Archaeology Magazine - March 1961 - 10

12. Part of the Marble Court which served as an entranceto
the gymnasiumbuilding (right). The triple gate was blocked
up in Byzantinetimes.

Sardis

continued

within the Roman structure there were found the skeletons of four men heaped up on top of a grave which
contained still another skeleton. All of these had been
deposited after the structure ceased to serve its original
function. Another unexplained mystery concerns the appearance in 1959, only a foot or so below the surface
of the field, of two Roman marble statues portraying husband and wife, lying foot to foot. Somebody went to the
trouble of depositing them in this manner long after the
House of Bronzes- not only of the Roman but also the
Early Byzantine period- had ceased to exist.
More has been learned about the House of Bronzes
since the first report on it appeared in Archaeology.
An important unit, a marble paved court, has produced
rich finds of Early Byzantine bronze utensils and glass ;
and coins found under the latest floors- probably just
before the Persian invasion of A.D.615- make it certain
that the house was inhabited in the sixth and early
seventh century. The date of its construction is not yet
preciselyknown.
That Sardis had an important glass industry during the
Early Byzantine era is one of the conclusions of the study
undertaken in cooperation with the Corning Museum of
Glass. Most of the material has come from the long row
of Early Byzantine shops which lie to the south just
acrossthe highway from the House of Bronzes area (BYZ
on plan) . It is now known that these shops extend for at
least one hundred yards, presumably along the city's
to

east-west artery. A public latrine was attached to this
shopping center.
The plan of the vast complex of a Roman gymnasium
is gradually emerging (B, EB, WB on plan) . Its over-all
design featured a large colonnaded court on the east,
from which a smaller court, known as the Marble Court
(Figure 12), led into the central hall of building B. The
smaller court was flanked by units which had exedrae
and shorter colonnades. The long building B and these
units to the east were built in die second century a.D.
with a system of limestone piers, walls of rubble and
brick, and brick vaults and arches. Early in the third century the Marble Court received luxurious and elaborate
façades "from the foundations up," according to the
fragments of the monumental dedicatory inscription
(Figure 13). The inscription honors the empress Julia
Domna and two emperors ; the name of one of them is
erased and it is certain that they are Caracalla and Geta,
Getas name having been erased after he was murdered
by Caracalla's command in A.D. 212. The architectural
elements have been tumbled into wild disorder by an
earthquake, but the elaborate entablatures, spirally fluted
columns and arched pediment over the central gate bid
fair to reveal a major example of Sevean baroque. Even
finer, perhaps, was the architectural decoration of the
second century, to judge from the column capitals
adorned with heads of mythological figures (Figure 14) ;
the best of them, the laughing faun, has already been
illustrated in Archaeology
(12 [1959] 284). Fragments of architectural sculpture, perhaps of the late third
century, indicate that various replacements may have
been made at a later date. During the Early Byzantine
period the entire gymnasium complex became part of the
city's defensive system. What structural changes were
made within it is not yet clear, but in I960 we discovered
fragments of a long Byzantine inscription which ran on the
faces of the piers all around the marble court, apparently
in commemoration of some repair or reconstruction.

Archaeology Magazine - March 1961

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1961