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The building The paintings |
In 1977 and 1995-2001 rescue excavations took place below and next to the church of Meikirch, seven kilometers to the north-west of Bern. A few remains of a villa were found. The excavation is of great importance because of the discovery of remarkable paintings.
Overlay of the excavated walls on the church of Meikirch and its surroundings. Suter et al. 2004, 23.
Plan of the remains in the final phase (phase 4). Suter et al. 2004, Abb. 50.
Some scant remains belonged to a first, wooden building (phase 1). It was destroyed by a fire. Around 100 AD a building of stone was erected (phase 2). It was enlarged around 200 AD (phase 3). Final modifications took place in the years 230-240 AD (phase 4). The rooms were arranged around a central hall, measuring 15 x 16 m. In room 1 was a kitchen, room 18 was a cellar. Two stairwells led to the upper floor (8, 12-13). Rooms 6 and 15 formed a porticus with Corinthian columns. Below room 15 was a room that has been called a cryptoporticus, 3.40 m. wide. The floor was 2.77 m. below the ground floor. The room was reached via stairwell 12-13 and probably also from an entrance towards the east, in a part of the villa that has not been excavated. The cryptoporticus must have received light through windows high up in the south wall. Against the west wall stood a masonry bench. Square wooden pilasters were set against the north wall, 2.70 m. apart. It is in this room that the paintings were found (discussed on a separate page).
To the north of these rooms, at a distance of some 30 meters, two tiny square structures were found, next to each other, measuring 3.20 x 3.20 m. These might have been little shrines. The villa was abandoned in the second half of the third century. There were no traces of a related fire.
Reconstruction of the villa. Suter et al. 2004, Abb. 193.For the roof of the villa many tiles with the stamp L(ucius) C(ornelius) PRISC(us) were used. These were produced in brickworks some two kilometers to the north-west of the villa, at the locality Säriswil. The tiles were used on several locations in the area, including Aventicum (Avenches VD), Brenodurum (Bern-Engehalbinsel BE), and Petinesca (Studen BE). It has been suggested that the villa was owned by Priscus or by people in charge of his brickworks. There has been some speculation about the identity of this man. In the 90's of the first century, tiles of a Lucius Cornelius Priscus were used in the Imperial palace (Domus Tiberiana) on the Palatine in Rome. This may have been the senator who was suffect consul and governor of Asia in the first decades of the second century, an acquaintance of Pliny the Younger. It has been suggested that it was the same man. He would then have left Rome and transferred his business to Helvetia, in the turmoil after the murder and damnatio memoriae of Domitianus in 96 AD.
Fragments of roof tiles with the stamp L(ucius) C(ornelius) PRISC(us). Suter et al. 2004, Abb. 80.
The building
The paintings
Literature
Drack 1980(2); Fuchs-Margueron 1998; Suter et al. 2004.
[29-Nov-2023]
