The Northwest Heroon
After a week of preparation, restoration of the Augustan Northwest Heroon, supervised by Ebru Torun and financed by the Arco Group from Belgium, got into full speed. A temporary scaffolding was set up around structure. Three courses of ashlar blocks have now been replaced above the famous frieze with the dancing girls, of which the copies were fixed to the central part of the socle two years ago. The courses just laid consist of a short and a tall ashlar layer, crowned by a stylobate, bringing the current height of the structure to nearly eight m. This has changed our image of the building completely, as it towers above anything else around it, and another seven m of the naiskos-like upper structure still needs to be added. The dancing girls themselves have now been reduced to "one of the friezes" of the whole building and are no longer the eye-catcher they were. Upon completion of this work, the NW Heroon certainly will be one of the highlights of Turkish cultural tourism.

View of the current northeast corner of the Northwest Heroon with some of the stylobate blocks of the naiskos back into their place.

The Antonine Nymphaeum
Last week also, restoration activities of the late Antonine nymphaeum on the north side of the Upper Agora resumed under the supervision of Semih Ercan. He is helped by his collaborators, the Turkish architects from last year, Özge, Serpil and Emra, and by conservator Sebahattin and crane operator Ali. Continuation of this work was made possible by the Belgian KBC Banking and Insurance Company, by the L.Baert-Hofman Fund, and by the stone carving company of François Renier in Belgium. Thus far work has focused on completing the missing parts of the fountain's back wall and columns. One of the missing varieties of colored stone used for the central niche's columns could be identified at Süpren near Eskisehir. Together with the kaplan postu marble (Afyon, Iscehisar) of the two columns next to them, we will fix the missing pieces to the existing fragments and then everything will be carved mechanically into the right rounded shape, diminishing towards the top, at a marble factory near Afyon. Though the custom-made scaffolding largely hides the building, it has become one of the most impressive structures already of the Turkish south coast.

The conservation:
Last week architect Paola Pesaresi first made a detailed report on the damage caused by an extremely severe winter, with more than four meters of snow! She has selected the areas where conservation (mainly repointing) of brick and rubble walls will become the priorities for this season: the arcaded courtyard of the large suburban villa, the brick walls of the Roman Baths, and the mortared rubble walls of the Severan nymphaeum on the Lower Agora.