A preliminar version of this contribution was published in Greek at the International Congress ?e?? p??e?? p??? se pa????, organized in Rhodes in 1993 by ICOMOS and the Dodecanese Ephorates. A syntesis was then published also by M. Livadiotti in Livadiotti, Rocco 1996, pp. 86-91. In the 1934 town plan for Kos, the considerable amount of free area corresponding to the archaeological zones excavated by Italian archaeologists is striking. Archival documents show that this peculiarity is the result of a deliberate project and that it is connected with Mario Lago, the Governor of Dodecanese since 1923, who was so deeply interested in classical culture to collaborate with Alessandro Della Seta, Federico Halbherr, Enrico Paribeni, Amedeo Maiuri, Giulio Iacopi and Luciano Laurenzi, to promoting with them in 1928 the foundation of the “Archaeological-Historical Institute FERT” at Rhodes. In 1933 Kos was almost totally devastated by a disastrous earthquake and the Italian government charged the architect R. Petracco with elaborating a new town plan; before the plan was drawn up, Lago agreed with Della Seta in charging Laurenzi with carrying out an archaeological survey and sondages throughout the city in order to identify the most promising areas for future investigations. So, eight large zones were set aside for the creation of as many archaeological parks. Oddly enough, therefore, an Archaeological Service was given a decision preceding a town plan and the new Kos was planned along unusual lines that can be identified in the idea of the “archaeological city”. The plan turned out to be an avant-garde model from the point of view of conservation, even compared with what was taking place at the same time in Italy, where there was an active debate on the problem and the relative legislation was very progressive for the period. The case of Kos has a significant precedent at Rhodes in the Twenties in the episode of the protection of the Moslem and Jewish cemeteries and a creation of a protective band around the walled city. In that story, as documents can demonstrate, Maiuri’s role is not to be underestimated: in fact the archaeologist was really sensitive to the new concerns of restoration and in 1931 participated in Athens, with Della Seta, Pernier, Pace, Iacopi, to the International Conference on Restoration, giving an active contribution to the discussion.

This paper was presented at the International Conference Cibo per gli uomini, cibo per gli dei. Archeologia del pasto rituale, Piazza Armerina, 5-8 of May, 2005. This is an updated version. The ritual collective meal is a widespread practiced aspect in the Greek background and its study concerns not just the exam of ritual practices, in the strict sense of the word, but also architectural structures, intended for the consumption, which were situated within the sanctuaries. In Magna Graecia this tradition finds significant examples, although in different chronological periods, in the extra-urban sanctuary of Aphrodite in Locri, (the so-called “U-shaped Stoà”, in the area of Centocamere, datable around the 6th century) as well as in the sanctuary of Hera Lacinia in Capo Colonna of Crotone (the so-called “H-building", which dates back to the Hellenistic age). Starting from the examination of these two contexts, the study presents an outline of the documentation pertinent to the ritual meal tradition in Magno-Greek ambits, in order to propose a summing up of the data we have been gathering so far, which might sketch out evidences, reception modalities and possible developments of such a worship-practice in the Greek west.

This paper was presented at the International Conference Cibo per gli uomini, cibo per gli dei. Archeologia del pasto rituale, Piazza Armerina, 5-8 of May, 2005. This is now an updated version. The stoà of Camirus, on the Acropolis sanctuary dedicated to Athana and Zeus Polieus, is one of the most important urban monuments in the southern Aegean sea. Several epigraphic texts speak about his function and use inside the sanctuary and mention the organization of meetings and banquets inside the rooms of the building. The rooms behind the portico, in fact, are organized in tree-rooms complexes that could be interpreted as hestiatoria or banquet houses, very similar at Macedonian or Egyptian prototypes. The archaeological and textual evidence prove that the stoà is a multifunctional structure that serves to religious and political necessity of the polis. Perhaps, it is also possible to locate in the structure the hierothyteion, testified by epigraphic fonts, in which public meals were offered by the polis itself.

This paper was presented at the International Conference Cibo per gli uomini, cibo per gli dei. Archeologia del pasto rituale, Piazza Armerina, 5-8 of May, 2005. This is now an updated version. The article concerns the issues related to ritual meal in Attica, especially by analyzing the function of several buildings showing an array of cases that has not been properly assessed yet. Each case’s specific features lead to the hypothesis that banquet building rooms’ plan and furniture, as well as the overall number of available seats, point to the existence of different usage methods reflecting coherent social and religious structures. Athens, Eleusis and Brauron are taken into account as examples of a functional system that autonomously organizes its own spaces on the basis of social and institutional needs.

A bibliography

The Amphitheatre of Sabratha, ignored by 18th and 19th century explorers, was described for the first time by Henri Méhier de Mathuisieulx in 1912 and investigated by Renato Bartoccini beginning in 1924. His work brought to light a large part of the monument, but it was not published. Recently, new research and excavations have made possible new topographical and architectonic drawings of the building, as well as new analysis. The Amphitheatre was completely constructed from local calcarenite blocks in the middle of the II Century A.D. and lies inside an ancient mine at the east boundary of the old site. Contrary to current opinion, it was completed as demonstrated by two blocks of the crowning cornice with holes for the poles of the velarium. The unit of measure used is the Punic cubit, and it is also possible to recognize the geometrical design of the project. Up to 20.000 spectators could be seated in its cavea, a very large number, given the population of the old town. This venue was capable of hosting large numbers of visitors who had come to Sabratha for the great feasts connected with a market that featured caravans of products transported from central Africa, including ivory, gold, animals and slaves. Spectators were able to see sumptuous munera such us that ones offered by G. Flavius Pudens (IRT, 117). The Amphitheatre may have been damaged by an earthquake during the 4th Century, after that it was abandoned and almost totally spoiled during the 6th Century.

The contribution retraces the discovery of the Asklepieion of Kos conducted by the Germans Rudolf Herzog and Paul Schazmann, the investigations by the Italian Archaeological Service and, above all, the restoration work made by the archaeologist Luigi Morricone and the architect Mario Paolini, in order to present the Roman temple on the second terrace. This restoration study is described in its different phases, till the last partial realization of the anastylosis, known through the original drawings. During the activity carried out on the site, the author, with new surveys and with the complete catalogue of architectural fragments belonging to the Roman temple of the Asklepieion, has been in position to make the restitution of the building in two-dimensional and three-dimensional visions, verified also through the extensive critical review of the researches previously undertaken.Finally, the author presents the virtual reconstruction of a new anastylosis project of the Roman temple, developed on the basis of the results of the catalogue of the fragments, the reconstruction through the traditional and digital graphics, the analysis and technical construction, as well as the morphological studies, used as a verification tools and synthesis of the research.

The project of redesigning and enhancing the archaeological site of the Lindos Acropolis began in 2001, within the context of the restoration works of the monuments carried out by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The most important problems that had to be confronted concerned the visitors pathways through the monument (up to 2500 visitors daily), and the existing difficulty in identifying smaller monuments, like anathimata (offerings to the gods) and inscriptions found scattered all around the place since the time of the excavations. What became a necessity in order to implement the study was the composition of an accurate designing site plan and the recording of every scattered stone findings (about 2000). This recording enabled the identification of 421 inscribed stones with the list produced by the archaeologists who had excavated the site and also the location and association of more than 113 unpublished sections with architectural and votive monuments of the site. The goals of the redesigning and enhancing project were the following: - To optimize the routes the visitors followed and help them recognize the monuments of the site by following specific pathways. - T o protect and promote the smaller monuments of the archaeological site. - To protect and highlight the scattered material by classifying it. The study has been approved by the Hellenic Central Archeological Council (KAS) in 2006 and realized during the period of 2006-2009.

A bibliography.

In the town of Kos, the excavations carried out by the Italian archaeologists between 1912 and 1945 and the new investigations by the Greek Archaeological Service have revealed a complex system of water supply based on the integration, occurred during the Roman period, of a water network already set up since the foundation of the city, that took place in 366 BC on the basis of an urban Hippodamian scheme; this defined also a urban drainage system for the disposal of stormwater designed together with the road network. The water supply could rely on abundant natural springs located in the hills south-east of the city, supplemented by private wells and cisterns. The water usage involved public fountains and nymphaea, and, especially in Roman times, several bath buildings, whose first installation dates in a period between I and II cent. AD, with later changes until the mid-fourth century, when some of them changed their function and were transformed in religious buildings. To fed the thermae, an aqueduct was built in imperial period, although the baths were always equipped with storage tanks to compensate any reduction of the flow; to rationalize the use of water, the discharge of the thermal baths was conducted through pipes to flush the sewers of public latrines, always built nearby, while the houses were equipped with private sanitary facilities whose sewers used the drainage channels in the middle of the streets, later reworkings of the original channels of the first Hellenistic age. In conclusion, the water supply systems and wastewater disposal witness the remarkable persistence of the original Kos town water systems and above all attest to how the study of water management systems of a city may improve knowledge of its topography at the different stages of development.

The Arch of Trajan in Leptis Magna, placed along the so-called Via Triumphalis to commemorate the grant of colonial status in 109-110 AD, is a concrete example of the different meanings of honorary architecture of North Africa, from the urbanistic one to the symbolic, political and propagandistic ones. Moreover, as a building belonging just to Lepcis, still entirely made of local stone, it has a central place in the architectural history of a city which is going to be characterized by a monumental growth and by the use of imported marble architectural elements since the late age of Hadrian: local building techniques, influences from Magna Graecia and Italy through the mediation of Sicily, Roman models (the arch of Nero in Rome seems to be the main typological model), Alexandrian and Cyrenaic elements are the outline conditions of a very original architecture. The aim of these notes, moving from a short history of studies, is to give a summary about the knowledge of the monument, trying to contextualize it: they analyze its features and illustrate the data come to light till now in a new research about it.

A bibliography.

A bibliography.