Courtyard: Roman Daylight Was an Architectural Resource
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
In a dense city, sunlight has to be designed into the house.
Roman houses in kar-NOON-toom could organize rooms around courtyards. Courtyards provided light and usable outdoor space because exterior windows were often relatively small. Housing quality varied widely by building type and social status.
Stand where the open sky reaches the interior and notice how far daylight can penetrate into adjoining rooms.
The evidence level here is reconstructed domestic layout based on excavated plan.
Keep the early fourth century in mind: the reconstructed quarter presents a late phase of a city that had already been growing and rebuilding for centuries.
What looks like one archaeological attraction is really evidence for a city operating at several social levels at once.
Do not let the modern quietness mislead you. The ancient setting depended on traffic, labor, maintenance, noise and repeated social routines.
One of kar-NOON-toom's strengths is that archaeology can test the attractive story against material evidence—and sometimes force us to tell a better, less convenient story.
For a visitor, the value is causal rather than chronological: this stop explains why a frontier metropolis needed this particular space, system or institution.