Resumen de À propos du fonctionnement des installations de banquet en sigma. Nouvelles observations, entre Orient et Occident
The perpose of this study is to analyse the present state of knowledge on sigma banquet facilities, the discoveries of which have multiplied in recent years, both in the East and the West, and to propose some unknown examples. After the analysis of few of possible cases of the depiction of the place of furniture on mosaic floors, the sigma-fountains will be subject of review. Indeed, since the discovery of the stibadium of the villa of Faragola (Apulia), other spectacular arrangements of sigmas-fountains have been discovered in Rome on the site of Rinascente, or in Portugal, at the villa of Horta da Torre (Fronteira), while the remains of known benches have been entirely re-examined (the so-called Baths of Elagabal at the foot of the Palatine) or have been reassessed (Italica, Cañada Honda). Finally, several new sigmas in masonry have come to light, in Seville and Antioch as well as in Libya in Al Latrun, some of them dating to the 5th and 6th centuries (in Salone e.g.), or even to the 7th century in religious contexts such as that of the Illa del Re (Menorca). It is therefore not only the structure, the decoration and the possible water games of these table couches that are specified, but also the chronology that now spans the end of the 3rd to the 7th century.
