Detail of the entablature of the North Agora colonnade.
This image shows a roughed-out section of the garland frieze which elsewhere on this portico is finished. This might indicate that all of the blocks of the entablature were put up with the frieze roughed-out in this way for finishing in place but it does not necessarily. This might simply have been a stage of work that the frieze went through on the ground before being finished and put into place. Perhaps in this case the righthand block of the frieze was simply needed before it was finished and so was put up in this state. What Peter Rockwell calls the rhythm of construction is crucial here - if the block was needed so that work could continue on the building then it had to be put in place, where it could be finished if necessary or simply left as it was. This suggestion is supported by the fact that the detailed decorative carving does not carry on across the division between blocks but instead stops at the end of the lefthand block of the frieze. This roughed-out block, then, is not in the right place since its decoration does not line up with that of the one next to it, and it seems likely that it was simply put into place in a hurry. It is also notable that the method for roughing-out the garland design is identical to the system used on later garland sarcophagi at Aphrodisias and elsewhere.
