During a recent visit to the Archaeological Museum in Durrës,
I took a closer look at some of the sculptural fragments that are in the
garden. Among sarcophagi, columns, and funerary altars in the garden at the
front of the museum are two large architectural fragments with very fine
carving.
 |
| Photo: C Perry |
 |
| Photo: C Perry |
The impressive blocks are of the Corinthian order, with a combination
of motifs including dentils, flowers and foliate motifs. Given their size and
the nature of the decoration, they clearly come from a monumental public
building dating to the Roman era and I was intrigued enough to want to find out
a bit more about them (they are not labelled).
After a bit of digging online (pardon the pun), I came
across the preliminary report of The Dyrrachium Hinterland Project, a collaboration
between the University of Helsinki and the Institute of Archaeology of the
Centre of Albanological Studies in Albania, which has been studying the
landscape along two routes heading south east from Durrës, one of which is the
road from Arapaj towards the Erzen river and the village of Romanat. In ancient times this was
the route of the Hadrianic-era aqueduct which carried water from the river Erzen
to the city of Dyracchium.
While carrying out their survey, the team also documented five
architectural blocks found in the garden of Mema Restaurant in Romanat and one in
the backyard of a house in Shijak that they speculated might have come from a
temple dating to the early 2nd century CE. Local people told the
team that the blocks in Romanat and Shijak were found fairly recently near to
the Erzen river, therefore not far from the source of the aqueduct built during
the reign of Hadrian.
The team noted similarities in dimension and style with the
blocks in the garden of the Archaeological Museum and concluded that they came
from the same monumental building, despite some minor differences in decoration
between the two pieces. These two blocks were in the collections of the museum
already in the 1990s and were from Romanat, according to the oral testimony of
the museum guards, but unfortunately the records of the museum stores from that
period no longer exist.
 |
| Photo: Dyrrachium Hinterland Project, Korhonen, Kalle, & Rudenc Ruka |
The photograph from the report (above) shows all eight of the blocks,
and the similarities are clear. It is thought that seven of the blocks are from
the cornice and one from the architrave of the building. The scale and decoration of the blocks are in
keeping with a monumental public building, and the style and date fit neatly
with building works believed to have been carried out in Dyrrachium by Trajan
and Hadrian. The city’s amphitheatre is thought to have been constructed during
the reign of Trajan as part of his investment in the eastern Adriatic and interest
in the city as the starting point of the Via Egnatia (he had built, at his own
expense, the Via Traiana which linked the Via Appia from Beneventum with
Brundisium by a shorter route, and then linked up with the Via Egnatia on the
other side of the Adriatic). Hadrian, of course, had the aqueduct built to ensure
a water supply for the ever-increasing city.
So it seems that the story of the two blocks in the garden
of the archaeological museum is that they probably come from a monumental
building – perhaps a temple – built in the 2nd century CE, in an
area to the south east of the Roman city of Dyrrachium in the vicinity of the
modern village of Romanat, the exact location of which is still unknown. Let’s
hope that more fragments from the building are discovered so that its location
may one day be found.
Further Reading
Gilkes, O., (2013). Albania An Archaeological Guide.
I.B.Tauris
Korhonen, K., & Ruka, R. (2018). Dyrrachium
Hinterland Project. First preliminary report. L’Illyrie Méridionale Et l’Epire
Dans l'Antiquité: Actes Du VI Colloque International De Tirana (20-23 Mai 2018)
Comments
Post a Comment