Contignatio, Vitruvius, and the Campanian Builder
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4536749 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Roger B Ulrich (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 137-151 |
| Publication date | 1996-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Archaeology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9114 • E-ISSN: 1939-828X |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/506301 |
| OpenAlex | W2326626830 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 24 |
Most Roman multistoried structures required structural wooden beams for the construction of floors, ceilings, and roofs. In the seventh book of De Architectura, Vitruvius describes how floors framed in wood, or contignationes, were to be constructed. According to Vitruvius, the wooden beams and planking of the contignatio could support a thick concrete subfloor and top pavement. This practice can be verified by archaeological evidence. An examination of the traces of mezzanine floors from tabernae at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Ostia permits an assessment of the Roman builder's awareness of the safe loading characteristics of structural wooden beams and the degree to which sawn lumber and its use were standardized among contractors working in central Italy. The differences in the techniques of construction observable between the examples from Campania and those from Ostia reflect a less wastefull use of heavy stressgrade timbers during the High Empire
Archaeology · Art · Reinforced concrete · Roman Empire · Structural engineering · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeological and Historical Studies · Engineering · History · Water management and technologies
Cemeteries and catacombs
Civic rituals and political spaces in republican and imperial Rome
The city in Ruins
Marriages, families, households
Riots
(Sub)urban surroundings
Roma Aeterna
Immigration and cosmopolitanization
‘Romans, play on!’
Slavesand freedmen
Structuring time
Water supply, drainage and watermills
Sex and the city
The urban topography of Rome
Regions and neighbourhoods
Traffic and land transportation in and near Rome
Counting bricks and stacking wood
The emergence of the city
The food supply of the capital
Interdisciplinary Analysis of Roman Floor Types in the Villa of Diomedes in the Archaeological Park of Pompeii
Olympos 3 No’lu Kilise’den Yeni Bulgular Işığında Az Bilinen Bir Uygulama
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome
Archaeology and roman society
Parametric approach to the reconstruction of timber structures in Campanian Roman houses
| Citations per year | 0.89 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1999 - 2023 (25) |
| Highly cited | No |