Scaffolding supports flat roofs shielding excavated remains of an insula, an ancient apartment block, amid ruins of the southern port hinterland at Velia, on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The city, at Marina di Ascea, Campania, southern Italy, was founded by Greek colonists but became a Roman municipality in 88 BC.
Velia, Marina di Ascea, Campania, Italy: modern flat roofing supported by scaffolding protects the excavated remains of an insula, an apartment block probably founded in the pre-Roman Hellenistic era in the southern port zone of this ancient Greek and Roman city on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The insula covered about 657 square metres (7,072 square feet) and included three housing units with inner courtyards. It was restored when Velia became a Roman city and, as in ancient Rome, its rent-paying occupants were probably drawn from different classes of free Roman citizens. Velia was founded around 538 to 535 BC by Ionian Greeks displaced by Persians from Phocaea, now in modern Turkey. They called it Hyele, but the name then changed to Ele, Elea, and finally to Velia. It came under Roman control in 273 BC and in 88 BC, it became a Roman municipality. The city retained the right to mint coins and its citizens kept the right to speak Greek. Velia had two ports but after centuries of silting, both are now far from the sea. It also shrank to little more than a fishing village after it was bypassed by new overland trade routes. Most citizens left in the 9th century to escape malaria and raiding Saracen pirates, but others stayed, living on the acropolis. The acropolis was finally abandoned in the late-1600s and the ruins below it slowly vanished under soil and vegetation. The ruins were rediscovered in 1833. More recent excavations by archeologist Amedeo Maiuri found fortifications, a sea wall, gateways, frescoed houses and thermal baths, but parts of Velia remain buried. The acropolis, reached by a paved Greek road, retains a medieval tower built over a Greek temple, a medieval chapel and a Roman theatre. Velia, in southern Italy’s Cilento region, is now an archaeological park and is protected as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Size: 2765px × 4155px
Location: Velia, Marina di Ascea, Campania, Italy.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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