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Basalt V-VI century AD


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Corinthian column capital with plain leaves

The kalathos is dressed with two crowns of plain and extremely simplified leaves: the shape of the leaf is merely outlined with an incision, the page is plain and the only element carved in projection is the tip, which is made of a semicircular volume with a sort of peduncle; another incision marks the contour of both crowns and, above the superior one, it merges without distinction with the volutes’ flat strip. The latter are made of flat spirals with an inverted curling that denotes the loss of their original structural meaning; the space between the volutes and the central folia is taken up by a decorative inlay in the form of a flat disc. As a reminder of the abacus stands a thin fillet carved in very low relief. The capital is characterized by a simplification of ornaments taken to extremes and by a very schematic rendering of the structural elements, here treated as mere bulging volumes or even as sheer filling. Such features are paralleled by many capitals of African, particularly Egyptian, and of Syrian provenance realized between the V and VI century AD for the earliest ecclesiastical buildings erected in those areas. In particular we may recall the capitals in St. Augustine’s Basilica of Hippo and those now housed in the Archaeological Museum of Alexandria.