The peristyle of House H1 in the ancient town at Marina el-Alamein (original) (raw)
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G. BĄKOWSKA, R. CZERNER, S. MEDEKSZA, Forms and Decoration of Graeco-Roman Houses from Marina El-Alamein A Graeco-Roman settlement was discovered in the 1980s during construction works at the site of Marina, a tourist settlement being built just 6 km east of el-Alamein in Egypt. Archaeological exploration began in 1986. The ancient town can be confirmed as having functioned from the 2nd century BC through the 6th century AD. Professor Wiktor A. Daszewski has attempted to identify the ancient place name of the site – based on his study of the local ancient toponomy; the settlement could have been either Leucaspis or Antiphrae. The town layout is differentiated. The orthogonal grid, which was regular in the coastal region, turns there into a ribbed layout that is typical of ancient and medieval port towns. There are few major latitudinal streets. The irregular part of the town in the south, situated back of the commercial and official zones, appears to have been delimited by two major latitudinal streets. The houses were sumptuous complexes with paved courtyards in the middle, around which ran two or three portico wings. Series of rooms developed around these courts. One specific functional scheme keeps on being repeated. Overall, in terms of a typology of the courtyards in Marina, it can be said that portico and peristyle houses predominate. The portico houses were based on the prostas and pastas schemes. The peristyle houses are very complex in plan. Orthogonal and axial plans predominate, representing what is rather a Roman tradition with roots in the Hellenistic architecture of the eastern regions of the Mediterranean. Roof tiles are an extremely rare, suggesting the use of terrace roofs. In this case, the staircases, which have survived in fragmentary condition, led up to the terraces, regardless of the actual number of floors. The upper-floor rooms need not have repeated exactly the ground plan, part of the space being adapted for use as terraces. To date, most of the houses had been dated to the 1st century AD. Based on the research carried out in the cemeteries, one should even expect architecture dating to the 2nd century BC. Many of the structures like colonnaded peristyle porticoes of the houses had a striking architectural form. The important facades were decorated with cornices, entablatures and pilasters. The architectural decoration of the various aedicule found on the walls of chambers inside the houses were of similar form, but of smaller size. The style of the architectural decoration at Marina developed over time, assuming around the 1st century AD specific forms that have recently been designated as of the Marina type (after W. A. Daszewski). The decoration applied here represented three different orders, which despite the simplification can be recognized as pseudo-Corinthian, pseudo-Ionic and perhaps pseudo-Doric. These orders are a stylization similar to that of the so-called Nabatean style. The forms of the capitals of the orders are peculiar. The Marina pseudo-Ionian capital is heavily simplified. The Marina pseudo-Corinthian capital underwent a stronger stylization. Its calathus is a reversed truncated cone with an abacus with incurving sides on top. The corners of the abacus constitute the top of massive volutes. The two rows of acanthus leaves are heavily stylized. Indeed, the similarity boils down to the number and positioning of the shields that replace the leaves and project from the face. This gives the impression of an unfinished product, but the simplification was conscious. The houses and the architectural decoration were painted. The first researchers already mentioned blue, yellow, purple and black polychromy on the columns, capitals and surviving pieces of aedicule. There was also painting on the wall plaster – the fragments surviving in situ or in pieces are monochromatic or coloured, presenting simple geometric designs like orthostats and rustication, and linear in the socle part. On a few fragments there are remains of garlands, scrolling, vegetal ornaments or marble imitation. The predominant colours include black, red, yellow and shades of brown. There are also traces of green and of blue and grey in the marbling. The remains of a niche, which had been flanked by plastered engaged columns and topped by a cornice and tympanum with a relief shell in the field, was also covered with polychromy. Inside the niche, the background wall bore the remains of a cult painting depicting Helios, Harpocrates as the young Sun and Sarapis. Based on the style it may be assumed that the niche originates from the second half of the 2nd century or the early 3rd century at the latest. Coming from the same house was a wall painting of similar date, representing Heron or Sarapis.
A Hellenistic Farmhouse at the Entrance to the Town of El'ad
Journal of Hellenistic Pottery & Material Culture (HJP) 4: 44-58, 2019
The northern rooms of a large structure located on a low hill rising to the height of one hundred meters above the sea level to the northeast of the entrance to the town of El'ad were seriously damaged during construction of the new patrol road around the northern residential quarter of the town in 2001 1. The structure (41 x 28 m) was surveyed and identified as a fortress during the survey project ›Map of Rosh ha-Ain‹ 2 (fig. 1). It seems that the researchers came to this conclusion after finding massive northwest and northeast corners of a structure built of large fieldstones (up to 1.4 m long), which survived to the height of more than one meter. A rectangular concrete maintenance box (9.0 x 11.0 m) erected in the southeast corner and dense thickets of cacti did not allow us to examine the southern part of the ancient structure and the excavations took place only in its northern part (figs. 2-3). The long outer wall 73, which bordered the structure from the north, and about ten rooms arranged in several rows along the north-south axis were partially or completely excavated. Outer and inner walls of the structure, approximately of the same width (0.85-0.90 m) were built of one row of large roughly hewn stones (1.0 x 0.80 x 0.60 m), which were arranged mainly across the walls. Rows of massive stones alternate with thin fills of small flat stones (fig. 4). Sections of walls W58 and W74 were found covered with thick layer of white plaster. Mostly, the structure walls were erected on bedrock that was leveled, covered with a thick layer of white or gray plaster and served as a floor in some rooms (Loci 36. 42) (fig. 5). In other rooms the floors were made of tightly packed earth (Loci 15, 34), just leveled bedrock (L35) or paved with stones (L53) (fig. 6).
Construction of Ancient Houses in Marina el-Alamein
Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization, 2022
Although structures within the ancient settlement in Marina el-Alamein were built almost exclusively of local limestone, no remains of ancient quarries have been found. The author calculates the cubature of stone used in the construction of the houses, based on the knowledge of the applied building solutions. The resulting data make it possible to address the question of the city managing the works without its own quarry, sourcing limestone from subterranean structures alone.