La chiesa della Porta Maggiore rivela l’antica città di Ascalona. Analisi di un’architettura in contesto archeologico

The present research is consistent with the study of historical architectural heritage closely connected to the discipline of archaeology, exploiting the artifact’s analysis from different points of view, in terms of materials and the understanding of its relationship with the historical, functional, and construction context. In this perspective the protection and enhancement of an archeological site represents a complex challenge that requires a multidisciplinary approach. The analysis of the historical building object of this study was performed by a holistic method, based on a multiscalar, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary approach, involving expertise in architectural, archaeological, geological, and chemical-physical fields. Surveying provided a direct comparison for the site, while digital technologies served as advanced tools to acquire morphometric and colorimetric data, fundamental for specialized analyses, and contextualization of collected information. The investigated structure is located in Ashkelon, an ancient coastal city in the historic Palestine region, now part of the State of Israel. This structure was dated to the 5th century and identified as a church with a baptismal font, and characterized by a complex water system, comprising a series of basins and channels that convey the water from a first basin located in the exedra into a quadrilobed basin, then to a well, and finally into a reservoir. Furthermore, the fact that the structure is integrated into the urban walls, to the south of the main city gate, the Porta Maggiore, the main access to the city from inland, highlights its strategic role in the town setting. As a whole, the architectural composition, construction details, and its form, with regard to its function as a church, present some anomalies that stimulate further insights into the origin and destination of this building. In the absence of documents directly referring to the investigated architecture, at first, both written and iconographic historical sources were analyzed in order to outline the historical-territorial framework: the intimate connection of the structure to the city walls was presumably influenced by events that somehow affected the fortifications over the centuries. Next, the architectural surveying was carried out by means of various digital technologies (topographic, photogrammetric, and GPS techniques), to correlate surveys at different scales for thematic analyses: general surveying, architectural surveying, and detailed surveying for the documentation of archaeological excavations and further specific analyses. The rigorous representation of the structure formed the basis for performing stratigraphic analyses, studies on the masonry structure, geometric and compositional investigations, as well as the contextualization of material characterization analyses. Last, for a better understanding of the context, a comparative analysis of different structures present in the Eastern Mediterranean region, and characterized by similar basins and channels, such as nymphaeums and baptisteries, was carried out. The results identified three main construction phases, revealing a transformation from an initial structure that covered the entire plateau, characterized by a water system and the use of a Roman construction technique, through a subsequent phase of modifications, to the construction of the medieval church. Overall, the in-depth study of the structure has provided meaningful insights for the analysis of the entire city, in terms of construction techniques, building function located in the area between the Porta Maggiore and the tells, as well as the urban water supply system.