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Excavation

  • Sinagoga
  • Ostia antica
  •  
  • Italy
  • Lazio
  • Rome
  • Rome

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Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • In 2002 an OSAMP team comprising 14 student workers and 5 senior staff members returned to the area to conduct a masonry analysis of IV.17.1-3.

    Working in teams of two or three, the OSAMP staff assembled a detailed catalogue, including architectural drawings, of all wall segments at the synagogue (IV.17.1) and its adjacent structures (IV.17.2-3). This analysis included measurements and descriptions of the following: all wall lengths, heights, and widths (differentiations were made between ancient and modern sections of the extant walls); a selection of tufa blocks, clay bricks, and mortar beds from each wall; all visible quoining, framing, or bonding techniques which characterized individual wall sections, where appropriate; and all features, such as thresholds, windows, benches, etc., which formed part of the ancient phases of the building. A‘5+5 modulus’ (five courses of tufa or brick plus five courses of mortar, measured in 1 m increments) was also recorded, where evidence permitted. Once completed, each team then provided an assessment of the relative chronology of construction techniques used in their assigned rooms.

    This study has yielded the following preliminary results: A total of 10 masonry types and subtypes were employed in the construction and repair of the buildings in the synagogue complex (IV.17.1-3). Modulus measurements of the purported earliest type, opus mixtum A, are consistent throughout the site; these measurements vary no more than ± 0.05 m. This data suggests that the superstructure of rooms 7, 9-10, and 14 was likely constructed at the same time. They may have even constituted the walls of an early structure. Today, these walls form the “shell” of the visible structure of building 1. No partition walls, however, have survived from any earlier phases. This fact suggests that the interior spaces of building 1 witnessed significant modifications over time.

    Building 2, on the other hand, the edificio con ninfeo, was constructed in opus mixtum B although this technique was also identified in portions of building 1 (for example, in room 18, the southern wall).
    An absolute chronology for the phases of these construction techniques and repairs cannot as yet be determined from the available evidence for two reasons. First, techniques like opus mixtum A (which use latericium bedding courses at regular intervals) are now known to have been used at Ostia into the mid and late second century with some examples extending into the third (see van Dalen, below). Second, no stratigraphic data exists from the site’s earlier excavation, either in print or in the Ostian archives. Further data, acquired through more scientific excavation, will now be needed to refine the individual phases of all three buildings in the survey area.

  • Douglas Boin 
  • Susan Gelb - University of Texas at Austin 
  • Brent Nongbri 

Director

  • L. Michael White - University of Texas and Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins

Team

  • Brandon Beck
  • Bronwyn Wickkiser
  • Buddy Burkhalter
  • Darius Arya - The American Institute for Roman Culture
  • David Gibson
  • Grant Ingram
  • Jackie McCollum
  • Jess Miner
  • Joanne Spurza
  • Katie Ronstandt
  • Lea Kline
  • Milton Torres
  • Nayla Muntasser
  • Valerio Caldesi Valeri
  • Alan Stearman

Research Body

  • The University of Texas at Austin (Ostia Synagogue Masonry Analysis Project, OSMAP)

Funding Body

  • The Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin

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