Nisa
Reconstructive hypotheses
The structural study carried out on the building walls finally allows us to propose new reconstructive hypotheses of the building’s internal and external aspect and of its roof.
The structural features of the walls of the Round Hall are extremely interesting: preserved up to a height of over 4 metres, they display a complex texture in the various sections of masonry that make up their bulk, made from unbaked bricks, consisting of a thick square perimeter in which a thin circle of bricks is inscribed and constructed independently. The remarkable dimensions of the room and the passage from the curve of the inner walls to the straight lines of the building’s outer perimeter attest to the extensive technical and tatic
know-how of its ancient builders.
The reconstructive hypothesis of a building consisting of a cylindrical drum enclosed in a square perimeter and a wooden pavilion roof, recalling classical models, proposed many years ago by the excavators, and the connected decorations, cannot be maintained today. The recent studies and the static calculations carried out by the Turin mission showed that the inner walls were not based vertically on the floor, but were built slightly slanting from their start. Therefore, a new reconstructive hypothesis can actually be advanced, postulating that the hall was covered with a dome of oriental style (with a hyperbolic, elliptical or oval cross section) made of unbaked bricks.