Lecture 5 Minoan

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Lecture 5 Minoan Mycenaean Cultures, Intro to
Greek Architecture
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Crete

• About the time of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt,
  the seafaring peoples of the Aegean Sea (Eastern
  Mediterranean) had learned how to exploit natural
  resources such as timber, stone, metallic ores,
  and clay for pottery to produce distinctive
  artifacts. With these and other agricultural
  products they waged brisk trade with Egypt and
  other settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean,
  where they constructed small fortified
  settlements and villages on islands and the
  coastline. There was probably some contact with
  Mesopotamia also.
• Early Cretans worshipped nature deities
  associated with mountains, trees and animals,
  especially snakes. They also practiced
  bull-jumping, probably an off-shoot to the
  Sumerian practice of bull biting, similar to bull
  fighting in Spain.
• Lions associated with royalty in Egypt and
  Mesopotamia were appropriated by the Cretans,
  though they had no lions on the island. Egyptian
  artifacts from 18th Dynasty have been retrieved
  from the harbor at Kairatos, Crete and 1300
  pieces of Aegean pottery dating from 1370 1350
  BCE were found in the rubbish heaps of Akhnaten
  and wall paintings during Hatshepsuts reign
  depict envoys from Crete bearing characteristic
  pottery from the island.
• These early peoples are called Minoans, from
  Minos, an early king or the title, similar to
  Pharaoh. It was the later Greeks who created
  legends associated with King Minos of Crete.

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Early People of the Aegean Sea Minoans

• The Minoans established a brilliant early
  civilization on the island of Crete, sustained
  and protected by the sea.
• The Minoans traded with Egypt and Mesopotamia.
  They acquired ideas and technology that they
  adapted to their own culture.
• The Minoans helped to shape the first Greek
  civilization.
• Palace built with wooden roof, gypsum plaster
  walls gracefully and colorfully painted. Large
  throne room with light wells, family apartments
  in palace.
• Culture disappears with some natural disaster,
  earthquake?

• Artists Rendition of King Minos Palace of
  Knossos on Crete (1700-1400BCE) excavated by Sir
  Arthur Evans in early 20th c.

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Palace of King Minos
In Greek mythology, the labyrinth of Crete was
derived from the elaborate floor plan of the
Palace at Knossos. Daedalus the Athenian
craftsman, was the architect and inventor who
designed for King Minos of Crete the labyrinth in
which was imprisoned the Minotaur, a man-eating
monster that was half man and half bull.The
labyrinth was so skillfully designed that no one
could escape from the maze or the Minotaur.
Daedalus revealed the secret of the labyrinth
only to Ariadne, daughter of Minos, and she aided
her lover, the Athenian hero Theseus, to slay the
monster and escape. In anger at the escape,
Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in
the labyrinth. Although the prisoners could not
find the exit, Daedalus made waxwings so that
they could both fly out of the maze. Icarus,
however, flew too near the sun his wings melted,
and he fell into the sea. Daedalus flew to
Sicily, where he was welcomed by King Cocalus.
Minos later pursued Daedalus but was killed by
the daughters of Cocalus.
Knossos, Crete, ca. 1500 B.C. Excavated by Sir
Arthur Evans in the early part of the century,
the elaborate palace reminded the excavator of
the legend of Theseus and The Minotaur.
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Built several stories high around a central
courtyard, the palace had light wells to admit
light into the lower reaches of the palace. The
palace is also noted for columns that taper
downward instead of upward, and the beautiful
frescoes on the walls.
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Lustral basin and light well in Throne Room
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Early People of the Aegean Sea The Mycenaeans

• The Mycenaeans evolved on the Greek mainland and
  eventually conquered the Greek mainland and
  Crete.
• Mycenaean civilization (more warriors than
  traders) dominated the Aegean from
• about 1400 B.C. to 1200 B.C.
• though they traded with Sicily, Italy, Egypt,
  and Mesopotamia.
• Mycenaeans absorbed Egyptian and Mesopotamian
• influences and passed them on to later Greeks.
• Fall of Mycenae ushered in the Greek Dark Ages
  1100 800 B.C.

Mycenae
Crete
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Mycenae
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Lion Gate at Mycenae c. 1250 BCE
Progenitor of the Greek temple front, the Lion
Gate is also important for its powerful sense of
structure and sensitivity to the beauty of the
subject.
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Treasury of Atreus, a tholos tomb

• C. 1325 BCE Mycenaean

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For more information go to http//www.tronchin.co
m/Art1A/lecture205.htm

• Treasury of Atreus and Mask of King Agamemnon

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Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae c.1250BCE
(400 years before the Trojan War, tallest and
widest dome for 1000 years until the Pantheon)
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Evidence suggests that a fire destroyed the
palace at Mycenae. There is also evidence of a
siege. By 1200BCE the power of Mycenae was
declining during the 12th century, Mycenaean
dominance collapsed. Within a short time around
1250 BC, all the palaces of southern Greece were
burned, including the one at Mycenae. This is
traditionally attributed to a Dorian invasion of
Greeks from the north, although some historians
now doubt that such an invasion took place.
Wikipedia cites Rowbotham, William. "Mycenae and
the Bronze Age." Odyssey Adventures, Odyssey. as
their source for this information.
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Tiryns
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Cyclopean wall at Tiryns, Greece. Completed end
of 13th c. BCE.
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• Up to 36 feet thick, the walls were lined with
  galleries with massive corbelled ceilings,
  serving as a refuge for the citizens in times of
  war. Tyrens is heavily fortified, in contrast to
  the cities of the Minoans, which had no apparent
  fortifications.

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An almost single-file passage between high walls
is required to enter Tirens, making would-be
attackers vulnerable well before reaching the two
gates that guard the city entrance. The gates
opened into a courtyard bounded by porticoed
chambers corbelled into the mass of the exterior
wall, which face the narrow palace gate. It also
opens into a courtyard and a colonnaded court and
finally into the palace magaron.
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Origins of Greek Architecture and Greek City
Planning

• They formed city-states not kingdoms.
• Topography aided formation of small
  self-sufficient towns with pockets of farming and
  sea fishing as main occupations. No city could
  dominate another for very long, and most cities
  grew to the point of sending extra people out of
  town to found a colony somewhere else along the
  coast.
• Strong sense of common culture, language, myths
  and gods.
• Last of the megalithic architects.

• After the collapse of the Minoan-Mycenaean
  civilizations beginning around 1200 to 1100 BCE,
  the Dorians invaded from the North about 1000 BCE
  and settled with Sparta as their capital. They
  were a militant tribal people.
• The Ionians, from Asia Minor and the Greek
  Islands, were a trading society.
• By the 8th century (BCE) these two groups merged
  and called themselves Hellenes. Everybody else
  was a barbarian.

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Urban Form Determinants

• Regional Topography Climate
• Winter is severe in the mountains elsewhere
  moderate and sunny. The sun rises early and is
  hot. The heat is not enervating for the
  atmosphere is dry, and the heat is tempered with
  the daily moderation of land and sea breezes.
• Rain in summer is almost unknown, late winter and
  autumn are rainy seasons.

Local building materials affect architectural
forms.
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Chronology

• Greek Dark Ages 1100 700 BCE
• First Olympic Games 776 BCE Collapse of the
  Palace economies/return to villages. No
  monumental architecture, but beginning of
  development of the temple form in perishable
  materials, brick, wood, some rubble masonry.
  Greek myths and Trojan War, great epic poems
  written.
• Archaic Period 700 480 BCE
• Persian Wars 497 -479 BCE
• Classical Period 480 323 BCE
• Peloponnesian War 421 404 BCE Archaic and
  Classical are Hellenic periods. Rise of the
  city-state (polis). Temples (Doric in mainland
  and Ionic in Ionia) evolve from megaron of
  Mycenaeans, intellectual approach to architecture
  with emphasis on form.
• Hellenistic Period 323 146 BCE (death of
  Alexander the Great 323 BCE)
• Major centers no longer on mainland, but at
  Ephesos, Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamon. Greater
  elaboration of decoration and development of
  Corinthian order. More monumental civic
  buildings. Greece taken over by the Romans, 146
  BCE

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Cultural Identity and Religion

• Town and city were closely knitexcept in those
  more remote parts, like Arcadia and western
  Greece, where there were no towns at all.
• On occasions, the Greek city-states joined
  together to face a common enemy, notably
  Persians, but they were also intermittently in
  conflict with each other.
• In addition to grid-plan towns, the major
  contribution to architectural history in the
  Archaic Greek era was the temple, which
  originated as a home for the gods and was based
  on the design of the Greeks own houses.

• The Greek gods were seen as one large, harmonious
  family, though they did not always get along
  together. The Greeks felt the gods inhabited
  every rock, brook, and mountain or tree. They
  were apt to appear anywhere, and at any time.
• All potential building sites, even the site of a
  new city, were checked by ceremonial means before
  any building was begun. There was a ritual for
  every daily undertaking the Greeks were very
  religious.
• Because each god has his or her area of
  expertise, several would be consulted and temples
  built to ensure the success of the new colony.

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Hellenic and Hellenistic

• Hellenic Greek civilization prior to the
  Macedonian conquest
• Hellenistic - Type of culture resulting from
  Alexander the Greats conquests a blend of
  Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and Indian cultures and
  art styles
• During the Hellenistic era, a cultural
  interaction with Persians, Egyptian, Indian and
  other cultures resulting in and a mixture of
  cultures, art and architecture.
• Men were gods who lacked perfect beauty,
  immortality and power. Gods had these and human
  traits. Men could go against the gods and win,
  but not often.

• Winged Victory of Samothrace,
• c. 190BCE, now at the Louvre, Paris, France

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Greek altars of Classical times were always under
the open sky. Hera may have been the first to
whom an enclosed roofed temple sanctuary was
dedicated, at Samos about 800 BCE. (It was
replaced later by the Heraion, one of the largest
Greek temples anywhere.) There were many temples
built on this site so evidence is somewhat
confusing and archaeological dates are confused.
We know that the temple from the architect
Rhoechus was destroyed between 570- 60 BC. This
was replaced by the Polycratean temple 540-530BC.
In one of these temples we see a forest of 155
columns. There is also no evidence of tiles on
this temple suggesting either the temple was
never finished or that the temple was open to the
sky. Samos excavations have revealed votive
offerings, many of them late 8th and 7th century,
which reveal that Hera at Samos was not merely a
local Greek goddess of the Aegean the museum
there contains figures of gods and suppliants and
other votive offerings from Armenia, Babylon,
Persia, Assyria, Egypt, testimony to the
reputation which this sanctuary of Hera enjoyed
and to the large influx of pilgrims. This mighty
goddess also possessed the earliest temple at
Olympia and two of the great fifth and sixth
century temples of Paestum. wikipedia
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First Temples of Hera at Samos, Greece Early
Temple early 7th c. BCE Rebuilt in mid 7th c. BCE
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Second Temple of Hera at Samos
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Beginning of the Temple Form

• Temple of Hera at Paestum,
• South of Naples, Italy, c. 530 BCE
• Unusual enneastyle plan (meaning it has an odd
  number of columns across the front) with central
  line of columns in the naos.
• Refinements include the
• 1) abacus block
• 2) echinus molding
• 3) fluted column shaft
• 4) entasis

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Gate in the city wall at Paestum
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Greek Temple Styles
Number of columns across front is usually an even
number 2 Distyle 4- Tetrastyle 6 Hexastyle
(most common) 8 Octastyle 9 Enneastyle
(rare) 10 decastyle (rare)
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Elements of the Naos
             Naos              Pronaos              Cella             Adyton              Opisthodomos

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Number of columns along the temples sides is
calculated by this formula

• Number across the front X 2 plus 1
• So an octastyle has 8 X 2 16 1 17 columns
  along each side.
• Intercolumnation is the spacing between columns.
  
• Pycnostyle 1 ½ diameter
• Systyle 2 diameters
• Eustyle 2 ¼ diameters
• Diastyle 3 diameters
• Aracostyle 3 ½ diameters
• The majority of Greek Temples were Hexastyle
  Peripteral,
• but the Parthenon was Octastyle Peripteral.

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• The first temples were mudbrick structures on
  stone foundations.
• The columns and superstructure were wooden, door
  openings and antae were protected with wooden
  planks. The mudbrick walls were often reinforced
  by wooden posts, in a type of half-timbered
  technique.
• Near the end of the 7th c BCE, the dimensions of
  these simple structures were increased
  considerably.
• Since it was not technically possible to roof
  broad spaces at that time, these temples remained
  very narrow, at 6 to 10 m width.
• To stress the importance of the cult statue and
  the building holding it, the naos was equipped
  with a canopy, supported by columns.
• As time went on mudbrick and wooden temples were
  replaced with stone as a building material. Many
  features of the wooden construction were carried
  over into the stone.

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Temple of Poseidon, Paestum
Temple of Poseidon or Zeus at Paestum
triglyphs
Mutules with guttae
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The Orders
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Elevation of the Temple of Concordia at
Agrigentum.
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