Eros, bull heads and dolphins: the new discoveries in the small temple of Paestum
On a statuette the signature of a potter from Lazio. The director of the archaeological park: "They will change the history of the city"
Paestum inexhaustible source of archaeological discoveries and wonders from the past .
The stone base with the access steps and the delimitation of the cell that housed the divinity, the colored terracotta decorations of the roof with the drips in the shape of a lion, an extraordinary gorgon , a moving Aphrodite . But also seven astonishing bull heads , the altar with the grooved stone to collect the liquids of the sacrifices and hundreds of votive offerings among which stand out the images of Eros riding a dolphin that the imagination could refer to the mythical Poseidon, the god who gave the city its name. In Paestum, the works to bring to light the sanctuary discovered in 2019 along the walls of the ancient city are revealing great surprises. An excavation which, says the director of the archaeological park Tiziana D'Angelo, promises to "change the known history of ancient Poseidonia".
Truly a unique context that "sheds a very interesting light on ancient religious life", applauds the museum director Massimo Osanna from the ministry of culture, recalling that the archaeological research carried out in Paestum in the 1950s around the major temples was not scientifically documented. Started in 2020 and immediately blocked by the pandemic, excavations resumed a few months ago: «What we find ourselves facing today is the moment in which the sanctuary, for reasons still to be clarified, was abandoned, between the end of the II and the beginning of the first century to C,” D'Angelo pressed. The analysis of the clay decorations has made it possible to date their foundation in the first quarter of the fifth century BC , when some of the most important monumental buildings that have come down to us had already been built in the Greek colony, the temple of Hera, built between 560 and 520 BC, and that of Athena, which dates back to 500 BC
The temple of Neptune was completed instead a little later , in 460 BC, after a long gestation. Of very small dimensions - measuring 15.60 meters by 7.50 - with 4 columns on the front and 7 on the sides, the little temple is in Doric style like the others, but it is distinguished by the purity of its forms. "It is the smallest Doric peripteral temple that we know before the Hellenistic age, the first building in Paestum that fully expresses the Doric canon," explains Gabriel Zuchtriegel , the former director of Paestum who is now at the helm of Pompeii.
The expanse of objects found in the space that separates the front of the building from the altar, erected as a rule outside, is extraordinary: terracotta statuettes with the faces of the offerers or those of the deities, as many as 15 with the small eros astride the miniature dolphin, temples and altars. Small masterpieces of craftsmanship that are added to the seven bull heads found around the altar, perhaps "props" available to those who administered the cult. Meanwhile, research is being carried out to document each period of the temple's life up to the moment of its construction, also trying to understand the dynamics that led part of the walls to collapse at the back of the building. The elements of great interest «are many», enthuses D'Angelo. Like the signature - right on one of the statuettes with the dolphin - of the Avili, «a family of potters from Lazio, also known in Delos, whose presence here in Paestum had never been documented».
(Unioneonline/vf)
