Roman Stadium and Dzhumaya Mosque
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Transcript
At Dzhumaya Square, Roman and Ottoman Plovdiv occupy the same frame with very little regard for chronological tidiness.
Part of the Roman stadium, built in the second century, lies below the modern pedestrian street. Above it stands the Dzhumaya Mosque, one of the city’s major Ottoman monuments, in a form largely dating from the fifteenth century.
This is the city-beneath-the-city idea made literal. Archaeology is visible through a cut in the modern street while everyday urban life continues around it.
The arrangement can tempt people to narrate history as replacement: pagan Rome, then Christianity, then Islam, then Bulgarian nationhood. But buildings and populations overlap, and political transitions rarely remove every previous practice.
The square is a historical lasagne. Unlike actual lasagne, excavating the lower layer first is not recommended.