Tag Archives: Kos

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.

The Pigment Production Site of the Ancient Agora of Kos (Greece): Revisiting the material evidence

Author: Ariadne Kostomitsopoulou Marketou

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A late-Hellenistic production site was found at the eastern stoa of the agora of Kos. The presence of destroyed fire-structures indicates pyrotechnological processes, related to pigment manufacture and metallurgy. Pigment production included the treatment of natural earths and the manufacture of the artificial material Egyptian blue. Among the excavation’s finds were hollow tubular litharge rods, amorphous lead lumps and drops, and a small quantity of silver, which point to lead production and silver separation through cupellation. The co-existence of the two separate manufacturing activities at the same site may have been beneficial in supplying the workshop with raw materials and fuel. The strategic location of the production site in the commercial centre of the ancient town, with its connection to the port, would have facilitated trade. The production debris from the Koan site underlines the relationship between pigment manufacture and metallurgy.

Il progetto di conservazione e di risanamento della restaurata “Casa Romana” di Kos

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The monument preserves the ruins of the domus revealed in Laurenzi’s excavation, upon which an attempt was made to identify and reconstitute the morphological features of the “Casa Romana” in a generalized reconstructive intervention during the period of Italian rule of Dodecanese. Aim of a recent study has been to rehabilitate the monument in terms of conservation and consolidation of its structural elements. In addition, in the same project the architectural and decorative characteristics of “Casa Romana” have been underscored and an attempt has been made to enhance the edifice in the monumental complex of the western archaeological zone of Kos.

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.

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 tempio romano dell’Asklepieion di Kos: nuovi dati per la sua anastilosi

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The contribution retraces the discovery of the Asklepieion of Kos conducted by the Germans Rudolf Herzog and Paul Schazmann, the investigations by the Italian Archaeological Service and, above all, the restoration work made by the archaeologist Luigi Morricone and the architect Mario Paolini, in order to present the Roman temple on the second terrace. This restoration study is described in its different phases, till the last partial realization of the anastylosis, known through the original drawings. During the activity carried out on the site, the author, with new surveys and with the complete catalogue of architectural fragments belonging to the Roman temple of the Asklepieion, has been in position to make the restitution of the building in two-dimensional and three-dimensional visions, verified also through the extensive critical review of the researches previously undertaken.

Finally, the author presents the virtual reconstruction of a new anastylosis project of the Roman temple, developed on the basis of the results of the catalogue of the fragments, the reconstruction through the traditional and digital graphics, the analysis and technical construction, as well as the morphological studies, used as a verification tools and synthesis of the research.

Il pasto collettivo nei santuari dell’Egeo meridionale: struttura e forme di partecipazione

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This paper was presented at the International Conference Cibo per gli uomini, cibo per gli dei. Archeologia del pasto rituale, Piazza Armerina, 5-8 of May, 2005. This is now an updated version.

The stoà of Camirus, on the Acropolis sanctuary dedicated to Athana and Zeus Polieus, is one of the most important urban monuments in the southern Aegean sea. Several epigraphic texts speak about his function and use inside the sanctuary and mention the organization of meetings and banquets inside the rooms of the building. The rooms behind the portico, in fact, are organized in tree-rooms complexes that could be interpreted as hestiatoria or banquet houses, very similar at Macedonian or Egyptian prototypes. The archaeological and textual evidence prove that the stoà is a multifunctional structure that serves to religious and political necessity of the polis. Perhaps, it is also possible to locate in the structure the hierothyteion, testified by epigraphic fonts, in which public meals were offered by the polis itself.

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.