Archimedes and the Design of Euryalus Fort

1946 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 99-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Lawrence

The argument of this paper is that the fort on the Euryalus at Syracuse was modernised by Archimedes, who is recorded to have been the chief military engineer or scientific adviser to his native city before and during the siege by the Romans.The fort lay outside the populated area of Syracuse though within the walls. The town had originally been confined to an island between the two harbours, but soon extended on to the mainland of Sicily; the ground to the west was swampy, hence the suburbs necessarily spread up the Epipolae hill to the north. This hill forms a tilted plateau, 3½ miles long, which slopes towards the island, but is surrounded elsewhere by a cliff, except at the inland extremity where it joins on to higher country. Since the cliff afforded a strong line of defence, the town walls were eventually carried all round the edge of the plateau, making them 17 miles in circuit. This great extension was the work of the tyrant Dionysius I, in the year 402 and later; the need for it had been demonstrated twelve years earlier, when the Athenians captured the plateau and almost starved the town into surrender. The strongest part of the fortifications was necessarily at the inland extremity of the plateau, the one place where nature provided no obstacles. Here the highest ground runs off to the west in a ridge that rises into two gentle mounds, one of which was called Euryalus, meaning the ‘wide nail’ (or wart). The town-walls included only one of these summits, and upon it stands the fort in question, overlooking one of the main gateways of the city.

Author(s):  
Peter Davenport

The frustrated cry of the young Barry Cunliffe has an odd echo in these days of preservation in situ. Sitting in the Roman Baths on his first visit as a schoolboy in 1955, he was astonished at how much was unknown about the Baths, despite their international reputation: large areas ‘surrounded by big question marks . . . all around . . . the word ‘‘unexcavated’’ ’ (Cunliffe 1984: xiii; figure 1). His later understanding of the realities and constraints of excavation only sharpened his desire to know more. Now, fifty years on and more, due in large part to that drive to know, his curiosity, we can claim to have made as much progress in our understanding of the baths and the city around them as had occurred in all the years before his visit, a history of archaeological enquiry stretching back over 400 years. In 1955 the baths were much as they had been discovered in the 1880s and 1890s. They were not well understood. The town, or city, or whatever surrounded it, were almost completely unknown, or at best, misunderstood. It was still possible in that year to argue that the temple of Sulis Minerva was on the north of the King’s Bath, not, as records of earlier discoveries made clear, on the west (Richmond and Toynbee 1955). Yet as the young Cunliffe sat and mused, the archaeological world was beginning to take note and a modern excavation campaign was beginning; indeed had begun: Professor Ian Richmond, in a short eight years to become a colleague, had started ‘his patient and elegant exploration of the East Baths’ the summer before (Cunliffe 1969: v). Richmond initiated a small number of very limited investigations into the East Baths, elucidating a tangle of remains that, while clearly the result of a succession of alterations and archaeological phases, had never been adequately analysed. Richmond’s main aim was to understand the developmental history of the baths, and this approach, combined with a thoughtful and thorough study of the rest of the remains, led to a still broadly accepted phasing and functional analysis (Cunliffe 1969).


2014 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 357-378
Author(s):  
Chrysanthos Kanellopoulos ◽  
Eleni Zavvou

The Roman ‘Agora’ of Gytheum appears to be a large compound with an interior peristyle; its width is 52 m and its length at least 61 m. Excavations have revealed the remains of the north-east corner and a portion of the west wing. The extant architectural blocks allow the reconstruction of the colonnades. Column shafts were made of local red limestone and at least some of them were crowned with lotus-and-acanthus capitals. Three different interaxial column spacings are present. A single column must have stood on each corner of the peristyle. The style of the column capital suggests a date after the yearad100. The entablature is almost identical, in both style and dimensions, to the one found on the Captives' Facade at Corinth. The inscription on two epistyles reveals the private dedication of an exedra totheoi Sebastoiand the city. Most probably the exedra was behind the colonnaded space; the mention oftheoi Sebastoimight suggest imperial cult either in the exedra alone or both in the exedra and in the entire colonnaded compound. Quite possibly, and following A. Themos' suggestion, a large part of the colonnaded compound that is conventionally termed the ‘Agora’ can be identified with the Sebasteum/Caesareum of Gytheum; this latter structure is attested in other inscriptions from the city.


1900 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 151-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. C. Anderson

About forty-five miles in an air-line west-south-west of Samsun (Amisos) lies the town of Vezir Keupru, situated at the eastern edge of a rolling plain bounded towards the west by the Halys, on the south by the long ridge of Tavshan Dagh, and on the north by the mountain-rim of the plateau through which the Halys forces its way to the sea. This undulating tract is the extreme westerly part of the ancient Phazemonitis, over which passed the one great ‘through route’ from Constantinople across Paphlagonia to the Euphrates, following throughout its course a line curiously parallel to the coast. Though this road is not described in any ancient document, its importance for the Roman period is amply proved by a remarkably complete series of milestones, erected or re-erected by successive emperors between Nerva and Constantine, which we discovered last summer between the Halys and Neocaesareia. In modern times it cannot claim any such importance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (March 2018) ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A Okanlawon ◽  
O.O Odunjo ◽  
S.A Olaniyan

This study examined Residents’ evaluation of turning transport infrastructure (road) to spaces for holding social ceremonies in the indigenous residential zone of Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. Upon stratifying the city into the three identifiable zones, the core, otherwise known as the indigenous residential zone was isolated for study. Of the twenty (20) political wards in the two local government areas of the town, fifteen (15) wards that were located in the indigenous zone constituted the study area. Respondents were selected along one out of every three (33.3%) of the Trunk — C (local) roads being the one mostly used for the purpose in the study area. The respondents were the residents, commercial motorists, commercial motorcyclists, and celebrants. Six hundred and forty-two (642) copies of questionnaire were administered and harvested on the spot. The Mean Analysis generated from the respondents’ rating of twelve perceived hazards listed in the questionnaire were then used to determine respondents’ most highly rated perceived consequences of the practice. These were noisy environment, Blockage of drainage by waste, and Endangering the life of the sick on the way to hospital; the most highly rated reasons why the practice came into being; and level of acceptability of the practice which was found to be very unacceptable in the study area. Policy makers should therefore focus their attention on strict enforcement of the law prohibiting the practice in order to ensure more cordial relationship among the citizenry, seeing citizens’ unacceptability of the practice in the study area.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
Peter Wood

In April, 1845, the Rev. Richard Taylor passed through the area of the North Island now marked by the town of Levin. At this time, he described Lake Horowhenua as being of singular appearance for the small storehouses built over the water on poles. As was his predilection, Taylor made a drawing of the lake huts, a version of which was belatedly included in the second edition of his most important literary contribution, Te Ika-a-Māui (1870). This image would have remained as little more than a questionable curiosity was it not for Messrs Black Bros who, in the course of exploring the lake bed for Māori artefacts in 1932, legitimised Taylor's observation with their discovery of the submerged architectural remains of an aquatic hut. Nonetheless, almost a century after Taylor's original diary entry, GL Adkin, writing for The Journal of the Polynesian Society, lamented the neglect shown toward these remarkable structures, and which he cited as just one example of the "tantalising gaps" in the recorded history of Māori custom and culture. Sadly, it is well beyond the scope of this research to properly redress the historical neglect shown toward lake pātaka. What I do wish to do is to link these structures to an event on the shores of the Lake of Zurich, Switzerland, when Dr Ferdinand Keller noticed some half-submerged piles in 1854. Upon these remains Keller made a great, if erroneous, case for primitive "pile-work habitations" in the Swiss lakes. The impact of this argument cannot be understated. It became the privileged model for architectural origins in the German and French parts of Switzerland, and by the 1890s it was a part of standard teaching texts in Swiss schools, where it was firmly inculcated into the curriculum at the time that Charles Edouard Jeanneret was a child. This in turn has led Vogt to suggest that, in Keller's "dwellings on the water," Le Corbusier found a Primitive Hut typology that underpinned all his architectural thinking, and which is made most explicit in his principled use of piloti. What makes this all the more involved is that Keller, in searching for examples to visualise the construction of the Swiss lake dwellings, turned to the Pacific (which he categorised as at a developmental stage of architectural evolution akin to early Europe). In this paper I identify the exact etching by Louis Auguste de Sainson that Keller took for direct influence. The problem, however, is that de Sainson depicted a conventional whare built on land, and Keller transposed it to the water. So we have on the one side of this paper an authentic lake whare that is all but forgotten, and a famed European lake-hut that is all but Māori, and between the two is the figure of Le Corbusier who may or may not have unknowingly based one on his major innovations on influences found in the pātaka of Lake Horowhenua.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
KPATA-KONAN Nazo Edith ◽  
YAO N’Zué Benjamin ◽  
COULIBALY Kalpy Julien ◽  
KONATÉ Ibrahim

This article looked at the quantity and storage time of attiéké produced and sold in the town of Daloa. It also examines the microbiological characteristics of attiéké-femme and attiéké-garba from this locality during storage. The study was carried out on the one hand through a field survey carried out on the producers and sellers. On the other hand, a sample was taken from 10 sellers of attiéké-garba and 10 sellers of attiéké-woman. The study found that the women producers sell 87% of their production in the city of Daloa and export 13%. In addition, attiéké can be kept for 2 days at the producers and beyond 2 days at the sellers before their stock runs out. Therefore, a weekly production of more than 200 kg for the majority of the producers is observed. Microbiological analyses showed high levels of germs (MAG: 6.106 CFU/g; Yeasts and moulds: 2.7.106 CFU/g) for attiéké-women and (2.106 CFU/g of GAM and 1.6.103 CFU/g of Yeasts and moulds) for attiéké-garba. Total coliforms and faecal coliforms were only found in attiéké-women. No salmonella was observed. In view of the results, it should be noted that female attiéké is the most contaminated type of attiéké.


1907 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
pp. 537-538
Author(s):  
T. C. Cantrill

The fossils which Mr. V. M. Turnbull has collected from supposed Slade Beds on the “roadside near St. Martin's Cemetery, Haverfordwest,” were obtained along the north side of a road leading westward from St. Martin'ls Cemetery to Portfield House, on the west aide of the town. About half-way between the Cemetery and Port-field House the road is crossed by a by-road known as Jury Lane; one of the fossiliferous localities lies 110 yards east of Jury Lane crossing, another is 100 to 150 yards west of it. The area in question is contained in the Old Series one-inch Geological Survey map, Sheet 40, the New Series one-inch map, Sheet 228, and in the six-inch map, Pembrokeshire, Sheet 27 N.E.


1989 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Samuel

Excavation and observations from 1984–6 on the Leadenhall Court site in the City of London revealed elements of the fifteenth-century market building known as ‘The Leadenhall’. The truncated foundations were located in various areas of the site; 177 medieval moulded stones were found reused in later cellar walls; and a fragment of the west wall survived to its full height of 11.17m encased between Victorian buildings. The recording and subsequent study of these features, together with a reassessment of such plans and drawings of the building as have survived, established the ground plan of the quadrangle and chapel, and made possible a complete reconstruction of the north range of this important civic building. The methodology used in the reconstructions is described with particular emphasis upon the analysis of the moulded stones. In conclusion, both the design of the structure and the documentary sources are studied to show how it may have been intended to function.The arcaded ground floor functioned as part of a common market, while the upper floors were intended to be a granary. For convenience, however, this dual-purpose building is referred to as the ‘garner’ throughout the text.


1853 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-217
Author(s):  
James D. Forbes

The following remarks, being the result of a careful examination of a small district of country characteristic of the relations of the trap formations, are perhaps worthy of being recorded; although the general features of the county of Roxburgh have been very clearly stated in a paper by Mr Milne, published in the 15th volume of the Edinburgh Transactions.The outburst of porphyritic trap forming the conspicuous small group of the Eildon Hills, may be stated to be surrounded by the characteristic greywacke of the south of Scotland. It forms an elongated patch on the map, extending from the west end of Bowden Muir in the direction of the town of Selkirk, and running from west-south-west to east-north-east (true) towards Bemerside Hill, on the north bank of the Tweed. The breadth is variable, probably less than is generally supposed; but it cannot be accurately ascertained, owing to the accumulated diluvium which covers the whole south-eastern slope of this elevated ridge. On this account, my observations on the contact of rocks have been almost entirely confined to the northern and western boundaries of the trap, although the other side was examined with equal care.


1941 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. Johnston

The Periplus Marts Erythræ describes the seaports below Barygaza in the following way according to Schoff's translation: “The market-towns of this region are, in order, after Barygaza: Suppara, and the city of Calliena, which in the time of the elder Saraganus became a lawful market-town; but since it came into the possession of Sandares [an unjustified conjecture for the text's Sandanes] the port is much obstructed, and Greek ships landing there may chance to be taken to Barygaza under guard. Beyond Calliena there are other market-towns of this region; Semylla.…” Suppara is now Sopara on the coast above Bassein, Semylla is Cemūla of two inscriptions, now Chaul, and Calliena is Kalyāṇa. This last, situated at the foot of the two regular ascents of the Western Ghats leading towards Nasik and Poona respectively and with good access to the sea, was the natural outlet for the commerce of the Andhra dominions on the west coast, and the notice, just quoted, shows how its trade was stifled, as the Kṣaharātas extended their rule southwards from Broach. It is unnecessary here to consider who are the kings alluded to in this passage or in the earlier one mentioning Nambanus (a conjecture for the text's Mambarus), but clearly we are dealing with the rivalry of the Western Satraps and the Andhra kings. That the former were successful in their policy towards Kalyāṇa is shown by Ptolemy's omission of the town. The order he gives (taking Renou's text) is Souppara mouth of the River Goaris, Dounga, mouth of the River Bêndas, Semyla.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document