plot is rectangular and is housed in a semicircular barrel-vault. Inside it is coated with plaster and decorated with watercolor wall-paintings. The walls of the long sides are adorned with imitation of pseudo-isodomum masonry, which ends in the upper part in a decorative zone with bull-heads alternating with rosettes. The outline and details of the decorative themes are engraved. On the roof, we notice alternating stripes in different colors, as well as triangular patterns in the corners. On the two narrow sides the pilasters and the lintel of the openings are painted, while on the panel above the lintel there are decorative themes in free terrain and in miniature scale. On the panel of the northern entrance to the antechamber there is a bull and a cow facing each other, while on the panel of the east entrance to the road five palmettes alternating with circles cut into quarters. No burials were found in the antechamber?s floor. However, clear remains of cremation and fragments of pottery were found, as well as two intact lamps.

Chamber: It is a square space measuring 3,05 x 3,20 m. in which one enters from the northern entrance of the antechamber, after a narrow corridor. It has been carved in the natural clay soil and its upper part has been destroyed. Its roof is not rescued, and the lateral sides have fallen to their highest part. The chamber had three graves-sarcophagus arranged in Ð-shape. The sarcophagi were covered with schist slabs that were found broken and moved after attempts to rob the monument. In the sarcophagi burning traces were found and fragments of disintegrated bones along with pottery, coins, jewels and clay objects, indicating the constant use of the tomb.

The earliest finds date back to the 3rd century. BC, but the burials in the sarcophagi continue during the 2nd century BC probably even later. Most of the coins belong to the period between 187 and 31 BC.

The identification of a Hellenistic monumental tomb in the city of Drama is of special importance, because, until today, findings of the Hellenistic and Roman period from the ancient city do not have clear topographical indications. The tomb is integrated in the area just outside the residential area of the city, which we must look for in or around the byzantine fortification.