Temple of Serapis, is so wrongly-called the quadrangular Roman structure brought to light in the 1750. At the time the three central columns emerged from the ground-level for some meters, and anyone knew there had to be something very ancient.
The finding of god Serapis’ statue suggested there was a temple dedicated to the divinity; after, for the thermal springs – visible also today – it was thought a thermal place, but nowaday all the experts agree it was a “macellum”, a market. In the Phlegraean Archaeological Museum, hosted into the near Aragonese Castle of Baia, is showed the perfect plastic reconstruction of the ancient “temple”. There were big and extremely expansive columns, statues in honor to gods and emperors, generous cladding and fine marble pavement, an elegant fountain and a majestic façade. Thinking to a market and conceive housewives making their own business in this fine ambient is hard. But the two statues put to protect the lucky trade leave no doubts: it was a market. Two thousands years before the mall, Puteoli invented and built its own clearinghouse of goods served by a big port. On the big columns is possible to observe the holes made by the marine mollusks, showing that for a period they were underwater: the study of the temple helped so much the experts who are studying the bradyseismic phenomenon.
Temple of Serapis
