A pit sanctuary desanctified: Cape St Atanas on the western Black Sea coast in the light of transport amphoras (c. 500 BC–AD 50)

Recent archaeological excavations at Cape St Atanas revealed the ruins of a Late Antique town, built over the debris of human activity from the Classical, Hellenistic, and Early Roman periods. Most of the artefacts from these periods were found in pits, dug into the ground and preserved beneath later layers and structures. Following a popular but controversial trend in Bulgarian archaeology, the excavators interpreted the earlier phases of the site as a “pit sanctuary” – a sacred space, where people living around the cape deposited the remains of rituals and feasts in pits. In this paper, I examine the evidence from transport amphoras and their archaeological contexts, and propose that the site was not a sanctuary but a settlement. This settlement was founded around 500 BC and, after a period of prosperity, it was destroyed between 341 and 339 BC by the army of Philip II of Macedon. The cape remained in ruins until around 260 BC, when it was resettled.