The Ptolemaion of Limyra

Research project P 13896 The Ptolemaion of Limyra Jürgen BORCHHARDT 28.06.1999 Between 1984 and 1993 the Institute for Classical Archaeology of the University of Vienna, supported by the FWF, excavated a hellenistic monument in the east-lycian city of Limyra, the Ptolemaion, which has been interpreted as a monument for the imperial cult. The project presented here intends to clarify still unanswered questions concerning the entire construction, architecture and sculptural decoration of this building. Furthermore the destruction phases will be investigated and documented. Additionally, we aim to refine the chronology and to secure the interpration of the building. This field-archaeological work will form the basis for a final publication. The focal point will be to investigate the architecture of the building, with special attention paid to the following questions: height of the pedestal, possible existence of an interior room on the tholos-level and its hypothetical ceiling; position of the overlife-size, male and female statues; the displacement of the thrust on the transitional zone between the roof and the tholos. Also significant will be the clarification of the disposition of space around the monument: did an altar and porticoes exist? Was the space demarcated, for instance by a temenos wall; and was there a propylon giving access to the monument? These questions speak to the problematic issue, of how the monument was integrated into the urban structure of Limyra during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Our research will also focus on the sculptural decoration of the monument; it is hoped that analysis of the sculpture will lead to the specific identification of the artistic center from which it derived. Furthermore we hope, that new finds of architectural sculpture and free-standing sculpture might increase our knowledge on sculptural decoration. Special focus will be placed on the subject of the metopes from the east- south- and west-side of the podium. The stylistic analysis of the architectural sculpture from the podium and of the colossal statue group (armored strategos next to saddled steed) might bring a new interpretation of the various styles in the early-hellenistic period after Lysippos. A clarification of the destruction phases of the monument is also significant not only for the history of the site, but also for the city of Limyra; in this context the later use of the area around the Ptolemaion will be examined. The documentation of the early byzantine structures, especially the church building to the east of the ptolemaion, which is possibly overlapping the propylon, will be continued.

The main intentions of the project were to close the excavation-works and to complete the analysis of the architecture of the Ptolemaion in Limyra. These two purposes which are indispensable for the publication of the monument could be achieved. A lot of new features concerning the architecture and the statues of the monument were found. But also further informations on the abandonment, the destruction and the urban location of the building from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine period arose from the research. In addition two monuments in the southeast of the Ptolemaion, an imperial gate and an early Byzantine church, were investigated. New cognitions for the proportion and the shape of the monument resulted from a newly adjustment of the altitude of the podium and from the positioning of a frieze (showing armours and circular bucklers) which is to be situated in the upper third of the pedestal. Recently found blocs of the tholos in the first floor prove an interior diameter of the supposed cella of 4 m maximum. A group of larger-than-life statues representing the imperial Ptolemaic family presumably stood inside the circular room (working hypothesis). A colossal head of marble which was excavated nearby the monument seems to be Ptolemaios III. The quality, the asianic baroque and the enormousness of a present of an armoured, horse leading strategist point at the beginning of the urban imperial cult in Limyra. Perhaps the strategist can be interpreted as Patroklos, a ptolemaic officer of high rank and possibly the benefactor of the Ptolemaion. In the southeast of the Ptolemaion a monumental gate was built up during the imperial period. It can be seen as an architectural termination of the Roman avenue (with lateral colonnades). The singular passageway was flanked by triple columns. A quite uncommon semi-gable can be reconstructed directly above the arc of the gate. Some of his blocs show fragments of an inscription which indicate the end of the 2nd c. AD. (terminus ante quem) for the erection of the monument. In the north of the gate a little three-aisled basilica was excavated. The architectural findings indicate a dating in the 1st half of the 6th c. AD. Due to quite a number of fragments of the decorative and the liturgical furnishing a reconstruction of the interior can be made.