摘要：Numerous wall and ceiling decoration fragments were discovered in the course of rescue archaeological excavations that were executed on three separate occasions between 2004 and 2005. The Castropola 40 site is located in the old, upper section of the town of Pula (Fig. 1). The construction site, i.e. garden in which the excavations were carried out, is separated from Castropola Street by a tall wall. In Layer III, at a depth of 1.40 to 2.60 m, we unearthed a Roman and Late Roman structure containing a fireplace, as well as a medieval ramp (Fig. 2 - 4) that was leant against the wall remnants, and conducted towards the upper section of a terrace, i.e. to the foot of the Kaštel hillock. The discovered structure is trapezoidal in shape and features a preserved eastern and southern wall, where a larger number of fragments of painted plaster were excavated, which did not belong to said structure but were used as fill for a medieval ramp erected at a later date. Taking into account that we are still performing restoration works on these fragments, we were only able to partially explore two separate wholes, and we made an attempt to classify these finds based on their formal characteristics. In this work we only showed the most important decorative motifs that, we believe, pertain to the oldest and the youngest phases of wall and ceiling decoration. We are, therefore, talking about two separate wholes dealing with either walls or ceilings. Into the first whole representing wall decoration, which is also believed to be the oldest, we placed ten fragments (Fig. 5 - 14, A 43096/1, A 43096/2, A 43097, A 43098/1, A 43098/2, A 43099, A 30902, A 30903, A 30904, A 30905). These fragments were classed on the basis of the background color: black - underneath which red paint was applied (a red background is not visible on fragments A 43097, A 43099 and A 30905), and red background (both background colors present on A 30902), as well as chromatic analogies of different stylized floral motifs and volutes, leaves, perhaps part of a flower bud (?), and linear motifs painted with an ocheryellow color. All motifs were carefully executed with a paintbrush in freehand, using ocher-yellow on a black background on which no traces of anterior preparatory coats were observed. When executing floral motifs and volutes, special care was dedicated to the interaction of light and shadow, all of which was achieved by painting with darker and lighter ocher-yellow nuances, which gives an impression of volume. The miniaturist quality of the executed motifs, which corresponds to the taste of the third style, gives them a specific aspect. The mentioned fragments are further characterized by straight-line strokes that fail to transmit a realistic depiction of things; a wall is shown as a flat surface devoid of any sense of perspective. A black background in combination with ocher-yellow, featuring miniaturist motifs, points to the period of the third style due to a greater use of black. As the use of yellow increased in the fourth style, it is possible to date the mentioned wall decoration fragments into the period before the end of the third style, i.e. approximately to the middle of the 1st century AD. Fragments of ceiling decoration belong to the second whole, where only the most characteristic motifs are shown. The first group of motifs (Fig. 15 - 19, A 43069-1, A 43069-2, A 43071/a-c, A 43072/a-c, A 30910-2) is characterized by the use of green and red on a white background. A motif resembling an upside-down letter “V”, up to which small stylized green leaves are depicted, reminds us of embroidered borders of the fourth style. Included in the second group of motifs (Fig. 20 - 23, A 43075/3-6) are stylized yet very simple, crude green garlands resembling a fishbone motif on a white background. The leaves are mostly elongated at the edges, and rounded on fragment A 43075/3. Included in the third group of ceiling decoration motifs are fragments (Fig. 24 - 25, A 43088/a - c, A 43090/1) characterized by a white background, depicted on which are stylized garlands with varicolored (red, green, pale yellow, orange), small-sized, thick foliage, pale yellow dots are sometimes located above this foliage, whereas fragments (Fig. 26, A 43091/1) featuring a branch motif (?) and a pale yellow bud (?) belong into the fourth group. Ceiling fragments featuring depictions of garlands belong into the group of simple, schematic forms. It is not possible to discover precise analogies because the motif is subject to individual variants. Ceiling fragments from an early Christian basilica at Bare (Narona), with depictions of stylized garlands connected with a circular motif, were dated to the beginning of the 3rd century. Located in Panfilo’s catacomb are red-brown stylized garlands that bear resemblance to the example executed on fragment A 43075/3, dated to the first half of the 3rd century. The palette of colors employed for ceiling decoration is limited to green and red, the background being white, and these are the characteristics of the so-called “red and green linear style” (that begins from the second half of the 2nd century and lasts until the middle of the 4th century). Green is a predominant color used to depict garland motifs as well as those in the shape of the inverted letter “V”, red follows, which was used to border panels and to depict polychrome garlands, and at the end we have pale-yellow and orange used to execute details, e.g. small foliage, dots and buds. We are at present not in a position to detect any precise analogies due to the fact that the fragments were discovered in rubble and were employed as fill for the erection of a later-date medieval ramp. We can therefore assume that only a detailed analysis of all the discovered fragments will shed more light onto the artistic and technical qualities of the decorative methods.
关键词：wall decoration; ceiling decoration;third style; Pula; 3rd century
