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River port, navalia and harbour temple at Ostia: new results of a DAI-AAR Project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2015

Michael Heinzelmann  and
Archer Martin
Michael Heinzelmann
Affiliation:
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
Archer Martin
Affiliation:
American Academy at Rome
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Extract

Since 1996 the German Archaeological Institute and the American Academy in Rome have been conducting a joint urbanism project on the unexcavated parts of Rome's port city. The combined use of geophysical surveys of large areas, systematic analysis of aerial photographs, and selected stratigraphic sondages has not only complemented the previously known plan of the city but also brought much new information on the urbanistic development of previously unknown sectors. One of the most important results of the 2000 and 2001 seasons is the proof that a harbor basin existed just inside the ancient mouth of the Tiber. On the E side of that basin we investigated an unusual structure: a large terraced construction the vaulted substructure of which seems to have served in part as shipsheds and in part as storage and commercial space, and, above, a marble temple, oriented toward the mouth of the Tiber and surrounded by porticos.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Roman Archaeology , Volume 15 , 2002 , pp. 5 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of Roman Archaeology L.L.C. 2002

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References

1 For the previous seasons of the project, cf. Heinzelmann, M., Becker, H., Eder, K. and Stephani, M., RömMitt 104 (1997) 537 ff.Google Scholar; Heinzelmann, M., RÖmMitt 105 (1998) 425 ff.Google Scholar; Bauer, A., Heinzelmann, M., Martin, A. and Schaub, A., RömMitt 106 (1999) 289 ff.Google Scholar; Bauer, A. and Heinzelmann, M., JRA 12 (1999) 342 ff.Google Scholar; Bauer, A., Heinzelmann, M. and Martin, A., RömMitt 107 (2000) 375 ff.Google Scholar; Heinzelmann, M. and Martin, A., MAAR 45 (2000) 277 ff.Google Scholar; also see http://www.dainst.de/de/pro/ostia.html.

2 L. Canina shows a dip in the surface here and in his plans of 1829 reconstructs a landing-place with an emporium (cfr. Calza, G. et al., Scavi di Ostia 1. Topografia generale [Rome 1953] 50 Google Scholar fig. 12 [C] and 53 fig. 13 [N], although he has no structural remains at all to support it. The idea was taken up again by I. Gismondi in his plaster model of Ostia, in which he reconstructs a landing-place here. How easily, before the erection of the dyke, the conformation of the area could be understood as a possible harbor area is shown by the description (apparently inspired in part by Canina's plan) given by a visitor to Ostia in the late 19th c. as he looked from the ‘Palazzo Imperiale’ to the west: “Rechts gewahren wir abermals den Tiber und links sehen wir über ein ebenes Feld. In weitem Halbkreis wird es von Ruinen eingeschlossen, die alle zu einem und demselben, unzweifelhaft höchst bedeutenden Bau gehört haben. Es wird das wohl die ostiensische Rhede gewesen sein, und alles innerhalb ihrer Rundung gelegene Land hat man alsdann für das Altertum sich hinwegzudenken und dafür eine Ausbuchtung des Tiberstromes einzusetzen” ( Fisch, R., Eine Wanderung zu den Truemmern Ostias [Wissenschaftl. Beil. zum Jahresbericht des Andreas-Realgymnasiums zu Berlin 1898] 19)Google Scholar.

3 Information kindly provided by A. Arnoldus-Huyzendveld.

4 Beneath the street there was a large drain the bottom of which slopes down from the south to the north, i.e. in the direction of the Tiber. It was filled with the same material as the harbor basin and evidently was in direct contact with it. It appears therefore that this drain carried some of the waste water from Regio III to the river basin.

5 Visconti, C. L., AdI 1857, 337 f.Google Scholar; Lanciani, R., AdI 1868, 148 Google Scholar. Cfr. also Paschetto, L., Ostia. Colonia romana (1912) 346 ffGoogle Scholar. Photographs showing the remains in better condition may be found, for example, in Il Lazio di Thomas Ashby 1891-1930, vol. I (BSR Archive 4, 1994) 121 f., fig. 27.75Google Scholar; Carcopino, J., MEFRA 31 (1911) 214 ff. with figs. 1-2Google Scholar.

6 Visconti, C. L., AdI 1857, 337 f.Google Scholar; Lanciani, R., AdI 1868, 148 Google Scholar. Paschetto 346 ff. accepts this interpretation

7 Cfr. Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia (2nd edn., Oxford 1973) 126 Google Scholar; already critical: Ashby, T., JRS 2 (1912) 188 fGoogle Scholar.

8 Cfr. Meiggs ibid. 304.

9 Cfr. Paschetto (supra n.5) 346 ff. with fig. 97. However, the canal reconstructed there penetrating inland is actually a street onto which a row of tabernae opened; likewise there is no evidence for the monumental staircase supposed by Paschetto. Instead, Paschetto's reconstruction should be completed by the river harbor basin and the shipsheds oriented toward it.

10 These are two fragments of gray marble columns with smooth shafts and two entablature blocks of Luni marble. The entablature blocks are too small for the considerably larger proportions of the temple. Furthermore, one of the blocks with a dentil frieze comes from an interior angle and does not fit into a reconstruction of the architecture of the temple.

11 Another possible indirect confirmation that there was a marked projecting element on this side of the terrace comes from the supposed street limiting the S side of the harbor that bends to the west at a distance of c.12 m from the terrace.

12 The work caried out was hindered by heavy brush and consisted almost entirely of surface cleaning. It could be established that at least part of the foundations of the temple must have been exposed in the 19th c. Others were covered by spoil from those excavations or by recent rubbish.

13 Conspectus p. 56.

14 The two Corinthian temples are of approximately the same size; the diameter of the columns in the façades and the external articulation of the cellae with projecting fluted half- and three-quarter columns is practically identical. It is particularly striking that the base of the façade column described above shows the same details in form as the bases of the Temple of Roma and Augustus and differs only slightly in its proportions. In both cases marble from Luni was used exclusively; the massive realization of the cella walls in marble of 2nd-c. temples at Ostia does not appear in other 2nd-c. temples; usually they are faced only with thin panels.

15 Cfr. Calza et al. (supra n.2) pl. 50.3.

16 The dating of the inscripition is still debated. It was produced most probably in the period after A.D. 171 or 176. Cfr., for example, Meiggs (supra n.7) 493 ff.; Petraccia Luceroni, M. F., I questori municipali dell'Italia antica (Rome 1988) 27 Nr. 12Google Scholar; Mennella, G., Quaderni catanesi di cultura classica e medievale 3 (1991) 160 ff.Google Scholar; Fora, M., Epigrafia anfiteatrale dell'Occidente romano IV, Regio Italiae. Vol. I: Latium (Rome 1996) 62 ff.Google Scholar, Nr. 28.

17 For this and what follows cfr. Meiggs (supra n.7) 343 ff.; Taylor, L. Ross, The cults of Ostia (Bryn Mawr 1912) 22 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Cosmographia (Aethicus): Riese, A., Geographi Latini minores (Heilbronn 1878) p. 83, I. 25 (II. 22-24)Google Scholar.