Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (1.1988-1989(1990))

were not provided with porticoes, but opened directly on a square courtyard 9m.
wide.
The Western wing was originally planed as a coherent if not strictly
symmetrical unit: two large rooms in the corners were linked by the colonnade of
fourspans, 2.05m. each; behind the columns two smaller rooms flanked a narrow


Fig. 1. Plan of house. Drawing by H.BaraAski.
compartment, probably used as a staircase. The northern portico was separated
from this one by a wall aligned on the western row of columns, forming a kind of
iwan at the northern end of the portico. While nearly identical to the western
portico, the northern one opened on two rooms only, linked between them by two
passages separated by a pillar.
A sounding in one of the rooms of the West wing allowed us to see that the
foundations of the house are laid on bedrock, about 2 m. below the floor. The
contents of the trench suggest a date shortly after 150 A.D. for the building of
the house; the style of the decoration strongly supports such estimation. On the

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