Church Faҫade, religious symbol or exercise in masonry? The case of relief from Ptolemais

Abstract

The block of limestone with a carved image of three crosses within an arcade of the “triphorium” type (fig. 1), found in the previous century in Ptolemais, is neither a superb sculpture nor a part of a particularly interesting building among architectural complexes unearthed within the area of this famous antique city in Cyrenaica. This cuboidal block still lies in the ruins of a Roman dwelling house in Ptolemais, in the so-called house of the Triapsidal hall, or house T (fig. 2). 1 Meanwhile, the large and luxurious house T with a central peristyle covers a considerable area east of one of the cardines and north of one of the most important decumani of the Late Antique city, i.e. Via Monumentalis.