Paestum: Scavi, Ricerche, Restauri.I- Le mura. Il tratto da Porta Sirena alla Postierla 47

This work illustrates the results of archaeological investigations made along the eastern versant of the boundary wall of Paestum, and in particular along the section running between Porta Sirena and Tower 28. Such interventions have been carried out in the context of the Superintendency program for the Archaeological SA-AV-BN Office, with the aim of organising and increasing the value of the entire fortified circuit of Paestum. The project has been financed by funding from the National Programme for Archaeology (L. 29-12-2000, years 2000-2002). Structural restoration has been the aim of this project which has involved a series of investigations and complementary research projects with the purpose of recovering and documenting elements useful for a more exact understanding of Porta Sirena and the Eastern wall section both from a chronological and constructive viewpoint. The research, respecting prearranged objectives, has been organized in such a way as to foster interaction between the archaeological investigations, architectural drawing and restoration work. The archaeological investigation has been oriented towards various levels; one regarding the computerized cataloguing management of the blocks and the lapideous elements lying alongside the base of the curtains walls, while keeping in mind that, with particular reference to the thirties, most of the blocks have been moved or used for making foundations and elevating the road, which is still operative today. Excavation tests were set up to identify and isolate those made by Schläger and, above all, to investigate specific sectors in the foundations and between the curtain walls, from which to draw the information necessary to circumscribe the chronological phases of this sector of the walls and of Porta Sirena, and useful for checking construction techniques of both the foundations and the upper sections. This research has not only supplied precious indicators to give substance to the working hypotheses, but has also rendered concrete documentation, in part unexpected, increasing the breadth of our knowledge and throwing light on the organisation and the transformation of this part of the town, from ancient times onwards. The architectural drawings, based on a careful analysis of philological structure, has allowed to interpret and document the constitutive elements of the walls and Porta Sirena, as well as their internal relationships and the construction sequences adopted. The work brought us to distinguish the differences in both in the fabric of the walls, attributable to the various sites active at the time of the building of some preserved curtain walls, and the discontinuities connected to reconstruction work and to reorganisation of the walls over time. Drawings of the section undergoing investigation have also been useful for the realization of a thematic map documenting the state of conservation of the structures at the beginning of the operations, at the various phases during intervention and of the parts affected by restoration. In the first chapter it was considered opportune to present a short description of the defensive complex in its current form, and retrace, albeit roughly, steps relevant to the perception of the walls in the European cultural history and as how specific interest in the monument has progressively increased, at first for its architectural value and later as an archaeological record of which to try to understand the chronology, the construction phases the relative transformations and use. In the first part of chapter II the focus has been changed to concentrate on a re-examination both of the studies dedicated to the fortified Eastern side, and of the testimonies which might record how Porta Sirena was perceived at the time as the only one of the four entrances to the town which has always preserved its elevation and its functions. In the second part of the same chapter, the focus is on the procedures adopted regarding the criteria used for the computerized cataloguing and recording of the erratic lapideous materials, lying outside and inside the curtain wall, and the methodology that has directed the excavations with the aim of providing useful elements concerning chronology and construction techniques. The following two chapters (III and IV) concentrate on the presentation of the excavations carried out along the external curtain wall, where Imperial age tombs have been brought to light, inside and outside the battlements, in the emplecton and near to Porta Sirena. Trenches dug by Schläger in the sixties have been identified and distinguished near Porta Sirena, and the new excavations have discovered a naiskos, which is studied in-depth in Chapter V. The quantity of ceramic fragments found in the excavations has made it opportune to dedicate Chapter VI to the organisation of the most frequently occurring classes, in order to provide a synthetic picture of the criteria used in the analysis of the materials, which constitute the foundation on which the chronological sequences of the stratigraphic units have been elaborated. Chapter VII focuses on the philological analysis of the Eastern door and of the structures along the fortified section involved in the intervention; such analysis has been oriented to define the nature of the constitutive elements and their internal relations, in order both to register the constructive sequences, and substantiate the hypothesis concerning the various phases and the rendering of this wall section and of Porta Sirena. The VIII chapter clarifies choices adopted in the restoration, for which the aim of finding a balance between the historicized image of "rudero" of the monument and its value as a historical document to be safeguarded and protected from degradation, has been pursued. Analysis of degrading factors and the causes of damage follows a detailed description of the interventions made to improve the general condition of the monument and the exploiting of its full potential. The acquired elements allow the last chapter to outline the sequence of facts and interventions which have affected the Eastern town limit from its foundation to today and to roughly distinguish three archaeological macroperiods, further split into phases marked by actions, which are in a few cases chronologically definite, in others harder to place on the timeline. The first macroperiod concerns the forms of occupation of the Eastern Poseidonia area before the building of the fortification. The second involves the various construction phases of Porta Sirena and of the walls, determined by the evolution of poliorcetic techniques in a time span which included the last decades of IV century and the late Republican age. The third macroperiod concerns interventions and punctual reconstruction of the curtain walls, some probably dating back to Augustan times, when the main artery from Porta Sirena was paved with stones, and, above all, the progressive loss of the wall’s function, which marked its slow degradation. In short, the Eastern wall section was installed in a an area which was quite busy, albeit sporadically, from the VII century, before the foundation of the town, and was more concretely involved, judging by the presence of structures from this time, from midway through the VI century BC. The dense stratigraphic level succession near the stair S8 is of importance, where a beaten path, about 5.80m wide and less than 10cm thick, has been identified, dating from between the end of the VI and the beginning of the V century BC. This road, for its consistency, dimensions, position and orientation in N-S sense has shown itself to be part of one stenopos of the most ancient road system, and was hiding a part of the foundation of a more ancient structure in travertine rock pieces, also oriented it in N-S sense and lodged in the ground in direct contact with the geological layer. In substance, the Eastern margins of the town have been occupied by constructions from their origins. The creation of the road in the last quarter of the VI century, at the same time as the realization of the urban grid, marks a tangible limit that cancels out a few pre-existing structures, while apparently respecting others placed along its Western and Eastern margins. These structures seem to not to survive, however, beyond the first half of the V century BC, as suggested by the chronological consistency of the numerous ceramic fragments, found in the layers connected to periods of use and deterioration. Due to the nature of the investigation we are today unable to define the extension and the form of the buildings which belonged the structures discovered, and nor can we understand their intended use. However, the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the material associated with them allow us to assume that these structures were destined for functions of a ritual nature. The chronological anchorages obtained by stratigraphy show, at least in the sections investigated, that the oriented NS road in the Porta Sirena South area, it is the only element which is archaeologically documentable from the first half of the V century, when it was covered by a further, beaten road and the ancient structures were contemporaneously eliminated. It is difficult to establish if this road had a pomerial function from the beginning, although it is not to be questioned that, in the Porta Sirena Southern section, it defines a tangible limit on the Eastern town versant, marked later by the building of the walls. The suggestion which, about mid-way through the V century BC, the Eastern side of town had undergone solid transformations which left only the road axis unchanged, is supported by the presence of a small temple with a quadrangular plan, discovered on the Northern side of Porta Sirena, 13 m. from its barrel-vault and not far from the internal curtain wall. The building, oriented E-W, with entry to the West and perhaps a double sloping cover, inside had a fireplace and a plastered trapeza covered with fine white stucco, like that on the outside walls. It was raised at the opening of the large plateia, which crosses the town from East to West and it seems to have the purpose of marking the separation between the inside and outside of the town. We do not have elements to identify the titular divinity of the cult practised at the shrine, but some clues can be drawn by the votive materials pertaining to the last phase of active use: the only statuettes depicting divinity are identical to images of Athena found in the urban goddess sanctuary, starting from the second half of V century BC. Excavation data allow us to affirm that from midway through the V century BC until the first decades of the III century BC, the plateia was still in function and the temple did not undergo alterations. Therefore, with our present knowledge, it is possible to define three architectural phases at the Porta Sirena, their chronological organisation and their relationship with the boundary wall. The elements recovered during the excavation of the door area, the filling between the curtain walls and near postern 47 suggest, therefore, a first phase of the boundary wall during the last decades of the IV century, in which the planimetric level door seems to have an open courtyard organisation, set back 7,40m from the outside wall front, with walls 4,50m wide as confirmed both from excavations near postern 47, and from the analysis of its architectural structure as well as, in analogy, from the size of kermauer preserved on the Northern side. The red line traced by testimonies concerning the final years of the IV century BC finds a further connection with data obtained through the study of the structures and the relationships between levels: the height of postern 47, including the covering, is the same as the lower part of the filling in the section contained between the two walls, just as its width is exactly equal to that of the postern without the curtain wall thickness. On the basis of these elements is extremely clear that at least the section running from stair S8 to postern 47 underwent, about midway through the III century BC, the general reconstruction of a previous layout. The door system remained substantially unchanged, but the widening and the raising of the Eastern boundary section ( 7x7,30 m), and the building of the stairs in the section included between Porta Sirena and tower 28, were realized, one immediately to the South of the Porta (S7), connected to the reinforcement of its defences, and the other one (S8) was placed at 1,10m. A few blocks reused in the Porta during the last phase, which is still preserved, have allowed us to identify elements referable to the barrel-vault of the open courtyard door, and estimate, concerning the second phase, its dimensions with more certainty: a rectangular space, 7,40x5,20m, open to the East and closed on the town side by a passage with a vaulted covering, 3x3m. It is possible to specify that if the encumbrance of the Porta substantially remained unchanged in the first two phases, the state of the structures, identified almost exclusively by foundations, induce us to specify with more security that its organisation as an open courtyard a vaulted room was completed only in the second phase, when, about mid-way through the III century BC, the sides of the courtyard were totally rebuilt to connect them to the new boundary dimensions, an event which contemporaneously involved the destruction of the temple, still respected by the Porta in the first phase. In short, reassembling all the elements recovered and analysed, we believe we can affirm that the open courtyard of the second phase Porta and the Eastern section of the boundary circuit connected to it are the results of a single project, but we are also sure that this layout has been set up to widely reuse and rearrange elements of structures pertaining to a pre-existent door and wall, which the stratigraphic data show at the last decades of IV century BC. This planimetric organization of the Porta underwent a radical transformation at a later time, assuming the current aspect: closed courtyard to the outside East with a front part and an internal body deeper to the West and narrower than the precedent, to contain the door shutters within the thickness of the central barrel-vault and to obtain two pedestrian passages parallel to the shafts. The philological analysis of the elevated part has confirmed our insight, with the high percentage of material recovered, allowing us to understand that the building of the new Porta involved the breaking of the boundary wall, with the purpose of widening the courtyard. Furthermore, excavations have permitted us to verify that this operation is connected the creation of foundations deeper than those of the Porta in previous phases, with the radical dismantling of the Southern structures and a partial overlap on those of the Northern side, in respect to which the more recent foundations were moved back. Unfortunately we do not have useful elements with which to precisely date this intervention. However, we can place it after halfway through the III century BC and before the Augustan age, as excavations have registered that the thick layers of preparation of large paving stones, which cross the door, visible also in the eighteenth century, have removed all the previous beaten roads, the levels of which, with datable materials between the II and III century BC, seem to have been used as filling for the functional channels to assure greater stability of the road system. If Porta Sirena has remained unchanged over time and has continued to perform its function of providing access to the East of the town, the corresponding section of walls has undergone, over the time , touch-ups and specific restoration, above all in a few parts which are still weaker today. We do not have elements to date these interventions precisely, also because of the numerous incidences of plundering in the thirties. However some data offers the possibility to obtain, albeit indirectly, clues that the walls, at least from the end of I century AD onward, have undergone a transformation in regard to their original defensive organization, since the space immediately to the feet of the outside curtain wall was designated for burials from the end of the I century AD all the way through to the end of the III century AD.