Livadiotti M.

Neoria a Kos

Authors: M. Livadiotti, G. Rocco

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In the context of L. Morricone’s research carried out in Kos in 1935 in the area of the Turkish quarter of Bozuktà, near the port, significant remains of two Hellenistic neosoikoi were discovered, at the time mistakenly believed to be part of the port fortification system. The arrangement and building technique of their partition walls, the dimensions of the compartments and other technical features recall the neosoikoi excavated by the Greek Archaeological Service in 1986-87 further South, always along the harbour inlet, thus providing this new identification hypothesis. Furthermore, a new analysis of the nearby Harbour Baths, excavated on the same occasion by the Italian archaeologist, made it possible to identify further remains of another set of neosoikoi, separated from the other two by a narrow road, and enabled the identification of the back wall on which the long walls of the shipsheds were joined. The bath building would have been built in the 2nd cent. A.D., reusing the Hellenistic partition walls and creating the bathing areas inside the shipsheds, thus retaining their layout. The identification of a new set of shipsheds at another point of the ancient port of Kos further clarifies the extent of the city’s military infrastructure, allowing for a more articulated reconstruction of the port districts, used for different functions: military, cultural and commercial ones. What emerges is an urban landscape in which even the neoria contribute to shaping the image of a city that aims to show itself as rich and important.

Supplementum III – Sacred and civic spaces in the Greek poleis world

This volume is the result of a workshop held at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, 15-16 February 2017. The theme was Urban and rural space in the Greek polis world, and the participants came from the Department of Sciences of Engineering and Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy, and the Uppsala Department. Three of the four articles examine civic and sacred spaces in the Dodecanese, and the fourth treats the question of how the ancient Greeks perceived and mapped space in order to orientate themselves within it.

As the importance of the south-eastern Aegean and the coastal regions of south-western Asia Minor in the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods is becoming ever more apparent, continued research in this area allows us to gain a better understanding of these poleis and the role they played in the larger Greek world. This relatively short publication contributes to this research and also highlights the central role which highly visible sanctuaries played for travellers in unfamiliar territories.

Summary

K. Höghammar, M. Livadiotti, Introduction, pp. 5-6;
G. Rocco, Sacred architecture in Hellenistic Rhodes, pp. 7-38;
M. Livadiotti, The infrastructure of a Hellenistic town and its persistence in Imperial period: the case of Kos, pp. 39-76;
K. Höghammar, The sanctuary of the Twelve Gods in Kos and the stelai with proxeny decrees, pp. 77-100
A. Frejman, Some thoughts on ancient maps, travel, and the location of Greek rural sanctuaries, pp. 101-110.

La città recuperata. Descrizione e storia urbana da rilievi di scavo e iconografie antiche

Nel settembre 2013, nei giorni 13-15, si svolgeva a Catania, nella prestigiosa sede del Monastero dei Benedettini, il VI Congresso AISU Visibile e invisibile: percepire la città tra descrizioni e omissioni, orientato alla ricerca di differenti modi di percepire la complessità della compagine urbana, di cui le tecniche di descrizione e di rappresentazione offrono un contributo importante anche per l’avvio di un confronto tra città e contesti diversi. La sessione La città recuperata. Descrizione e storia urbana da rilievi di scavo e iconografie antiche, proposta e coordinata da Francesca Martorano e Monica Livadiotti, vede, quasi nella sua interezza, l’edizione in questo numero della rivista Thiasos.

Con essa si proponeva la riflessione sulle “città invisibili”, che andavano identificate nella duplice accezione sia di città scomparse, che di “insediamenti” in cui si era ricercata e voluta sin dall’origine l’invisibilità. Nel primo caso, il riferimento era alle città riemerse in toto o parzialmente con interventi di scavo, nel secondo il richiamo si indirizzava agli insediamenti ipogeici, scavati e mascherati nei pendii delle colline o anche in siti pianeggianti. Ci si voleva occupare, inoltre, di città la cui percezione e rappresentazione era stata recuperata tramite rilievi di scavi, letture strumentali, o interpretata da immagini antiche. La ricca risposta, che si è ritenuta rispondente al tema indicato, ha coperto l’arco temporale dall’evo antico (greco e romano) sino all’età medievale.

Sommario

1. Francesca Martorano e Monica Livadiotti, Presentazione, pp. 3-6;

2. Maria Amalia Mastelloni, Tracciare le linee, dividere il territorio: lo spazio suddiviso e la fondazione di alcune apoikiai d’Occidente, pp. 7-32;

3. Luigi Caliò, La città immaginata. Raffigurazione e realtà urbana nella Grecia classica, pp. 33-47;

4. Roberta Belli Pasqua, La città rappresentata. Contributo all’analisi dell’immagine della città nella cultura figurativa greca e romana, pp. 49-62;

5. Monica Livadiotti, La pianta IGM della città di Kos del 1926: dati per la topografia della città antica, pp. 63-89.

6. Rossella Agostino, Le città scomparse di Locri Epizefiri e Rhegion: l’azione del tempo e la mano dell’uomo, pp. 91-105;

7. Maria Maddalena Sica, Dal palazzo al tempio: l’antica città dei Tauriani restituita alla storia, p. 107-130;

8. Margherita Corrado, Memorie e realtà di una Crotone ipogea, pp. 131-145.

Il restauro dei monumenti antichi. Problemi strutturali: esperienze e prospettive, Atti delle V Giornate Gregoriane, Agrigento, 23-24 novembre 2012

visualizza il contenuto del volume: Il restauro dei monumenti antichi. Problemi strutturali: esperienze e prospettive, Atti delle V Giornate Gregoriane, Agrigento, 23-24 novembre 2012

Si presentano in questa sede gli Atti delle V Giornate Gregoriane, svoltesi presso il Parco Archeologico della Valle dei Templi di Agrigento nelle giornate del 23 e 24 novembre 2012. Le giornate, il cui titolo è stato “Il restauro dei monumenti antichi. Problemi strutturali: esperienze e prospettive”, hanno visto la partecipazione di esperti di livello internazionale che hanno discusso di metodologie e tecniche di restauro, presentando importanti casi studio relativi a contesti monumentali che presentano strette affinità con l’area archeologica dell’antica Akragas. La seconda delle due giornate è stata interamente dedicata al caso di studio costituito dal cosiddetto Santuario Rupestre di Agrigento, dove di recente sono stati effettuati lavori di messa in sicurezza e per il quale è previsto un intervento di restauro e ricostruzione del monumento.

Lo hestiatorion dell’Asklepieion di Kos

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This paper resumes the text of the IV mimiamb of Herodas, which, set at the Asklepieion of Kos, tells of the visit at the sanctuary of two women and their sacrifice of a cock to the god. In his tale the poet describes the monuments and works of art encountered and admired by the characters, description that has been widely studied and analyzed especially with regard to the altar, with the statues made by the sons of Praxiteles, and the famous paintings on the walls of the pronaos of the temple. So far, however, no scholar has focused on the last verses of the poem, in which, after the sacrifice of the cock, the two women purposed to go and eat their meal in the nearby oikoi. Taking inspiration from the text of Herodas, the article will confirm the destination as a ritual banquet hall of the building immediately to the south of the temple, the so-called “building D”, generally known as abaton; towards it, in fact, the two women may have gone after sacrifice to eat their meal.

Vol. 3 | Monumenti di Kos I. La Stoà Meridionale dell’agorà

Rocco, copertina G. Rocco, Monumenti di Kos I. La Stoà Meridionale dell’agorà, Thiasos, Monografie 3, 2013, pp. 1-194 + 3 tavv. f.t.

ISSN 2281-8774, ISBN 978-88-7140-503-2

Published in the context of the recently launched “Thiasos, journal of archaeology and ancient architecture”, the monograph inaugurates, being its first volume, a series of works dedicated to the architecture of Kos and other Dodecanese islands, that is going to include the edition of the Gymnasium and Central Baths by Monica Livadiotti. The volume is published in e-book form, but a translation in English, edited by Rita Sassu, is under preparation and will be shortly available in printed edition (always with Quasar publisher).

The study of the South Stoa of the agora is part of a more general analysis concerning the topography of the ancient city of Kos that the team of the Department of Sciences of Civil Engineering and Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Bari, directed by Giorgio Rocco, has been carrying out for many years, in collaboration with colleagues of the Ephorates of Dodecanese and the Archaeological Institute of Aegean Studies of Rhodes.

The hypothesis of reconstruction of the Stoa results from a research paying special attention to data coming from the survey of structures as well as architectural fragments and turns out to be a relevant element for the overall knowledge of the agora of Kos and its monuments, a topic the author dealt with in several contributions during the last few years. The very existence of this long porch defining the south side of the agora also solved a number of questions regarding the topographical configuration of the city’s central area, that remained unanswered since Luigi Morricone’s excavation in the westernmost sector of the Hellenistic plateia and Charis Kanzia’s archaeological investigations in its eastern extension.

In addition, the description of the consistency of the monument and its reconstruction are complemented by a comprehensive system of comparisons with the coeval micro-Asiatic architecture, hence contributing to the understanding of the architectural production of the island in the Hellenistic age, giving it a greater importance than has hitherto been supposed.

The volume is then completed by the Catalogue of Architectural Fragments of South Stoa (edited by F. Liuni and A. Ferrante), by the Catalogue of Structural Stratigraphic Units (edited by M. Livadiotti and M. Messina) and by two brief studies, in Appendix, the first one regarding an unusual system of vertical fixing (A. Fino) and the second one about a particular lifting system that connects Kos’ architectural production to the “Ionian Renaissance” of the Hellenistic Asia Minor (M. Livadiotti).

The illustrative apparatus, entirely original, has been realized with the contribution of undergraduate, graduate and PhD students of DICAR of Bari, who, since 2004 participated in missions in Kos, which is gradually assuming the role of “school yard” for future Italian “Bauforscher“.

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La rete idrica della Kos di età romana: persistenze e modificazioni rispetto alla città ellenistica

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In the town of Kos, the excavations carried out by the Italian archaeologists between 1912 and 1945 and the new investigations by the Greek Archaeological Service have revealed a complex system of water supply based on the integration, occurred during the Roman period, of a water network already set up since the foundation of the city, that took place in 366 BC on the basis of an urban Hippodamian scheme; this defined also a urban drainage system for the disposal of stormwater designed together with the road network. The water supply could rely on abundant natural springs located in the hills south-east of the city, supplemented by private wells and cisterns. The water usage involved public fountains and nymphaea, and, especially in Roman times, several bath buildings, whose first installation dates in a period between I and II cent. AD, with later changes until the mid-fourth century, when some of them changed their function and were transformed in religious buildings. To fed the thermae, an aqueduct was built in imperial period, although the baths were always equipped with storage tanks to compensate any reduction of the flow; to rationalize the use of water, the discharge of the thermal baths was conducted through pipes to flush the sewers of public latrines, always built nearby, while the houses were equipped with private sanitary facilities whose sewers used the drainage channels in the middle of the streets, later reworkings of the original channels of the first Hellenistic age. In conclusion, the water supply systems and wastewater disposal witness the remarkable persistence of the original Kos town water systems and above all attest to how the study of water management systems of a city may improve knowledge of its topography at the different stages of development.

Il piano regolatore di Kos del 1934: un progetto di città archeologica

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A preliminar version of this contribution was published in Greek at the International Congress Νεές πόλεις πάνο σε παλιές, organized in Rhodes in 1993 by ICOMOS and the Dodecanese Ephorates. A syntesis was then published also by M. Livadiotti in Livadiotti, Rocco 1996, pp. 86-91. In the 1934 town plan for Kos, the considerable amount of free area corresponding to the archaeological zones excavated by Italian archaeologists is striking. Archival documents show that this peculiarity is the result of a deliberate project and that it is connected with Mario Lago, the Governor of Dodecanese since 1923, who was so deeply interested in classical culture to collaborate with Alessandro Della Seta, Federico Halbherr, Enrico Paribeni, Amedeo Maiuri, Giulio Iacopi and Luciano Laurenzi, to promoting with them in 1928 the foundation of the “Archaeological-Historical Institute FERT” at Rhodes. In 1933 Kos was almost totally devastated by a disastrous earthquake and the Italian government charged the architect R. Petracco with elaborating a new town plan; before the plan was drawn up, Lago agreed with Della Seta in charging Laurenzi with carrying out an archaeological survey and sondages throughout the city in order to identify the most promising areas for future investigations. So, eight large zones were set aside for the creation of as many archaeological parks. Oddly enough, therefore, an Archaeological Service was given a decision preceding a town plan and the new Kos was planned along unusual lines that can be identified in the idea of the “archaeological city”. The plan turned out to be an avant-garde model from the point of view of conservation, even compared with what was taking place at the same time in Italy, where there was an active debate on the problem and the relative legislation was very progressive for the period. The case of Kos has a significant precedent at Rhodes in the Twenties in the episode of the protection of the Moslem and Jewish cemeteries and a creation of a protective band around the walled city. In that story, as documents can demonstrate, Maiuri’s role is not to be underestimated: in fact the archaeologist was really sensitive to the new concerns of restoration and in 1931 participated in Athens, with Della Seta, Pernier, Pace, Iacopi, to the International Conference on Restoration, giving an active contribution to the discussion.