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In keeping with the customs of the time, the roofs of the Schiavi temples were comprised of a timber truss covered by flat and bent terracotta tiles. The horizontal beams (trabeation) and the slanting beams were covered by terracotta slabs. The base of the slopes was decorated with other tiles, known as antefixes; on the lateral eaves. Rainwater was dispersed through gargoyles in a number of different forms.
Due to the site being occupied and reused many different times, and the documentation methods used during the past excavations, we are unable to fully reconstruct the decoration of the two temples.
In fact, the numerous architectural terracotta fragments, primarily discovered during the earliest excavations in the corridor between the two temples, cannot be definitely attributed to either building.
The Doric frieze, with rosettes and ox heads alternating with triglyphs, could have been found on both temples, while the unusual four-face metopes, perhaps referring to four divinities, may have only been found on the minor temple.
The Architectural Terracotta
It is unclear where numerous elements would have been positioned, and they could have even decorated other buildings in the holy area, such as the plant decoration fragments.
The antefixes are very unusual. They are of different sizes, perhaps because they belonged to different buildings, but they all share a figurative feature that was very widespread in antiquity: the "Lady of the Beasts", a winged female divinity between two wild beasts, who has the unusual characteristic of having her left leg uncovered in Schiavi; a further two antefixes featuring human heads are from an unknown location.
The top coping of all the buildings must have been fretted, with plant friezes or figure of eight motifs alternating with whirls, of which just a small number of fragments have been found, probably coming from a small building that has not yet been located.
The architectural decoration, mass produced using moulds, could have been imported, as some of the manufacturing stamps lead us to suppose, but also produced on site, as part of the normal maintenance and replacement of damaged tiles. |
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