During the archaeological season of 2006, a number of test pits were carried out in the agora of the ancient city of Apollonia, aiming to confirm the interpretation and define an accurate dating for the structural anomalies identified during the geophysical investigations of the previous years. This year’s dig were located in two sectors to the northern and southern area of the city, revealing a number of wall structures surrounded by a network of straight roads, which formed a rectangular plan of insulae at this quarter of the city. The excavations at the northern sector (test pits 1 and 2), showed that the insulae of 12, 5 wide and 15 m long are divided by east-west running roads of 3 m wide.
The stratigraphic excavations at the southern side of test pit 2 went as far as 2 m deep, revealing a series of layer with material dated from the Early Imperial to the later archaic periods. The excavation did not reach to the natural ground, assuming in this way for the existence of other earlier occupation layers. In addition, a dividing wall of regular large stone blocks was uncovered within an insula, at test pit 2, which dates probably between the end of the Classical and the beginning of the Hellenistic periods. It is likely to have been used as terracing wall for a dwelling (as it consists of four rows of stones at the northern and two at the southern façade) and a gravel road which run below the insula floor level. This level altering is due to the fact that the habitation quarter was built on the steadily descending slope up to the breaking point of the hill, where the upper and lower parts of the city were divided. The dividing wall was set on the foundations of another wall, which runs in the same directions and is built with small irregular stones. The second wall is associated with artifacts of the later archaic period. The superposition of these two walls indicates probably, that the construction of the habitation quarter initiated in the later archaic period.
The large number of materials revealed in the layers of the Roman republic and Hellenistic periods consisted mainly of tiles, bricks and amphorae. The archaeological material uncovered in the archaic layer appears just as rich as in the upper layers, and is represented by a small bird terracotta figurine, a Corinthian pyxis lid, a lamp, ceramic loom weights, as well as fragments of Corinthian transport amphorae, local painted pottery (decorated with lines), and black gloss wares from Attica. While the discovery of carbon traces could suggest for the existence of a kiln nearby. There is a suggestion that part of the building was reserved for women.
The same urban plan, consisting of habitation insulae, was also identified in the southern sector of the excavations (test pit 3). It enabled the understanding of the expansion of the urban quarter in the southern side of the agora, up to the foot of hill 104. The deeper layer, laid directly above the natural ground, and below the insulae, contained numerous carbon traces, carbonized seeds, Corinthian pottery fragments (including a skyphos), a pyramidal shaped loom-weight, and a engobe painting cup, all dated at the end of the 7th Century and beginning of the 6th Century BC.