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Behind me was the Tiber quay.
Visitors to Ostia entered the city here, and may well have walked here.
What's interesting is that in this part of Ostia and only in this part of Ostia...
we find long rows of centralized travertine stones...
in the brick piers of the facades.
There is another row in the facade of the Piccolo Mercato,
the Small Market.
The next facades have been destroyed, but then we find another row, here...
in the Baths of Buticosus.
In the brick piers of the facade, here, is another one.
And then finally we will have a look at the Horrea Epagathiana,
which is where all the rows end.
We're now in the vestibule of the horrea,
the store building of two freedmen, Epagathus and Epaphroditus,
and here we find the last row of centralized travertine stones.
They're in the brick piers of the courtyard.
It's as if it's our final destination.
Today the store building is closed and well secured, as it was in antiquity.
Many locking devices were found here and obviously...
precious goods were preserved here.
Could it be that the travertine stones pointed the way for visitors of Ostia...
to this store building, and was it used for self-storage, as we call it today?
We're at the north end of...
Semita dei Cippi, and here we find more travertine stones,
small travertine stones, not centralized, but cornerstones.
The stones are on either side of...
a staircase that could be accessed from the street.
There are hundreds of staircases in Ostia that could be accessed...
from the street, but only five or so are marked by travertine stones.
Why?
Possibly this was a hotel and the travertine stones...
helped visitors to Ostia to locate the hotel.
And why was the entrance...
of only one medianum-apartment marked by travertine cornerstones?
Did a doctor live here?
A side entrance of one Ostian bakery is marked by travertine cornerstones.
I would like to imagine a sailor there,
picking up bread for his crew, early in the morning.
A bit further on, to the east of the Terme del Foro, the Baths of the Forum,
we find more cornerstones, but here it's a long row in the facade.
What does that mean? I would like to think that...
at this end of this porticus a queue began of people waiting...
for a special event to take place in the palestra of the baths.
Of course there were clever people...
who would try to sneak in and jump the queue,
and for that they had a very modern solution.
Between the travertine cornerstones...
were ropes to prevent people from sneaking in.
The ropes were attached to iron hooks.
We see the remains of an iron hook here.
It's the black stuff over there, embedded in lead,
in the centre of the travertine stone.
And just note that the metal remains...
are precisely above a groove here in the socle of the pier,
so that when the rope was not used it would just...
hang down in the groove, from that metal hook.
Only two of the metal objects have been preserved and one is here.
As we can see it's an iron hook, embedded in lead in the travertine.
This is the second one.
It's an iron hook again, in lead, embedded in the travertine.
Sometimes very famous wrestlers and boxers came to Ostia...
to perform, and then the number of spectators was very large.
Here is where it all took place.
On the west side of the Terme del Foro...
a similar situation is found.
There are many more buildings in Ostia...
with travertine cornerstones in the facade.
Not always easy to explain by the way. For example here...
in the facade of the Terme del Filosofo.
Note that these baths are next to the Baths of the Forum.
Quite often, when stones are seen on one side of the street,
they are also on the other side.
We're back at the Baths of Buticosus, and here the stones seem to have had...
a double function. They are centralized,
pointing the way. And in the center of the stones is metal,
precisely above a groove in the socle of the pier.
Of course I may be totally wrong about all of this,
but that's what archaeology is all about.