Il reimpiego ad Atene dal III secolo d.C. alla fine dell'età bizantina.

This PhD thesis focuses on the analysis of the architectural reuse in Athens from the 3rd century AD, generally considered a turning point in the Athenian history. However modern scholars limited the real extent and impact of this invent on the monuments. The large amount of building material available for reuse between the 3rd and the 6th century AD was due by different causes, both human and natural. This project investigates the modalities of reuse of ancient building material and sheds lights on their origin of provenance. The catalogue included in this thesis lists 278 Contexts of Reuse placed within the perimeter of the Athenian fortifications. This dataset concerns buildings of different type, chronology and destination of usage. The second catalogue lists 160 Contexts of Origin of the reused pieces. In most cases the reuse of ancient building materials seems to be justified by economic reasons or by the necessity to save time. In other circumstances, the architectural, aesthetic and ideological needs appear to justify the choice of reusing ancient architectural materials. In the first two instances, the choice may depend on the material type and on their original function. In the last instance, it was therefore not necessary to change their destination of usage. Additionally, the shape and size of ancient architectural pieces were also taken into account for the new destination of usage, if it was necessary a refunctionalization. The choice of a specific material type could also depend on static or aesthetic reasons. In some circumstances, the choice of specific type of building materials aimed to obtain a stylistic uniformity of the monument, especially when they were adopted for restoration purposes. In the absence of a number of pieces belonging to the same ancient monument of provenance other architectural elements of different provenance but similar in shape could have been added, or new ones could have been carved stylistically similar to the ancient ones. Ideological reasons could explain the specific position where elements were placed, such as for particular prestige or importance. However, these reasons cannot be always be verified or clarified. A “topographical continuity” seems to be observable when sculptural or architectural elements were reused in later buildings constructed in the same area where the ancient ones were located. The Contexts of Origin topographically known are circa under half of examples identified and listed in the catalogue. Only one third of the remaining can be assigned to a specific architectural type. The identification of groups of materials assignable to a specific provenance, even though not known, can still be an interesting and useful information for the future development of this field of study and for future research on the Athenian topography. It is also difficult to define specific trends in relation to certain historical periods, especially because of the quality and detail of the reuse materials.