The excavations of 2009 marked the 8th archaeological field season undertaken in the southern necropolis of the ancient city of Phoinike. The fieldwork enabled to join the two “historic” sectors, S 5 and S 18, which had been previously divided by a modern concrete channel running east-west. The joining created a unified funerary research area, explored more then 100 m to the north-south direction. The excavations on the modern channel revealed several funeral structures and undisturbed parts of the stratigraphic sequences. It includes structures 66 and 67, both being covered up by an artificial clay layer, which has also been identified in other excavation sectors (US 247), and related to the arrangement of the necropolis during the Augustan age (second half of the 1st century BC). Structure 66, which consists of 4 dry set sandy stone blocks, lined up in a northeast-southwest direction, has no relation with the funerary context of the Hellenistic necropolis. Below it, structure 67 was revealed. It was made up of untied stones, which at their most preserved part formed an arch with radius of 1, 60 m. The excavation within structure 67, which went as far as the sterile layer (level 3, 06), did not reveal any important result. The investigations undertaken north of the modern channel (S 5) identified a major part of the necropolis road (US 248), approximately 6m wide and running north-south. Alongside the road a series of previously excavated monuments were located: temple 6 and buildings 10, 7 and 9 to the east; graves 22, 24 along with 16 and 25 (_semata_) to the west. On the west side of the road section, two funerary monuments of stone blocks constructions of the Hellenistic period were found: monument 63 (at the southern extreme) in the shape of a mega urn, and monument 65 (at the northern extreme point) associated with a chest type grave.
At a slightly set back position, about 3 m from the “first row” of the funerary monuments next to the road, a grave (68), centered amidst some other graves (64, 69 and 70), was discovered. All the graves were of chest type and contained urns holding cremated remains. The grave goods found within and around the urns date to the Hellenistic period. While the excavation of grave 62, revealed 3 urns and a rich archaeological material dating to the same period.
The excavations at the southern extremity of sector 5 revealed a wall running northeast-southwest. It was 1, 30 m long and 0, 50 wide from which were preserved three horizontal lines of sandy stone blocks bonded with clay. Its direction and construction technique suggest that the wall constitutes the eastern part of grave 38 excavated during the field works of 2003-2004.
Investigations at sector S 18, situated south of the modern channel enabled to completely uncover graves (_semata_) 16 and 25 identified during the previous field seasons, along with the extension of the Hellenistic road (at its north-south axis) of the necropolis.