Duderstadt Gallery: Section 8 - Fountains and Bath

THE NYMPHAEUM
The Nymphaeum (Fountain House) beside the city wall once provided a dramatic visual focal point where one of Antioch’s two known aqueducts entered the city, at the northern terminus of the main north-south street, the Cardo Maximus. Only the foundations remain today. There were at least three phases in the development of this nymphaeum. In the first phase, probably in the early 1st century AD, the structure had a pi-shaped plan and façade. In the second phase, which was probably contemporary with the 2nd-century AD ornamental cascade at the City Gate, builders remodeled the porch and steps of the original pi-shaped Fountain House, creating two basins and shifting the design focus of the structure from containment and protection to visual display. While the Nymphaeum served as a distribution point for aqueduct water throughout its period of use, alterations in late antiquity may have transformed it into a more utilitarian castellum aquae (water tower).