South Street: A Roman Street Was Also a Property Line
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Imagine arriving with a cart. The street is not just a road; it is the line that decides where commerce begins.
South Street served elongated strip houses combining work and domestic space. The House of LOO-kee-us and Oil Merchant's House belong to this street environment. Stone robbery after antiquity removed much of the paving and building material.
Look at the relationship between raised house terraces, street level and shop fronts.
The street itself is archaeological evidence; reconstructed elements help make its original use readable.
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.
For a visitor, the value is causal rather than chronological: this stop explains why a frontier metropolis needed this particular space, system or institution.
For someone already familiar with kar-NOON-toom, the useful detail is scale: the object in front of you belonged to a network much larger than the surviving ruin.