engleski

Roman Spolia from Necropolises and their Reuse for Reinforcing Late Antique City Walls and for Building Edifices of the Modern Era in Pula until the First Word War

The topography of antique Pula has identified the existence of a large Roman imperial necropolis in the areas skirting the municipal roads leading in and out of the city. The branching and spreading of the necropolis had several originating points: in front of the eastern city gates, in front of the Arch of the Sergii, in front of the city walls towards the Twin Gates and the Gates of Juno, all the way to the so-called Colchian water spring, that is, the Roman Nymphaeum (Karolina). The necropolis also stretched between the via Flavia and the sea, to the west of the amphitheatre, and continued uninterrupted along the roads towards Trieste (Tergeste). During the uneasy times from the 4th to 6th centuries, the most luxurious part of the necropolis, the part situated in front of the city walls containing mausoleums and numerous gravestones with relief representations of the deceased and of funerary Attises, was a source of building material used to reinforce the city walls and wall towers. Today, looking at the defensive walls from what was once outside the city, prominent architectural elements can be seen: chiselled stone blocks, fluted and smooth columns, column bases, architraves, cornices embellished with floral and figural motifs, all of which were reused in the foundations and lower parts of the new outer and reinforced circle of city walls. Sepulchral stelae stopped being used as sepulchral monuments, as sarcophagi began to be used for the burial of the dead, and especially as the incineration ritual was replaced by inhumation at the end of the 2nd century AD. This is when the necropolises were transformed into cemeteries, and the early Christian stelae became building material for medieval Pula and for Pula of the modern era until the First World War. With modern urbanisation, and with the demolition of medieval buildings and those of the modern era, stelae once again began to emerge, thus confirming the old Latin saying “O tempora, o mores”.

Roman Spolia; Necropolises; Reuse; Late Antique City Walls; Pula

Rad je kao predavanje prezentiran na skupu 17th IRCLAMA Colloquium, održanom od 03.-06.06.2010.g., Motovun, Hrvatska ; uz međunarodnu recenziju objavljen u Knjizi sažetaka : str. 4-5.