Figure 2. Plan of the early Imperial S6a Sacred House.
What survives of the first course proper consists of two abraded but otherwise carefully cut low threshold blocks, measuring ca. 0.80/90 by 0.60 by 0.30 m. South of these is a slightly higher and deeper block, 0.90 by 0.70 by 0.35 m., whose forward edge projects east of the line of the threshold. This carried the missing door’s south jamb. A narrow filler block, 0.40 m. wide, was then used to fill the interval between the jamb block and the pre-existent S6 south wall without any attempt to bond the two. The level of the east wall blocks south of the door matches the top of the first course of stretchers of the north wall, which may be taken as another sign that the two were made contemporaneously. The actual position of the door’s north jamb is impossible to determine exactly because of the broken-down upper surface of the relevant threshold block, but if the door were centered, as seems likely, it should have overlapped the former by ca. 0.35 m., giving a restored door width of 1.35 m.
Interior of S6a, Its Context and Date
The red earth fill overlying bedrock inside the house has been described already in connection with the latter’s earlier phase.86 Containing a cache of 6th and 5th century Cyrenean silver coins along with examples of early personal jewelry, this ca. 0.30 m. deep fill (E15, 2, 4; D15/16, 1, 3) is interpreted as the structure’s original floor retained in use until its reconstruction as S6a. Its continuation as a post-Classical floor is indicated by the presence of eleven bronze coins dating between the end of the 4th century and mid-2nd century B.C. When S6 was rebuilt on its north and east sides, the red earth floor evidently was repacked with a ca. 0.50 m. thick layer of dense reddish–brown earth backed against the inner faces of the east and north walls to the height of the tops of their second courses. With the exception of two possibly Roman period sherds, it once again contained early pottery and other discarded artifacts including three silver coins87 mixed in with two late locally issued bronze coins of the second half of the 2nd century B.C.88 In other words, nothing in the way of stratified information reliably places S6a’s construction later than the later 2nd century B.C. On the other hand, those few architectural members for which a case can be made for associating them with the building appear to date to the 1st or possibly 2nd century A.D.
Elevation
Few architectural fragments survive from which to find clues for the building’s elevation from S6a’s interior and immediate vicinity by which is meant all the space directly to its east and west as well as farther down the hill to the north.
Sacred House S6a, Associated Architectural Frusta
Arch. Cat. B:18 (no assigned field no.). Column drum frag.
Limestone
E15, 3, 2, immediately north of S29 Mound
Mpl. 0.54 m. Diam. ca. 0.38 m.
No trace of flutes.
Arch. Cat. B:19 (field no. 118). Frag. of partly fluted column drum
Limestone
E15, 3, 2, tumbled down from S6a
Mp1. 0.68 m. Max. measurable diam. 0.42 m.
One finished end preserved. Surface fluted on two-thirds of shaft, remainder left plain. Broad, shallow flutes meet in wide fillets, whose surfaces are dressed with X-shaped chisel cuts in preparation for stucco. Hole, 0.035 m. across and 0.09m. deep, let into surface 0.56 m. from shaft’s finished end.
Arch. Cat. B:22 (field no. 60). Frag. of partly fluted column drum
Limestone
North of S6a’s northeast corner, inserted into hole in bedrock terrace
L. at least 0.30 m. Diam. 0.45 m.
Figure 3. Plan of the early Imperial S8 Sacred House.
Arch. Cat. B:34 (field no. 58). Frag. of column drum
Limestone
E15, 3, 2, north of northeast corner of S6a’s stepped podium
Mpl. 0.95. Upper diam. 0.465 m. Lower diam. 0.482 m. Upper end preserved intact. Degree of augmentation 2%.
Arch. Cat. J:3 (field no. 59). Frag. of anta base
Limestone
E15, 3, 2, from over stepped podium at S6a’s northeast corner
Mpw. of molded face 0.74 m. H. 0.22 m. Th. 0.60 m. As preserved, base consists of plain torus above low plinth.
The difficulty with associating the column shaft fragments with the S6a house is that, despite their proximity, nothing survives to suggest it possessed an in-antis arrangement. Instead, the pieces are probably better thought of as having something to do with construction located farther back up the hill in the area of the Portico chamber (S10) and the colonnaded Southwest Building (S17). The J:3 anta base is perhaps more promising. Its lower surface (0.74 by 0.60 m.) is the right size to fit on the wall block (0.90 by 0.60 m.) that supports the east wall’s missing south door jamb. Projecting antae flanking doors, as distinguished from molded, recessed door jambs, appear to have been employed on several not fully peripteral sacred buildings at Cyrene, including the Temple of Zeus in the Agora,89 the Temple from the Caesareum,90 and the Temple with Octagonal Bases (E6) southeast of the Agora.91 Since all three occur behind the line of prostyle porches and not, as here, where the door forms part of the main facade of a porchless structure, one might have expected that the front of S6a would have been further treated with corner pilasters, similar to those applied to the front of Cyrene’s so-called Strategheion.92 Nothing in what survives of its east wall suggests that it ever was, and the possibility has to be retained that the anta base in fact stemmed from a more conventional application farther back up the hill to the south.
Figure 4. North-south section of fills in S8 Sacred House and continuing south to rear of Middle Sanctuary.
Middle Sanctuary Additions
Sacred House S8
During this period, the fifth in the sanctuary’s series of independently sited shrine houses, S8 (Pl. 7, Figs. 3, 4),93 was constructed directly behind the north-south line of the F1 Fountain and S1 and S7 Sacred Houses. Opening north, down the Middle Sanctuary slope, the S8 house must have made use of the R3 steps94 for access to its interior through a secondary door set off-center in its north wall. The main door, of which no traces survive, probably was located at the east end.
Its exterior wall measurements are 6.5 m. east-towest by 4.4 m. north-to-south. While various combinations of ashlar headers and stretchers make up each of its four walls, the south wall was built roughly twice as thick above the foundation level as the remaining three walls, presumably in order to hold back the weight of the St. 3 fill (Fig.