Terrace House 2 in Ephesos: Wall- and Ceilingdecorations

Thanks to its excellent condition and the abundant furnishing with wallpaintings, marble revetments, stuccodecorations, mosaics on floors, walls and ceilings, and also because of its extensive supplies on sculpture, objects of minor arts, small-findings and household effects the Terrace House 2 in Ephesos represents one of the most important monuments for the research into roman imperial housing in general and the Eastern Mediterranean in particular. The "insula" of the Terrace House 2 has been excavated in the years 1962-1985 by H. Vetters, to begin with V.M. Strocka and W. Jobst published the wallpaintings and the mosaics of the until 1973 exposed parts together with those of the Terrace House 1 in 1977, the building itself was described by the excavator in a summary preface. The authors dated the earliest comprehensible stage in the first century A.D. and the destruction on account of one numismatic evidence in the begin of the seventh century A.D. According to this the majority of the wallpaintings and the mosaics should have been created in Late antiquity, in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. Owing to new archaeological evidences by the exposition of the lower parts of the Terrace House 2 and the excavations of the last few years, owing to a systematically analysis of the building started in 1995 and the treatment of the grafitti it is time to reassess these data and to revise them in some aspects definitely. Within the frame of the proposed project a new treatment and particularly a revision of the decorations of walls and ceilings shall take place. The surfaces of the walls are decorated with marble veneer ore paintings, in numerous cases a combination of both types of decoration can be found. Until the last few years there was little scientific interest on marble revetments and there haven`t been comprehensive studies on this type of decoration. Some years ago K. Koller started investigations on this item, in her Ph.D.-theses she was dealing with the marble furnishing of the so-called marble court (sog. Marmorsaal, the works shall be continued. The wallpaintings have to be reviewed with new approaches and by using systematic methods considering to the recent results of the analysis of the building. In case of fragmented wallpaintings of the upper floors and other small pieces and of course the wallpaintings in situ of the two large housing units at the lower terrace, which have been excavated since the late seventies, treatments have to start. These investigations shall be realized by N. Zimmermann, who is specialized on this subject by studies on the wallpaintings in the catacombs of Rome. The function of the rooms plays an important role for the assessment of the decorations of the wallsurfaces, some advice to the function of rooms is given by the supplies and because of this it is necessary to see the analysis of the building, the furnishing and the supplies together, an integrative conception for the following publications shall make this possible for the future. Both of these studies are going to expect important contribution to the interpretation of the whole complex of the Terrace House 2, it seems that the several dwelling units were obviously not for rent, but possibly the property of one certain Ephesian family, one member of this wealthy family, C. Flavius Furius Aptus, a priest of Dionysos who lived in the second half of the second century A.D., is comprehensible by inscriptions in the large housing unit 6.

The most important results of the research done for the publication are the redating of the Terrace House and its wall-paintings up to 200 years, the evidence of up to two upper storeys of the city houses and their utilisation for representation which is on a par with the ground floor. The publications concerning the furnishing of the Terrace House 2 which came out before the end of the excavations placed the destruction and the abandonment of the building complex in the beginning of the 7th century AD and the majority of the wall-paintings in the 5th century AD. In consideration of different methodical approaches like the building analysis and the evaluation of the archaeological finds four building phases could be differentiated for the exemplary housing unit 4 and concordantly for the other six units of Terrace House 2. The first phase dates from about 50 AD, the fourth from 220 AD, around 270 AD the complex was destroyed by a series of earthquakes. The forms of the houses could be reconstructed for these building phases and a sequence for the wall-paintings was developed. This yielded an important result for the research of the paintings: the varying appearances of the paintings is not - as was previously assumed - to be seen as an art-historical decadence but there is a fluctuation in the quality between the main and the secondary rooms. The evidence of a painting workshop which operated in the last building and furnishing phase in the 2nd quarter of the 3rd century AD allows to make statements concerning the application of the painting in relation to the house and room sizes, criteria being the choice of colour, the diligence of the workmanship and the theme of the painting. The definite chronological classification of the Ephesian painting achieved by the carried-out method serves as a basis and a new approach for superordinated comparisons. Another aspect of the Ephesian decoration of the walls and ceilings is the relation of the wall-paintings and the marble panelling - so far neglected in the research - which was increasingly selected since the 2nd century AD. The wall-systems which were partly structured by pilasters, e.g. the marble hall in housing unit 6 or also a now reconstructed banquet hall in the first floor of the housing unit 4, had high-quality capitals; their forms confirm the dating. The diversity of the local and imported marble and coloured stone - in housing unit 4 a total of 27 different kinds were used - not only reflects the luxury of the furnishing of the urban elite in their houses but also casts a light on the trade routes and the economy of the city.