Which are the deepest roots of that mix of cultures that we use to call ‘Mediterranean Civilization’? Which are comminglings and exchanges which produced its most complete fruit, i.e. the city, a place for landscape-modelling communities? And which elements did contribute to build up that baulk of customs, ideas, and innovations which compelled to confrontation and hybridizations different peoples for millennia? What did it made, from pottery to metallurgy, from gastronomy to architecture, from art to religion, of a sea a cradle of civilization? Archaeology may help in disentangling such questions, seeking unexpected answers , by tinkering what ancient Mediterranean peoples left buried in the ground. A privileged point of view of our course is the ancient Phoenician city of Motya, located exactly at the centre of the “sea in the middle”. Throughout the live experience of excavation, with images taken on the field, this course will let you touch the many tesserae of the great mosaic of the Mediterranean Civilization. The field diary of the archaeologist, and the handpick will be the two tools, which will lead us across the sea to discover what such early cities actually were, and how their contribute is still a major part of our shared memory.
5.1 The sacred pool
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Del curso dictado por Sapienza University of Rome
At the Origins of the Mediterranean Civilization: Archaeology of the City from the Levant to the West - 3rd-1st millennium BC
104 calificaciones
Sapienza University of Rome
104 calificaciones
De la lección
Stars sparkling in the waters
Conoce a los instructores
Lorenzo NigroProf.
Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia
[MUSIC]
Water was a basic resource for
Phoenicians not only because of course it was necessity for ordinary life,
for the new settlement, for the sheeps to be supplied to continue their trips.
But also because water had a symbolic value
in the Phoenicians culture and religion.
Because water and especially underwaters where the place in which
the guards used to live and where life was going to spring out, they will.
This so-called cordon is one of the most fascinating monuments in [INAUDIBLE] but
also in the Mediterranean.
And for a long while, it was misunderstood.
Because it was thought that this basin was a harbor.
Of course, this interpretation was completely wrong because it
did not take into account the ancient sea level.
And the sea level here, that is Motia, in the second and
first millenium BC was like one meter lower than nowadays.
So When we became aware about this, we had to rethink the monument and
in 2013 the team of [INAUDIBLE] University did a fascinating,
a unique excavation in this basin.
Along this long walls, which are 52 meters by 37.
The dig was a real challenge, because of the mud which is inside.
Where you can sunk until this, so it was very difficult to dig and
we had to dig with our own hands to disentangle layers and
to understand the history of the basin.
For a long time the basin was transformed into a salt producing device and
only at the bottom of our [INAUDIBLE],
we could find the original layer where it was used as a sacred pool.
And we discovered the channel connecting the pool with the spring of the temple.
And another installation, another wall
on the middle of the northern side which was the place in which there is another
spring of fresh water connecting directly the [INAUDIBLE] with the basin.
So the pool was a pool of fresh water and this water was used not only for
drinking and for supplying their sheeps.
But also for washing their sacred statues and
votive object to be dedicated into the huge circle terminals.
Then at the end of the escalation, in the last days I took a decision.
I want to know if there was something in the middle.
This was a very difficult challenge for a team.
We had to dig in the middle of the basin and
in the middle of the basin, you don't have the walls for helping you.
And it was like a cake, just cutting through a cake.
And we remove this mud with the help of wooden beams and
at just at the bottom we found a big block.
And this block has the same sides of a number of blocks,
which were already displayed in antiquities on the sidewalls of the basin.
They belonged to a podium.
So it became clear that at the middle of the basin there was a podium.
And this podium was at least one metre and a half high and
on top of the podium there was a stature.
This statue is witnessed
by the only remaining blocks part of it that is this foot.
And the foot give us the size of the monument.
The monument was a colossus,
at 2.5 meters high statue of a god and the god is Baal.
And possibly this central part of the statue is there [INAUDIBLE]
which was found in Espanol in the lagoon of the [FOREIGN] and
now is kept in the museum of Palermo.
So at the end after more than a century from the occasional
discovery of this statue in the lagoon.
We had the clue to understand
that this masterpiece was erected in the center of the pool.
And we were admiring one of the most beautiful monument of antiquity,
that is the pool and the colossus of the garden of Matsya.
It was really shocking and
I just want to finish telling you that there is a comparison in Syria,
in a city which was founded by Phoenicians, his name is Ambrit.
In Ambrit, there is a pool which is exactly the same size, and
which in the middle has a shrine For the statue of a god.
We don't know the god of the temple of Syria, possible Shadrach or
possibly Resheph, is the same god that we call here Baal.
The discovery of the [INAUDIBLE] was a very fascinating enterprise that
Sapienza University carried out during long series of years, but
especially in 2005 and 2013.
We started from the north eastern corner of this basin.
And the first items that we found was this amazing,
in spite of its sate of preservation, statue of a baboon.
This was made of an Egyptian stone.
A greenstone, the green sandstone you can find only in Egypt.
And of course, it was badly eroded due to
salt which was filling this pan in antiquity.
So it was very difficult to recognize the shape of the baboon.
But this was a baboon and the baboon has a special meaning in a religious compound
because it's the animal who used to say hello to the sun rising.
So that's very important.
Its presence suggests that this building had something to do with
the stars as we were talking before.
And now we go back to watch our area from the aircraft, to see it from the top.
And you see it's a perfect circle,
and at the center of the circle there is a rectangle.
And the diagonal of the rectangle of the center which
is accepted as the center of the circle.
So we have here the demonstration that the area was planned altogether.
It was conceived altogether to be a very special sacred space,
something which is almost unique in the Mediterranean.
If you see that this is in exactly the middle of the Mediterranean.
It's really fascinating.
It's really positive from some points of view.
Everything has a very strict rule connected to the royal cubit,
which was an Egyptian Where you're measuring.
And you see also the way with which the rectangular
of the basin was built starting from the diagonal of the square.
Built up on the short side of the shape.
And the same is what it was used for the temple,
the nearby temple The reason other feature which has to be kept in mind.
That almost a square tower of
roughly 12 meters of side to the south of the basin.
Because this tower had possibly rolled in
the stars observations that we are dealing with in previous classes.
So now we are back to this basin.
How we started to explore it, it was really a challenge.
And this challenge was overcome with a very strong effort
by our university, and our stakeholders, and friends.
So you see, the first time that we emptied from fresh waters The Beijing.
We just started to study how it was build and what was the situation.
And it became clear that the so called China connecting
the rectangular basin to the sea had been build later in times,
not at the time of the use, the original use of this monument.
But later on in the middle age and
modern times, the area was transformed into a salt producing device, a salt pan.
So we started to excavate it
with the help of a truck because it was filled up with mud.
But [INAUDIBLE] with our hands.
And this was really a challenge.
The first few we did was to empty it from waters.
And to let it dry up for several months, from April until August.
So there was three months without raining, of season only sun.
It was terrible and at the end when we were starting our excavations,
we became aware that there was something completely unexpected.
Something completely new that there was water flowing into the basin.
Not from the side of the sea, from the opposite side, from the inland.
This water was springing out from [INAUDIBLE] through an installation
which is made of protruding blocks, so this was really amazing.
Actually there were two streams of fresh water and
there was another stream in the corner.
And you see the place from where the fresh water was carried into the basin.
And it was like if removing seawater, the fresh water
from [INAUDIBLE] aquifer was again able to spill out from this structure.
So this was really amazing.
Then we started digging and
we became aware that there were two major sea levels.
Readable under structure.
One was currents level.
The other was ancient level.
And of course,
this structure, the monument was built to work with ancient water level.
Because Mediterranean Sea raised up from antiquity
now of around 1 meter or 80 centimeters.
So this makes a very important difference, you see.
And the basin was shallow, very shallow.
So one cannot interpret it as a harbor or a dock.
Because there is no boat which is about to Maneuver easily in this space.
So there should be another function.
And there was also special clay using this, let's say
new clay, which was used to fix the blocks and
to let them to be completely waterproof.
So the water inside was protected from any intrusion.
And we found items which I
had the function of the basin as a sacred place.
Such as baetyls\g, such as the Egyptian bamboo stage.
And of course there are also remains of a beautiful architecture decoration
such as these Capital or parts of the column drum.
So everything had been completely spoiled by the inhabitants of
Marcella in later times.
But we have some pieces suggesting that this monument was beautiful and
it possibly had a porch at least on two sides.
So it's very different it looked in antiquity than how it is nowadays.
Then we found another unexpected thing.
That is in the northeastern corner There was a canal
connected with the temple spring flowing again into the basin.
And in the mouth of this canal, as you see from the section,
we found some items, some small items, these pebbles.
But these pebbles are meaning because they are black and
white which are that two collars of the two major deities of the old sacred area,
which are of course Baal and Astarte.
In Greek terms, Poseidon and Aphrodite.
So that's all and then they continue to
uncover all the rock of the sidewalls of the building.
The most interesting features were preserved on the south side,
the side facing the sea.
Because in this part, especially on the western part of the South side,
the wall was completely preserved.
There were four courses of sacred pool's blocks were very well
dressed and there was a frame and
this frame was protruding five centimeters into the basin.
And this frame of course is inconceivable in a dock or
in a nabul while it is completely logic in a pool, in a sacred pool.
And you see now the students who discovered it with trowels and
their hands.
It was a very heavy work.
At the end we have a completely record of what was this monument.
We have drawn over the size.
And we even had discovered it in the center of the basin.
The center of the basin was interesting,
in spite of the difficulty of digging it in the mud.
Because I surmised that
could be that something was underneath it and there was something.
There was a block at the bottom, which had the same shape and
measures, and proportions.
On another block which was found many years ago in 1918 and
this block has a foot on it.
So this was very puzzling, do you see that after having dried the basin,
then we discovered the presence of the springs.
Then we discovered that, at the middle of the basin, there was a podium and
the foot of a colossal statue.
Then we went to some other important finds in the area, such as this statue.
Which was found in the lagoon not far away from this point,
from the area of the kothon.
And this suggested that possibly there was something.
Because we had some representation of Stela on the tophet showing
a god sending up on a [INAUDIBLE], which has exactly
the same gesture of description.
So the final suggestion was that at the middle of the basin,
there was a colossus because the dimension of this foot showed that the original
statue should have been 2.4 meters high.
So, it's one third more than the natural, and
this possibly was our clue at these [INAUDIBLE] or
Poseidon in the middle of the garden.
There is a striking comparison of this monument.
It's an amazing monument.
The comparison is in Syria,
actually in the Phoenician coast of North Assyria in a site which is known.
It is called in Arabic [INAUDIBLE], that means simply temple.
This [INAUDIBLE] of [INAUDIBLE] is the temple of [INAUDIBLE].
Is actually a pool with a porch all way around and
amazing monument in the middle as you see, a shrine.
And this monument was connected to a spring and to a river, but
specially to a spring of fresh water.
So It's exactly the same, and the results are a temple not far away,
like the temple in the sacred area of the cordon.
You see here the temple in the image from Google, and
you see also that they our archaeologists.
So you see here archaeologists found in 2005 this [INAUDIBLE] that in buckets.
Bronze buckets, Egyptian, the great buckets which were used for performances.
Religious performances, especially for washing the sacred items
with a symbol of making it clean and pure.
And so this was a proof of the use of these temples.
So you see that the plan of the two monuments, it's very similar.
And this is the only possible comparison with the incredible monument found in
Montsia.
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