Townhouse villa, front section

 

Townhouse Villa, Ground Floor

 

The ground floor of the townhouse villa is divided into three areas:

--The first contains the Atrium, offices and library as well as the stairwell to the upper floor;

--The second is the garden and the colonnades;

--and the third is the kitchen, dining rooms, bath, and storerooms.

Townhouse Villa, Ground Floor

I have finished the ground floor of the townhouse villa, and the model is now in the studio here in my home awaiting the pictures, which I shall then be pleased to put on this blog. All the walls are now up, the final two colonnades are finished and ladders to the second floor are in place. The garden is finished and each room is numbered and painted to show up better in the pictures.

Townhouse Villa Room Walls

All of the room walls have been put up now on the ground floor, Two of the four garden colonnades are now completed. The only things now remaining for this level are the stairwell, slave ladder, the last two garden colonnades, (all of which are in work) and the painting of each room floor When those items are finished I shall be pleased to take some pictures of the ground floor of the villa and put them here on this blog. We are having some computer difficulty at the moment, but hopefully after Christmas we will be able to move ahead both on the villa construction pictures, as well as the study of the Roman City of "Lucentum."

Townhouse Villa Transverse Walls

Today the transverse walls on the ground floor of the townhouse villa have been completed. The next task will be to put up the shorter walls dividing the rooms with their individual doorways, and design the stairs to the upper floor as well as the ladder for the slave quarters above the kitchen and kitchen storeroom.

Townhouse Villa Road and Walkway

I have returned from my out-of-country excursion and wish to report that there is now a gravel roadway and a stone slab walkway in front of the villa. The exterior walls are up as I have mentioned and the kitchen and storeroom are walled in as well. As soon as I am able to get to it, we will plant grass around the villa and paint the room floors, When that is done, I will take a picture for the blog to show the advance in construction.

For the moment however, the basement has flooded a few inches deep and until I can get that cleaned up, I will be spending my free time in putting together the three navigational instrument models that I ordered before leaving. These items consist of a "Mariner's Astrolabe," "A Trilogy Of Time" (three time-determining instruments), and a "Planispheric Astrolabe." The description of these items can be found on the internet

http://celestaire.com

if anyone is interested. These instruments were originally developed by the Islamic culture and brought to Europe during the occupation of Spain and what is now Portugal. These are somewhat out of the Roman time period, however, it is well known that the Roman military and merchant vessels used the stars for guidance and these tools, of which I speak, are simply items to make star observations in regard to time and latitude easier and more accurate to find.

I managed to finish the walk through of the Roman city of Lucentum, just outside of Alicante, Spain, and I shall be pleased to continue the articles about that city in the "Roman Times Quarterly" which will first be published to the Militarium and New Roman Lists and then later to the Nova-Roma List, if anyone there is remotely interested in anything besides politics and argument (Rueful Grin!!!).

Respectfully;

Marcus Audens

Lucentum --Roman City

During our recent visit to Spain, we had the opportunity to revisit the Roman ruins of the ancient city of "Lucentum". These ruins are just outside the modern city of Alicante, Spain. The ruined city has been fully excavated and all of the artifacts found at the site now reside in the Roman Wing of the Alicante Archaelogical Mueseum. On our first visit, a year ago, we were only able to traverse about half of the city, and this year we finished walking all the open streets. We found that some reconstruction of the city has begun in the replacement of some pillars in the forum, and in the reconstructions of the city baths. One of the main entrances to the city through the outer wall has been restored with clear plastic on the walkway to show the special carvings of the stone work to recieve and lock the wooden drawbridge in place. There is also
a well-defined drainage system throughout the city to get rid of waste water and excessive rainwater. The city of "Lucentum" was the outgrowth of a Phoenician trading colony and was situated above a lagoon which reached into the interior between two highland plateaus. Over the years the lagoon has filled itself in from silt carried down by mountain streams and in the early 1900's the Spanish completed filling in the lagoon area, and put a narrow concrete drainage ditch down the center, draining waters into the sea.

The basic layout of the city currently is identified by the basic structure of the building foundations and city walls, and a variety of pictured signs placed around the city to identify points of special interest with diagrams and drawings showing the area as it must have looked in antiquity. The main streets of the city have been paved to make visitor walking easier, and special areas such as the main entrance gate, main drainage channel and the hypocaust have special gratings installed to enable visitors to walk out just above the structure to make a closer inspection of these areas. Certain houses and structures have been selected to show the probable original living facilities, baths, water storage, and pedestrian movement throughout the city.

In the museum are many different artifacts which were found in the city and these include a very large variety of flasks, and clay pots, as well as tools, and religious icons of various kinds, indicating that the populace worshipped different gods as would be natural for a trading colonial city. The main export of the city was olive oil and fish as well as "garum." There are the remains of olive press weights in several places throughout the ruins. In the future, I shall be pleased to redraw the city map that we were given in a larger format which identifies many of the ancient structures, as well as provide for your viewing some photographs of the city taken during our walkabout. These further comments will be put into the "Roman Times Quarterly" for your enjoyment.

Respectfully submitted;

Marcus Audens