Roman Spolia

In the village of Gardun and its surroundings, in the wider area of the former legionary fortress Tilurium, fragments of altars and tombstones, as well as fragments of architectural plastics, have remained built into the village houses until today. They, along with the data in the older literature and the results of the systematic archaeological research, are a harsh witness to the destruction of the legionary fortress and the transformation of space. The destruction of the fortress and the alteration of the space began after the departure of Legio VII Claudia pia fidelis from Tilurium or at the latest after the departure of the last military unit after 245CE. It continued until the 20th century with interchanging periods of varying intensity while the main initiator was the need for accessible and affordable building materials. The greater destruction was caused by the civilian settlement built on a legionary fortress in the Late Antiquity, the construction of nearby fortresses during the wars against the Ottomans, the re-occupation of Gardun after the expulsion of the Ottomans, and the economic and demographic development of the Trilj region in the second half of the 19th century.

The use of spolia has been recorded on numerous sacred objects in the Northern Kosovo, especially in the micro region around the Roman settlement in Sočanica. Spolia were mostly used for construction and paving; however, their use in the making of church mobiliar, such as the altar or candle stand, is highly marked as well. On the other hand, the ritual use of spolia, like the marble statue in Ceranjska reka, is less frequent. The aesthetic value of spolia is arguable and difficult to evaluate as the remains are often corrupted. For example, the Roman stele in Ceranjska reka could have been laid into the church wall as a tombstone or for purely aesthetic reasons. However, for spolia to be used in the new context, it must have undergone a purification process through ablution, prayer, or by etching of the cross for the apotropaic purposes.
The spolia were primarily used as easily accessible and cheap building material of high quality and aesthetic value. Their temporal displacement, in addition to the difficult living conditions under the Turkish rule, could have influenced the village communities, who were major church building patrons at the time, to perceive the spolia as remnants of the glorious past where the national history was intertwined with the ancient (early Christian) tradition. To testify to this, we find many examples of buildings which combined the spolia and the medieval building material. Churches were often built on multilayered terrain rich in ancient and medieval remains, turning them into spolia which were incorporated into the buildings.
Such objects, packed with meaning and tradition, testify to cultural and ritual continuity of a particular region. Based on the degree of research the churches presented in this paper underwent, we can neither confirm nor deny the direct continuity of the ritual location. However, it can be concluded that the means and the context of their construction are a result of the need to preserve sacred rituals and Christian tradition, as well as the religious identity of the local community. This process blurs the lines between ancient and medieval, Christian and pagan. Similar to the process of accepting the Judaic Old Testament history as Christian, the Slavic people accepted the Roman tradition as integral to their cultural heritage and testimony to their glorious (Christian) past.

Within the framework of a multidisciplinary study aiming to understand the use of marble in the northwest of Roman Spain, a relatively large number of the marble objects (sculpture, architectural elements, revetments) have been located in the current territory of Galicia. Most of them are currently in several museums, other institutions or reemployed in later buildings (especially churches), thus making it difficult to grasp their original context of use. Moreover, the stylistic study of these objects is at times controversial as retouches or re-carvings (often linked with its use in early Christian contexts) of previously produced elements seem to have been in order during the centuries following to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Nevertheless, their presence is noteworthy since Galicia is a mostly granitic territory and, therefore , the vast majority of stone objects and architectural elements were made from granite.
In this paper, we aim to address the reasons behind the choice of marble as raw material both for the production or  the import of certain Roman and late-Roman productions, since recent archaeometrical analysis showed that both local and exotic marbles flown into Roman Galicia, as well as of the subsequent reuse of these materials in the early medieval period. We will, therefore, explore the economic, logistic and symbolic aspects of their use while taking also into account, in the case of the spolia, the context in which they were salvaged and recycled.

The use of spolia is a phenomenon which can be traced back to the beginning of the Roman conquest in the East and Sula's reconstruction of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, where the columns from the Athenian Olympieion were used, and the triumphal Arch of Constantine, as well as important Roman basilicas, erected by the first Christian emperor. In some cases, the use of material from older buildings was a mere necessity; however, it was often an expression of program ideas of designers or builders. The use of older reliefs for the construction of the Arch of Constantine was seen as Emperor’s intention to legalise his royal authority by linking it to his esteemed predecessors. Furthermore, the decline of the ancient world caused that, due to a lack of qualified craftsman and building materials, use of spolia became common practice in the early Middle ages and later. Although it is often hard to determine with certainty the reasons for the use of spolia, their integration in public buildings creates a certain image in the minds of the beholders. This paper examines the use of ancient spolia, from a Roman settlement near Sočanica, in Christian monuments in the north of  Kosovo and Metohija. It considers whether its use meant easy access to building material or involved deeper, more complex reasons, referring both to the antiquity of the cult places and the continuity of the Christian life in this region.
Keywords: Spolia, Municipium DD, Kosovo and Metohija, antiquity, Christianity, continuity, resemantization.

Brought to Rome by the emperor Augustus in 10 BCE, the Horologium of Augustus [Montecitorio Obelisk] was repurposed into a giant gnomon and represented Rome's domination over a conquered Egypt. While acknowledging the methods employed to capitalize on the obelisk's powerful Egyptian iconography, a critical analysis must also highlight the physical manipulation, appropriation, and dematerialization of the obelisk into Late Period Egyptian spolia for reuse and transformation as the Roman Horologium of Augustus. Exploring the Horologium of Augustus through the lens of spolia, as defined by a pragmatic and ideological reuse of architectural elements from their original context, provides valuable insight into the process of appropriation through physical dematerialization and the effects this may have had on its symbolic context within Roman antiquity.