Nisa
The Round Hall
The building containing the Round Hall was located in the southern sector of the citadel’s so-called Central Complex. It was studied by Soviet missions in the 1950s and 1980s, and in 1990 the Italian archaeological mission resumed its study with systematic excavation campaigns in order to complete the planimetric survey of the complex, which was still partly unexplored. At the same time, the excavation of the central area’s ancient levels was completed and the walls’ structural characteristics were observed. The excavations also led to the recovery of fragments of the architectural decoration and of fragments of the unbaked clay sculptures that decorated the building.
As all structures in Nisa, the building is made of unbaked bricks and its sides measure approximately 30 metres; it is composed of an ample circular central hall with a diameter of 17 m that is inside a quadrangular perimeter. Access to the inner hall was provided by three distinct passages that underwent several modifications. The floor plan of the inner circular space inside a square perimeter makes the Round Hall an unusual building that to this day still cannot be directly compared to other designs, although it bears generic similarities to both Western designs and to traditional central Asian designs. The unusual planimetric characteristics, the building’s monumental size and the findings inside the rooms would suggest that the building was used for sacramental purposes. It is G. Košelenko who hypothesised that the complex is a mausoleum dedicated to an important member of the Arsacid dynasty; this has now been confirmed by the identification, proposed by A. Invernizzi, of the fragmentary portrait found in the room as a portrait of Mithridates I.
The structural study conducted on the building’s walls allows new reconstructive hypotheses concerning the complex’s inner and outer appearance, as well as its covering, to be formulated.