The House of Serenos, Part II: Archaeological Report on a Late-Roman Urban House at Trimithis (Amheida VI)

The House of Serenos, Part II (Amheida VI) is the latest monograph in the Amheida series and the second volume dedicated to the archaeology of the large élite residence now known as the “House of Serenos,” at Amheida, or the ancient city of Trimithis, in the Dakhla Oasis of the Western Desert of Egypt. The Amheida project started in 2001 and since 2008 New York University has been the primary sponsoring institution. The House of Serenos was one of the three main areas under investigation between 2004 and 2010. For more information about the Amheida Project, please follow this link.

In this volume Paola Davoli provides an authoritative account of the architectural and archaeological history of the house, from its construction, through its various renovations and expansions, to its ultimate abandonment in the late fourth century CE. Her discussion includes a systematic treatment of building techniques, materials, features, finds, and stratigraphy, and she carefully contextualizes this élite house at the edge of the Roman Empire, with its impressive wall decorations and dome, in its desert environment, the evolving urban plan of Trimithis, and the wider culture of late antique Egypt.

The volume also includes an appendix by Nicholas Warner on the traditional techniques, economics, and presentation of the full-scale reconstruction of the House of Serenos that the project built on site in 2008–2009 as a visitor center.

The volume is accompanied by an online, open-access digital image repository, which contains all of images in the volume, including the Harris matrices. These images are available to the the general public under a Creative Commons license.

The book will be a key resource for specialists interested in Roman and Late Antique Egypt, the archaeology of Greco-Roman Egypt, and ancient domestic architecture and settlement patterns.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Paola Davoli is Full Professor of Egyptology at University of Salento (Lecce, Italy) and the director of the Museo Papirologico. She was field director of the NYU excavations at Amheida from 2005 to 2022 and has directed the Soknopaiou Nesos Project (Dime es-Seba, El-Fayyum) since 2003 with M. Capasso. She is the author of numerous books and articles related to the archaeology of Greco-Roman and late antique Egypt.

Nicholas Warner is an architect and architectural historian trained at Cambridge University and the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. He has lived in Egypt since 1993, where he has participated in and directed numerous projects related to the documentation, preservation, and presentation of heritage sites from all periods, including New York University’s excavations at Amheida, Dakhla Oasis. He joined the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) as its Cultural Heritage Projects Director in 2020.