Paestum
Poseidonia is a Greek city of Magna Graecia , became Lucan under the common name of Paestum, located in southern Italy , the commune of Capaccio-Paestum , in Campania. Today is an important archaeological center, with three Doric Greek temples and a museum.
The site is registered since 1998 in the list of World Heritage of Humanity established by Unesco.
Summary |
History
Creation date of the city is not known exactly. Papers agree that the Greek city was built in the late seventh century BC. BC by Greeks from Sybaris , an important Greek city of Calabria. Strabo , the seventh century BC. AD , speaks of a village-fortress in the sea he calls Poseidonia. For the fifth century BC. BC and the sixth century BC. AD , the city is at the peak of its glory.
In the fifth century BC. AD (410-420), becomes Poseidonia Lucan , the conditions of this change are not known, perhaps an uprising Lucanians working in the city. The city takes the name of Paestum.
In -273 , the Romans founded a colony of Roman law. The city now bears the name of Paestum.
The city was still under Roman rule but begins to enter a period of decline between the fourth century and seventh century , probably due to changes in drainage which led to the swamp and at the finish of the contemporary malaria in Europe.
Then, following the destruction caused by the Saracens in the ninth century by the Normans in the eleventh century , the site was abandoned during the Middle Ages , when the inhabitants hunted, founded Capaccio.
During the eighteenth century , the fashion of the "Grand Tour" ignites the European youth well provided for. It is so fashionable to go the Europe and especially of Italy in search of the finest works of art. Rome , the Campania , and especially Naples (thanks to recent excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum ) are the places busiest. Rather than making a trip to Greece (then under Turkish rule) to admire the architecture Hellenic, it is easier to go to Paestum explore the three temples Doric preserved for centuries by the fear of malaria in the marshes around Paestum.
Description
The site has significant architectural monuments of Greek and Roman times, including three Greek temples - both Doric and Ionic and Doric - and public buildings of the Roman period, including a small Roman amphitheater A comitium and a tomb , a small funerary temple dedicated to the hero who founded the city. The walls of the city of 4.75 km long, are well preserved and have phases Lucan and Roman. The four large doors are Roman.
Temple of Hera, said "Basilica"
The first temple of Hera , south of the site dates from the second half of the sixth century BC. BC He is best known as the "Basilica", which was attributed to the eighteenth century because of the almost total disappearance of the walls of the cella , the pediment and the entablature , which recalled more than the arrangement of a civil basilica , use of court or public meeting room than a religious building.
The temple was dedicated to Hera , wife of Zeus and tutelary deity of Poseidonia.
This great temple is of type peripteral ennastyle, that is to say, with nine columns on the front, and eighteen columns on the sides. The overall measure 24.35 x 54 m.
The terms of internal arrangements are sufficiently well preserved to give an idea of the whole monument between the narthex and adytum , the cella is divided in two by a colonnade which supported the axial attic.
The greatest peculiarity of this temple is its odd number of front columns, making it impossible vision of the cult statue from the outside, completely cutting the faithful of the deity and its representation. The axial colonnade of the cella had a double order of columns, upper columns are shorter and thinner, so as to respect the canons of proportions.
The other singularity, between all the other monuments of Doric architecture, is decorating the neck of the plant tops, with leaves, sometimes rosettes and flowers of lotus , which are reminiscent of the decorative elements of the ' Mycenaean period. The coronation of the temple was in terracotta painted with decorations of lion heads and antefixes shaped palmettos.
However, only have survived the 50 columns of the peristyle , of 4.68 m high, of archaic aspect, strongly curved, with capitals to chart very broad.
- Temple colonnade plan axial , (it)
Second Temple of Hera, said "temple of Poseidon"
The second temple of Hera , called "Temple of Poseidon "is the newest of the three: it was built around -450.
The second temple of Hera, also called "temple of Poseidon," or even "the temple of Neptune, adjacent to the" Basilica ", a few meters north of it, was built in the mid-fifth century BC, probably at the time of greatest development of the city of Poseidonia.
It has now an excellent appearance retention due to the abandonment of the city due to malaria , from the earliest centuries of the Christian era.
General design of the temple
The general design of this temple is inspired from the temple of Zeus at Olympia. It is a Doric temple peripteral hexastyle 6 x 14 columns, from 24.30 x 59.90 m high plastered on a three degrees.
Interior
The shrine is in double column in antis, with a narthex and a opisthodomos symmetrical, enclosing a colonnaded inner cella. Just after the entrance to the sanctuary, two small spiral staircases provided access to the roof. The cella is divided into three naves by two rows of seven Doric columns, each topped by an even number of columns similar, but smaller.
Structural Features
The number of columns side does not respond to gun Doric (fourteen columns instead of six), although other temples of Magna Graecia also have this characteristic, such as Segesta.
The columns are a bit smaller, but more elongated than the model of Olympia. They are also unusually large, very tall, strongly tapered, a diameter of 2.09 m at the base and 1.55 m high, but very little curved (entasis). To mitigate any heaviness, the number of grooves was increased to twenty-four, which does not respond either to canonical rules of the Doric order.
The corner columns have an elliptical cross section, whose major axis is parallel to the facade, giving them more thickness in frontal view, and sidebars are not converging vertically, as is the custom generally.
Optical correction of the concavity
Here we find the provision, in an almost unique in the context of Magna Graecia, the convexity of stylobate and entablature, characteristic of Doric architecture in Greece, for example Parthenon and later taken to Segesta.
Conflict resolution angular
The usual problem of conflict of angle of metopes and triglyphs has been solved here by moving the last triglyph and shortened intercolumniation angle, so that the last metope be the same length as its predecessor: the intercolumniation of the corner columns of 4.30 m instead of 4.475 m for the other columns.
Allocation worship
The traditional name of "Temple of Poseidon" is inherited from the imaginative power of enthusiastic explorers of the eighteenth century. Votive deposits related to the temple suggest that it was dedicated to Hera , rather than Zeus , as had been considering it, because of design similarities with the temple of Olympia. The presence of two nearby temples dedicated to the same deity, however, remains unexplained.
Temple of Athena, known as "Temple of Ceres"
The Temple of Athena , known as "Temple of Ceres , was built about 500 m further north, around -500. This Doric temple hexastyle is smaller than the other two, but very balanced, with a narthex with Ionic columns.
The discovery of three medieval tomb in the basement of the temple testifies to its probable conversion into a Christian church during this period.
Museum
Listed Homes
The museum has a large collection of Greek antiquities from southern Italy, including grave goods, many vases, weapons and frescoes from discoveries in the necropolis of Greek and Lucan near Paestum.
Frescoes Greek
The paintings from the famous fresco in the Tomb of the Diver (480-470 BC.), which interpret the transition from life in the kingdom of the dead as a diver jumping into water, are unique in the painting of the ancient Greeks.
Frescoes Lucanian
Many other paintings of the tombs belong to the period of Lucan city.
See also
- The British painter Samuel James Ainsley did the watercolors in the nineteenth century.
- Elea
- Cilento
Bibliography
- Lamboley J.-L., The Western Greeks: The Archaic Period, Paris, Sedes, 1995
- E. Greco, The Great Greece: History and Archaeology, Paris, Hachette, 1996
- Mertens D., "The city and its monuments," Topics in Archaeology: The Great Greece, Greek presence in southern Italy from the Archaic to the arrival of the Romans, n. 235, June-August 1998, pp. 54-66.
External Links
- (It) / (en) Foundation Paestum
- (En) National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano, with archaeological sites of Paestum and Velia and the Certosa di Padula on the site of the UNESCO
- Paestum TV - Movies monuments - Capaccio - Paestum
- Video clip shot in Paestum
| Sicily | Agrigento and Valley of the Temples Camarina Gela Heraclea Minoa Himera Lilybaeum Motya Naxos Segesta Selinunte Neapolis Archaeological Park (Syracuse) Greek temples in Syracuse Tyndaris | .jpg) |
| Southern Italy | Crotone Cuma Elea Locri Metapontum Naples Poseidonia (Paestum) Pozzuoli Sybaris Tarentum Thurii | |
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