The temple roof was extensively decorated with painted terracotta elements and the ridge was crowned with a row of ten terracotta statues, representing a Gigantomachy. This book presents an annotated catalogue of 387 fragments belonging to the ridge- pole status. It also attempts to reconstruct and interpret the statues, both individually and as a group.
Separate sections discuss their production, their position within the roof-system and their style.
Close study suggests that the statues originate from a single period and a single region and that they form a technical and stylistic unity. The workshop which produced the ridge-pole status from Satricum clearly possessed an artistic and technical mastery which was matched only by the Greeks. Patricia Sabine Lulof studied Classical Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam. She has been involved with the Satricum Research Project since 1980 and in 1988 became a staff member of the Satricum excavations being run by the university. Since 1992 she has lectured on archaeology at the department of Mediterranean Archaeology and is currently a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean Studies at the University of Amsterdam.