The Embolo in Ephesos

The Curetes Street - the antique Embolos - runs through the valley between the two hills of Ephesos and connects the upper and the lower agora. As main urban street it provided the ideal location for honorific monuments, tombs and representative buildings in Hellenistic and Roman times. Up to the 6/7th century it presented a spectacular setting for the numerous processions of late-antiquity. The buildings were partly excavated in the beginning of, but mostly in the middle of the 20th century. They were examined and partly reconstructed by methods of that time, but without exception were not published. In a second research phase, starting in 1980, the building research of Hadrian`s gate - carried out by modern methods - was published. For two other monu-ments, the Heroon and the Octagon, extensive preparatory work exists. With the applied-for project, three singular monuments of the Embolos - the Heroon, the Octagon and the Nymphaeum Traiani - shall be examined and prepared for publication. In all cases pre-liminary reconstructions can be resorted to: the Hellenistic Heroon was a -shaped building with a water basin and two stories; over the massive base consisting of a Doric pseudo-architecture, there was an open upper story in Ionic order. A relief frieze possibly establishes a relationship to the mythical city-founder Androklos (1). The Octagon, of early Imperial times, is a tomb with the basic form of a mausoleum. For the first time, it probably combines a polygonal floor plan with a monopteros with a pyramidal roof. The owner of the tomb could be the Ptolemaic princess Arsinoe IV, who was murdered in Ephesos (2). The Nymphaeum Traiani represents - as the head of a pipeline - a well advanced type of the tabernacle façade. In context with the knowledge of the building owner Ti. Claudius Aristion, mentioned by Plinius, the chosen location is of increasing significance (3). Further conclusions can be made through the sculptural decoration, which will be newly examined and evaluated (4). In the past ten years various excavations were carried out on the Embolos. The examination and analysis of the finds shall supply evidence for the dating of the Heroon and the Octagon; furthermore, the synoptic evaluation is fundamental for the urban form of the lower Embolos in Hellenistic and early Imperial times (5). The reconstruction of the building phases of the Embolos, for which extensive preliminary work exists, shall be continued and prepared in a way that the insights concerning the changes of this inner-city space of the Greek- Roman metro-polis can be presented and analyzed virtually (6).The applied-for personnel costs shall enable three young scientists the possibility to work on a scientifically demanding topic and to earn a doctorate.

The Curetes Street - the antique Embolos - runs through the valley between the two hills of Ephesos and connects the upper and the lower agora. As main urban street it provided the ideal location for honorific monuments, tombs and representative buildings in Hellenistic and Roman times. Up to the 6/7th century it presented a spectacular setting for the numerous processions of late-antiquity. The buildings were partly excavated in the beginning of, but mostly in the middle of the 20th century. They were examined and partly reconstructed by methods of that time, but without exception were not published. In a second research phase, starting in 1980, the building research of Hadrian`s gate - carried out by modern methods - was published. For two other monu-ments, the Heroon and the Octagon, extensive preparatory work exists. With the applied-for project, three singular monuments of the Embolos - the Heroon, the Octagon and the Nymphaeum Traiani - shall be examined and prepared for publication. In all cases pre-liminary reconstructions can be resorted to: the Hellenistic Heroon was a -shaped building with a water basin and two stories; over the massive base consisting of a Doric pseudo-architecture, there was an open upper story in Ionic order. A relief frieze possibly establishes a relationship to the mythical city-founder Androklos (1). The Octagon, of early Imperial times, is a tomb with the basic form of a mausoleum. For the first time, it probably combines a polygonal floor plan with a monopteros with a pyramidal roof. The owner of the tomb could be the Ptolemaic princess Arsinoe IV, who was murdered in Ephesos (2). The Nymphaeum Traiani represents - as the head of a pipeline - a well advanced type of the tabernacle façade. In context with the knowledge of the building owner Ti. Claudius Aristion, mentioned by Plinius, the chosen location is of increasing significance (3). Further conclusions can be made through the sculptural decoration, which will be newly examined and evaluated (4). In the past ten years various excavations were carried out on the Embolos. The examination and analysis of the finds shall supply evidence for the dating of the Heroon and the Octagon; furthermore, the synoptic evaluation is fundamental for the urban form of the lower Embolos in Hellenistic and early Imperial times (5). The reconstruction of the building phases of the Embolos, for which extensive preliminary work exists, shall be continued and prepared in a way that the insights concerning the changes of this inner-city space of the Greek- Roman metro-polis can be presented and analyzed virtually (6).The applied-for personnel costs shall enable three young scientists the possibility to work on a scientifically demanding topic and to earn a doctorate.