Page 120 - A Walk to Caesarea / Joseph Patrich

106 Archaeological Review adjoined it on the west. A corridor with three
consecutive openings, excavated by the IAA
Fig. 115 expedition, extending from Cardo W1 westward,
The warehouse complex, separated the warehouse complex from the villa to
general view from the east its south. This wealthy mansion together with the
warehouse complex occupied an entire city block.
Fig. 116a–b Seemingly, the owner of the mansion also owned
a. Underground granaries of the warehouses.

warehouse III, plan The size of the complex is 75 m x 40 m. The
b. Underground granaries of warehouses were of two types – courtyard and
corridor. Stored there was agricultural produce
warehouse III, sections used as food for the inhabitants of Caesarea, and
originating, most probably, from the estates of the villa owner – a rich landlord
of the type mentioned in the saying of Rabbi Tarfon: [“Who is wealthy?] He who
possesses a hundred vineyards, a hundred fields and a hundred slaves working in
them…” (BT, Shabbat 25b).
In the warehouses one can differentiate spaces used for storing different products:
(a) storerooms for local jars, probably mainly for wine; (b) halls for storing large clay
containers (pithoi in Greek, dolia in Latin) that contained oil, with floors made of
crude white mosaic tesserae. Such halls and rooms were discovered in warehouses
I, II, III, and VI. Sunken under their floors was set a pithos or two (as in the pithoi
hall in warehouse I), intended to take in the liquid in case one of the pithoi placed
on the floor would crack. The pithoi came in two sizes: one – with a 24 cm diameter
at its rim (under the floor of the pithoi hall in warehouse II); the other – with a 43
cm diameter at its rim (in warehouses I, III, and VI); (c) rectangular underground
granaries, whose walls were built of ashlars bonded together with an oily lime mortar
on their back side. This mortar (called amurca in Latin), which contained marble

ab

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