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Remarks on some structural elements of Acheiropoietos church-synopsis

• Ράπτης, Κωνσταντίνος

In this paper some of the structural elements of the early Christian basilica of Acheiropoietos are examined in the occasion of the monument’s consolidation carried out by the 9th Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities. A. In the first unit 5th century brickstamps located during the operations are examined. These brickstamps are related to the adjustment, calculation and definition of the trade orders, of one or more local workshops that provided adobes for the constructions of the large-scale buildings of the era. The simultaneous use of bricks that bear stamps, which don’t define the same production, denotes the use of stocked building materials left by previous productions. This, combined with the widespread reuse of stamped bricks in late reconstructions, renders, the use of the brickstamps as a chronological terminus, problematic. B. Following, a group of imposts of pilasters from the main nave of the basilica is examined, which —compared to the main part of the architectural sculptures of Acheiropoietos— is found in second use. The use of older marble material for the carving of architectural sculptures dated back to the first constmctural phase of the early Christian basilica recalls subjects related to the trade orders of architectural sculptures but it also abolishes the unity image of the marble decoration and classifies these imposts secondary architectural sculptures. C. In the 3rd unit follow remarks on the four limbers of the early Christian apse of the nave. The concurrence of the dimensions and the three-band carved decoration of their sides reveal their construction by means of the even distribution of a three-band architrave. D. The registration of the architectural sculptures of the nave brought as a result the localization of tectonic carvings in three bases and in four impost blocks of the columns in the ground floor of the nave. These carvings consists a kind of production control or the workers’ signature who were employed in a Constantinople workshop that produced architectural sculptures from prokone- sian marble.The overall examination of the individuality of the structural elements of the Acheiropoietos church raises new matters as far as the erection of the early Christian basilica is concerned. The simultaneous use of pre-engineered and stocked building materials combined with the use of spolia in primary as well as in secondary parts of the nave, render these structural elements insufficient for the dating of the monuments in which they are found.

• History and Archaeology

• Αρχαιολογία
• Χριστιανικές αρχαιότητες

Παλαιοχριστιανική εποχή, Θεσσαλονίκη

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