Macellum (Tempio di Serapide)

Three grey granite columns beside Pozzuoli's port bear the holes of marine molluscs halfway up their shafts, a striking record of the changing level of the coast. They belong not to a temple, but to the macellum, the food market of ancient Puteoli.

Why it matters

The monument became a landmark in the study of Phlegraean bradyseism, the gradual subsidence and uplift that has moved this coastline. The mollusc borings show that the columns were submerged and later exposed; the park's archaeologists associate the evidence with ground movement after the market's abandonment in the late fourth century AD. The name “Temple of Serapis” arose after excavators found a statue of the Egyptian god and an inscription referring to a Serapeion, but the building itself was a market.

What to notice

The complex measures about 58 by 75 metres, centred on a courtyard paved in Proconnesian marble and surrounded by porticoes. Its circular tholos, about 18 metres across, stands on a stepped base and is ringed by sixteen Corinthian columns of pink African marble. An octagonal fountain occupied its centre. The large apsed hall opposite the entrance was framed by cipollino marble columns from Euboea. Shells holding dolphins decorate the capitals, while shops lined the entrance and courtyard. Two corner latrines were once so elaborate that early excavators mistook the building for baths.

Context and history

Built in the late Flavian period, the market was renovated under Septimius Severus; the tholos was a later addition. The statue of Serapis, now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, reflects Puteoli's connections with the trading world of Alexandria. In the mid-eighteenth century, Charles of Bourbon ordered excavations after marble columns emerged from a vineyard.