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The painted red strip around the outside of Roman Buildings
#16
Salve

In my region in the south of France a lot of traditional houses use Ocher pigments mixed to lime.

Beside the obvious anesthetics, it somehow harden the surface and make it more water resistant.

A great advantage of reddish ocher at the bottom of a wall is obvious if you live in some parts of southern Europe, it keep the wall clean from dirt.

A lot of the newer houses in the country side that have white walls have the bottom always look dirty... So maybe originally it was just a practical reason to protect the bottom wall.

I hope my point of view, help a bit or lead to new researches in that direction, as I would be very interested if somebody comes up with the right answer.

Vale
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#17
That description, combined with the photo Graham Sumner provided above, seems enough to convince me that I'd want to paint a band of red so the dirt wouldn't show.

The photo shows dirt up to about knee-high, though the band of red seems to usually have gone higher. I'd suggest it may have been to discourage graffiti, but if that was the idea it was a weak and dismal failure, judging from the abundant graffiti found in Pompeii.
Wayne Anderson/ Wander
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#18
Hi
I can add that when I was in Tunisia a few years ago I noticed that traditional Butcher's shops, which looked almost similar to Pompeian shops, also had a dark pink red band. Some other shops were painted with a pale blue band. Continuity perhaps?

Graham.
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#19
And you didn't ask the Tunisians why? Big Grin
Wayne Anderson/ Wander
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#20
This week I've been in an exhibition about the Tombs of Paestum
Those were made by the Lucani, an Italian tribe which lived in the former Greek colony of Paestum around 400 B.C.E..
All the tombs show at the bottom approx. the height of the lying corpse a red stripe or at least a red line
[size=85:2j3qgc52]- Carsten -[/size]
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#21
May be, there is a religious meaning on the red stripe?
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#22
Speaking of continuity and tradition, many villages in Spain, and buildings in towns, especially those that go back to Roman times, are white-washed and have dark red bands around waist high........
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
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#23
OK we have grahams pic that shows the dirt on the wall. the red strip would make it less noticeable and probably easier to clean. Why did it go higher? From the pic you can see that the dirt line is at least knee high and this is just from the rain alone coming from th eroof. Now add thousands of people and vehicles and animals treading through the city and you will see a higher dirt line that combined with in some areas at least refuse being thrown from the upper floors ( I remember reading this from one of the writers of the day as to his dislike of the city and moved to the country cant think of his name right now I want to say ither pliny or cicero ) this would probably double the height of teh dirt on the wall. Certainly some splashes would get a little higher so the paint is moved a littl efurther up. we typically think of red due to th epompeji walls I would imagine that the colour would depend on the darkness of the filth needing to be not seen noticbly on th ewall until it can be cleaned. This brings us to Grahams - Posted: 08 Aug 2008 18:29
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Hi
I can add that when I was in Tunisia a few years ago I noticed that traditional Butcher's shops, which looked almost similar to Pompeian shops, also had a dark pink red band. Some other shops were painted with a pale blue band. Continuity perhaps?

Graham.
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Graham could the pink be a faded red? or perhaps this pigmentation was easier/more readily available for them to produce. Also th ecolour differances I think was very probable during roman times. The romans love of colour I seriously doubt that they would have painted everything everywhere the same colour. Obviously the colour would not be a lighter colour when a darker was need I also wonder how much was personal taste as to colour as much as nessisity?

As far as Tunis goes it seems like some of what was in ancient rome has survived throughout the old eastern empire. Turkish bath the medical knowledge that had been in east that the crusaders talked about seemed to be very much like ancient roman and now the painted wall i think Graham could very well be right in that is is something that simply never went away.
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