La Casa degli intonaci di Phoinike. Defnizione e sviluppo di modelli architettonici e decorativi

This study investigates the House of Plasters in Phoinike, a Hellenistic house that offers key insights into urban development, architectural adaptation, and decorative trends in Epirus. Located on the city’s southern terraces, the house exemplifies how natural topography influenced residential planning. The research focuses on the building’s construction phases, spatial organisation, and material culture, contributing to a broader understanding of elite housing in the Mediterranean. Excavations reveal a two-phase construction process. The original house was built in the late 3rd or early 2nd century BCE, and a later expansion, dating to the mid-2nd century BCE, introduced new rooms, and structural reinforcements, aligning the residence with broader Hellenistic architectural trends. The discovery of a Structural Pictorial System programme demonstrates the diffusion of the Mediterranean artistic influences. The study also addresses the presence of sacra privata, identified through ritual-related artefacts such as a ceramic vessel support (lásana) for meat-boiling and a clay base for a louterion, suggesting domestic purification practices. These findings enhance our understanding of household religion in Epirus, an aspect rarely documented in the region. By situating the House of Plasters within the broader Hellenistic context, this research highlights cross-cultural exchanges in architecture and decoration, offering a new perspective on Phoinike’s urban landscape and its connections with Magna Graecia and Sicily.