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Liv

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  1. Liv

    Travels #4: Conímbriga

    By Liv,


    travels
    This time my travels took me to the ruins of Conímbriga in Portugal. It's about a 3-hour drive from Lisbon and the site features ruins and a small museum. If you're into hiking there's lots of trails in the surrounding area, including some that link up to one of the Camiños de Santiago/Ways of St James. As I arrived late in the day and had a mishap with my ticket I only had about 2 h to check out the ruins and the museum, which felt a bit rushed. An extra hour would have made it just right.
    Conímbriga was settled centuries before Roman occupation, but flourished under Augustus and the principate, becoming a municipium of about 10,000 inhabitants in the province of Lusitania. It was ultimately destroyed and abandoned in the 5th century as a consequence of Suebi invasions. Today what's been excavated is mostly ruins of domi, insulae and shops, along with public buildings like aqueducts and baths, though many of the former were torn down in the 3rd and 4th centuries to make way (and provide building materials) for defensive walls and towers. The current forum is something between a very bare-bones reconstruction and a floor plan, and the amphitheatre has yet to be unearthed as it lies under local homes nearby.
    If i had to sum it up in one word, it's mosaics. The ruins boast a number of beautifully preserved in situ mosaics, which is unusual in my (admittedly limited) experience - more often than not they're removed from their original sites and put indoors in a museum, but not here! In fact, nearly all of them have been exposed to the elements since being excavated, and it's astonishing how sharp and colourful they still are. The museum, on the other hand, was a disappointment and features a small selection of the usual findings of pottery, metal and bone tools, coins and funerary inscriptions, so if you're short on time I recommend dropping it.
     

    Elaborate mosaics in red and blue tones.

    Elaborate geometrical shapes.

    What's left of the hypocaust of one of the thermae buildings, dating from the 1st century AD.

    More beautiful mosaics.

    A cool-looking peristyle in the summer heat, featuring yet more mosaics.

    More geometrical shapes.

    These look incredibly similar to decorated pavements that can be found all over Portugal, 2000 years later.

    See all the columns and arches? This is what's left of the House of Cantaber, a fancy aristocrat that supposedly lived in the 4th-5th century. This domus had a measly five peristyles and spanned over 3000 m2!

    House of the Fountains - another big and fancy domus that belonged to one of the wealthiest families in the city.

    For flooring that's over a thousand years old, these are still in great shape.

    A horned humanoid and a sea creature.

    Depiction of a man carrying food and drink. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    And lastly, it's not Roman if there isn't something phallic around - so have some fascini!
  2. Liv

    Travels #3: Salona

    By Liv,

    Salona (nowadays Solin) was the capital city of the province of Dalmatia and, according to legend, founded by Julius Caesar after the civil wars. Although it was a prosperous and important city in its heyday, the ruins are in a sorry state and not very well preserved at all. There was little English signage (contrary to what some websites tell you), and the small museum had the typical findings of glass and metalworks, pottery and funerary elements. If you're in the area, I recommend visiting Trogir as well - it's a charming little place.

    The amphitheatre, because you can't have a Roman town without one. It saw gladiator fights and executions of early Christians, but did not resist the struggles between Venetians and Ottomans in the 17th century.
     

    Stone table and chairs. I hope that back when they were in use, the table was a bit closer to the seats, because the current placement seems supremely impractical.
     

    What's left of one of several basilicas built after Christianity was allowed, featuring a rather phallic eroded column.
     

    A funny-looking fountain.
     

    Fortification around the Porta Caesarea, one of the main thoroughfares that also marked the division between the older and newer parts of town.
  3. Liv

    Travels #1: Side

    By Liv,

    Due to a case of wanderlust combined with clinical depression and a circadian rhythm disorder, I like to travel to sunny spots when possible. Some of these spots end up being places that were once a part of the Greco-Roman world.
    This time I visited Side, in the southern coast of Turkey. Back in the day it was an important settlement in Pamphylia, much plagued by pirates until Pompey gave them the boot. Here's a few pictures of the remaining ruins:

    Temple of Apollo
     

    Amphitheatre

    Nymphaeum

    Agora and Temple of Tyche

    Public baths, which house the local museum

    A beautifully decorated sarcophagus. The marble is so polished I thought it was alabaster at first.

    Milestone from Republican times with inscriptions in both Latin and (Ancient) Greek. I saw only one other stone artifact with inscriptions in both languages, everything else was in Greek - which, of course, makes perfect sense given the region.
     
  4. Liv

    Travels #2: Hierapolis

    By Liv,

    Hierapolis was an ancient city in Phrygia that later became a part of the kingdom of Pergamon. When King Attalus died, he bequeathed it to the Romans, and they came and did what they were known for: built roads, baths and taxed the hell out of the inhabitants.
    A number of earthquakes destroyed the city over the centuries and eventually led to it being abandoned, and nowadays, while the site is extensive, there isn't much to see that remains in one piece.

    What's left of the gymnasium.

    The main road leading up to Frontinus' gate. In some places you can see traces of a cloaca/giant drain going through the middle of the pavement stones.

    Closer view of Frontinus'gate with fortification right to its left. The archaeologists working outn the site originally thought it was built during the reign of Alexander Severus, but an inscription by proconsul Sextus Julius Frontinus points to Domitian times. This gate was the main entrance to the city.

    The latrinae, or public toilets. It's rather surprising that of all buildings, this one is in decent shape.

    Inside the latrinae. Note the small drain to the right where clean water would flow through. Between that drain and the wall is where the seats would be.

    The baths outside the city limits. In this region of Anatolia it was customary for travellers to purify themselves by bathing before entering the city proper.
    There is also a big necropolis with plenty of tombs and funerary stele and slabs, and an amphitheatre up on a hill that I didn't feel like trekking to.
    Hierapolis also features a small museum with minor findings (statues, sarcophagi, pottery, glass and metalworks), not to mention an antique pool that, according to legend, was gifted by Mark Antony to Cleopatra, and is now know as Cleopatra's bath. The surrounding area, Pamukkale, has a couple of hot springs in a stunning geological setting, and it was the springs that originally led to a settlement being founded.
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