Antonine Nymphaeum: July 2-6, 2006

During this fourth week of the anastylosis of the Antonine nymphaeum, most of the work concentrated on the completion of the entablature fragments of the fifth aedicula, which in the past was crowned by a triangular gable decorated with a nice Medusa head.

In the mean time, a whole series of pantograph tables had been set up in order to copy from gypsum casts, smaller missing fragments of the entablature of this tabernacle, as well as missing elements of the first back wall niche's voussoirs. A study of the latter revealed that most of the original elements still carried the abbreviation TH, probably referring either to the name of the stone carver who produced them, or identifying them as voussoirs of the first niche from the left. Both explanations, although very common in antiquity, are rather strange in this context as none of the voussoirs of the three other arches presented similar signs. A potential explanation could be that the completion of the whole structure seems to have taken place from right to left, whereby several elements of the western (left) extremity seem never to have been finished.

Left, an architrave from the fifth aedicule is being completed. Center, two joined and partially completed voussoirs of the first niche's archivolt. Notice the abbreviation TH on the upper original. Right, a small voussoir fragment from the first niche being fitted into a newly carved block.