The impact of luxury: The Forum of Meninx. An architectural investigation (Jerba).

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This dissertation compiles the evidence, offers analysis and reconstructions for the buildings surrounding the forum of Meninx, a city on the southeastern coast of the Tunisian island of Jerba, and places the forum's structures within the cultural and economic contexts of the Roman Empire for the time in scholarship. The architecture was examined through the lens of the Meninx's famed purple dye production. The architecture of Meninx is presented as a crucial manifestation of the interrelation between luxury production and reception in the region of Roman North Africa.
Carried out in conjunction with the Jerba Project, my work at Meninx has concentrated in the forum area. I catalogued approximately 150 fragments, numbering, measuring, analyzing, and drawing them. This documentation of the architectural fragments combined with magnetometric and aerial studies as well as limited, yet focused excavations allowed me to offer a reasoned reconstruction of the forum of Meninx and its surrounding structures.
The marble temples, for which little evidence survives, and the forum basilica had few parallels in North Africa. Based on the available evidence, I propose that at the time of its completion, the forum basilica at Meninx with its use of imported marble, was the most elaborate basilica in all of Roman North Africa. Carved in purplish-stones, sculptures of figures in eastern dress ornamented the basilica and responded to similar displays in Rome and made a unique self-reference to the production of the luxurious purple dye at Meninx. Previously considered to be a minor outpost of the Roman Empire, Meninx is now positioned as a result of this research as one of the most important cities in North Africa.
Meninx might have been a city in the provinces, but it was not to be associated with the barbaric frontiers of the Empire. It was in constant dialogue, especially architecturally, with its neighbors and, more importantly, it attempted to join in a visual conversation with Rome. Its famed purple dye industry gave it the means to do so.