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The Most Diagnostic Column Shaft: COL 1
COL 1 is the only column shaft from Punta Scifo A that has been carefully
studied since the time of the shipwreck’s discovery, and it is well-known thanks to the
1911 and 1978 publications by Orsi and Pensabene, respectively. Currently on public
display at the Nautical Museum of Capo Colonna, the column was broken into three
pieces after its recovery; only two of them are extant. When Paolo Orsi published this
item in 1911, it was intact and 4.20 m long, indicating that it was subsequently broken
and more than a meter of the original shaft is now missing. 130
The item has a protective collar at one extremity, with a diameter of 0.57 m. My
own measurements indicate that the diameter at the first break is 0.49 m and at the second
break 0.50 m. It is evident that, once the column was erected in place, the collar removed
and the flute-channels dressed, its final diameter at the base would have been similar to
the diameter of the rest of the column, taking into account a small difference along the
shaft for entasis, or the slight swelling of a column near the middle of its shaft. Therefore,
if the column shaft was 4.20 m tall (or 14 ¼ R. ft), with a diameter at the base of ca. 0.50
m (1 ¾ R. ft), the ratio between base and height is 1:8 ⅜ , which is congruent with the
proportions of the Corinthian or Ionic orders in Imperial times. 131 A Latin inscription,
carved into the collar, reads as follows:
130 Degrassi 1952, 56.
131 Wilson Jones 2000, 148, 222-3.
LOC II
B II COM I
SEVEROEVICTO
RINO COS OFF
MODIANA C .
IVLI .. A
100