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The ISPC-CNR is conducting research activities aimed at identifying ancient quarries that supplied the public building sites in the Athenaion of Castro, where excavations revealed dry-stone city walls made of calcarenite blocks and built in three phases between the 4th and 2nd cent. BC. The paper is focused on the large coastal quarries of Porto Miggiano, located approximately 4.5 km NE of Castro, where the extraction was carried out in function of sea transportation of the blocks. The extraction sites were documented through laser scanning and photogrammetry by a drone. In the main quarry, which covers an area of approximately 0.4 hectares, thanks to the metrological analysis of the stepped faces, four extraction areas were identified corresponding to at least five cultivation phases. The oldest and most extensive one affects the central sector of the quarry, where large blocks compatible (for dimension and macroscopic aspect) with those of the third phase of the Castro city walls, dated to the beginning of the 2nd cent. BC, were extracted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of TECHNE: Journal of Technology for Architecture & Environment is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Previous studies conducted on the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (between AD 432 and AD 450) have allowed us to identify the geometric rule used for the creation of its starry sky and to propose the initial considerations about the morphology of its pseudo-dome. At first sight, the turns of the stars describe regular circumferences that seem to lie on a plane, in reality their trend is a space curve resulting from a projection on the surface of the ceiling from a point centrally located, approximately at the height of the base of the windows. The geometry underlying this tracing is based on a series of cones whose angle at the vertex increases progressively, and whose materialization is possible thanks to the knowledge of the operating principle of the astronomical instrument called Triquetro and Ptolemy's table of chords. Apparently irregular, the ceiling is set on a parallelogram and is not traceable to operations of revolution of a curve, a cross vault or a pavilion vault. The section of the mesh with a set of horizontal planes with a distance of 10 cm has generated a set of curves, all different from each other, which we perceive connected by an unusual rule, not yet investigated. An initial analysis allowed to verify that we are dealing with hyperbolas. The present work proposes to continue the investigation of these curves and to hypothesize a construction technique that can be adopted in the context of a building site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]