The ancient practice of reuse. From the Roman viridarium to the medieval church in the old Ashkelon (Israel)

This study focuses on the architectural and functional analysis of the structure known as Santa Maria in Viridis, located at the highest point of the ancient city of Ascalona (Ashkelon, Israel), directly against the city walls and near the medieval Main Gate (Jerusalem Gate). Traditionally interpreted as a Byzantine church with a baptistery and subjected to modifications up to the medieval period, the building presents several architectural inconsistencies related to liturgical use. The AskGate Mission (Italian Archaeological Mission – MAECI) conducted research and in-depth investigations employing an integrated, multiscalar methodology to address the compositional issues that made the definition of the church space anomalous. The architectural and compositional investigations revealed that the church was built over a pre-existing Roman viridarium featuring a complex water system and a nymphaeum, organised on at least two terraced levels resting upon a podium. The viridarium included an exedra equipped with a marble-lined basin that collected water and channelled it through a conduit into a basin at the centre of the courtyard. What emerges from the architectural analysis and the examination of the decorative elements, such as the frescoes, is the substantial medieval phase during which the structure was reshaped as a church. This phase may correspond to the transformation of the site from a space defined by a pagan architectural language, characterised by an exedra, into one expressing a Christian language, marked by the presence of an apse.