K. Palágyi Sylvia szerk.: Balácai Közlemények 2005/9. (Veszprém, 2005)

GIRARDI JURKIC, VESNA: Roman Villa rustica in Cervar Porat (Croatia) - Excavation and Presentation

partially defined on three sides by perimetral foundation walls. The wall completely preserved is the western one, while the northern and southern walls are only partially preserved. The eastern part of the unit was mostly destroyed due to the difference in altitude towards the bay. On that side, most of the walls were destroyed because their stones were extracted and a small quarry was formed. The remains of some foundations, oriented differently from the well-preserved remains of the square building, and that can be well seen in the first room on the south facing to the east (C), indicate an earlier phase of the building situated on the elevation (1

st to 2

nd century AD) that was no doubt linked to the phases of the neighboring building known for the discovery of the ceramic kiln. The square building constructed in an earlier phase of the villa rustica (1

st century AD) is defined as a production complex (oil production facility) established in the late 2

nd century AD. The remains of a couple of presses (torculum) and of an olive mill were found in two rooms of more or less the same size, each 12 m x 8 m (D, E), situated on the highest point of the slightly elevated ground. The northern room (E) was paved with small bricks forming a fishbone pattern, while the circular bases for pressing (forum) were convex, created using the same building technique. The liquid would run from circular channels situated around the base of the olive press, going into a single channel that was also coated by small bricks, passing into a channel built with smaller regular stone blocks with a groove that continued into the other room to the south (D). Large monolithic stone blocks with a narrow and low rim functioned as the base for the beams' support. The remains of an elliptic base of the mill (1.7 m x 2 m) were discovered in the south-western comer of the northern room (I) next to the first press. The base was built out of small, slightly dressed and roughly hewn stones. Three mill stones were also discovered, made of lime-stone, two of which entirely preserved and one in fragments. They were situated beside one of the walls of the big room (G) in the northern part of the building. The big room can be considered to have been a storage room. The first mill stone is entirely preserved and has a diameter of 88 cm, it is 40 cm thick, and has a square hole in the middle (24 cm x 24 cm). The second mill stone is also entirely preserved, it is 84 cm in diameter, 25 cm thick, and has a rectangular hole in the middle (20 cm x 22 cm). The third mill stone, broken off into 1/3 of its perimeter, was 88 cm in diameter, 14 cm thick and had a square hole in the middle (23 cm x 23 cm). Circular pressing areas (areae) were 1.9 m in diameter, and a channel for collecting liquid (canalis rotunda) was 10 cm wide and 5 cm deep. The outflow channel for extracted liquid was situated tangentially to the circular convex bases. The channel was interrupted on its northern end, so that we do not know where it actually ended. The channel changed direction for a couple of centimeters at the southern circular base, so that it was connected to the northern base only by a narrow outflow channel, while it was connected with the southern base through a wide opening. To the opposite sides of the outflow channels (in respect to the circular areae) a stone block functioning as a shallow container was placed, with dimensions 2.1 m x 0.9 m. A narrow rim 12 cm wide framed a large indented area (6 cm deep), inside which there are no other engraved elements that would indicate the former existence of pillars supporting the beam of the press.