Classical Greece: Domestic Architecture

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Classical Greece Domestic Architecture
Sanctuaries

• CNE/ART 354
• 3/23/06

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Greek Cities

• Vast majority were unwalled until the 5th
  century.
• Athens seems to have been without walls until 478
  (post-Persian Wars).

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Domestic Architecture
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Athenian Houses

• Athens grew organically, not planned.
• Houses not uniformly built, no standard house
  size or arrangement, either internally or within
  a given city block (unlike the Piraeus and
  Olynthos, which show marked degree of urban
  planning).
• In 5th-4th c the courtyard house predominates
  (separates women from public gaze and public
  life).

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Average Athenian House

• Small, dirt or packed clay floors
• Series of rooms grouped around central courtyard
  (light and air)
• Few external windows, only 1 or 2 external doors.
• Demosthenes commends the poverty of Athenian
  private houses in the 5th c., praises lack of
  distinction between the homes of rich and poor.

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Egalitarian Housing?

• General Athenian reluctance to spend money on
  comfortable housing is borne out by
  archaeological evidence.
• Finds of pottery or metalware indicate a greater
  wealth than their architectural context might
  suggest.
• Outward display of egalitarianism, with inward
  display of status, wealth?
• Poor housing may have been an expression of the
  modesty that surrounded the ideal Athenian
  family, especially the women.
• Still, there were large, ostentatious houses in
  Athens (unrepentent aristocrats?).

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Oikos

• Considered a miniature center of production
• Clothes and food made from wool and crops
• Nursery for children
• Sanctuary protected by household gods
• Snakes kept to control rodent population,
  because they were sacred animals.
• Space gendered female.
• Protected from outside view.

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Rooms

• Functions not easy to pinpoint.
• Furniture sparse and moveable.
• Small finds sometimes give us clues to function
• Cooking wares for kitchen, pantry
• Loom weights indicate womens quarters, which
  were usually upstairs (literary evidence tells us
  this, law cases, etc.)

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Andron

• Only space in the oikos gendered male.
• Separate entrance into it from outside.
• Most elaborate room in the house, because it was
  meant for social display.
• Often set on the N side of central court, facing
  south, to get full benefit of warmth of low
  winter sun.
• Often had mosaic pebble floor (set in lime
  mortar).
• Dining couches for symposia.
• Whitley has observed that these can be seen as
  mini versions of the dining rooms found at
  classical sanctuaries.

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Construction Materials

• Rubble foundations and lower walls
• Upper walls of sundried brick, stuccoed
• Wooden beams and boards on roof supported
  terracotta tiles
• Many houses had latrines and bathrooms with clay
  bathtubs Athens at this time had no public
  sanitation system.

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Rural Settlements
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Dema House

• NW of Athens, on the plain.
• 2 storeys with an open courtyard.
• Andron is located at the back of the courtyard,
  far from the entrance.
• Room with hearth and workroom were located as far
  away from andron as possible.
• With upper storey, women could move freely from
  their quarters upstairs to their workroom without
  venturing into the courtyard/andron area.

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Dema House, Continued

• Entrance to the house controlled by porter.
• Occupied in the last quarter of the 5th century
  (c. 425) for a short period of time.
• Must have been built during the Peace of Nikias
  (421-416, Peace with Persia).
• No evidence of farming or other productive
  activity around the house.
• Finds include fine pottery. Country house for
  elite family? Short-lived attempt to reoccupy
  family land after enforced evacuation to Athens
  in wartime.

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Vari House (in SE Attika)

• 4th century style house (350-275).
• Has a long room in the middle of the house
  opening onto a courtyard, like Dema House.
• All one storey, except bottom left hand corner,
  which had perhaps a 2 storey tower. For
  protection?
• Tower similar in plan to those on islands of Kea,
  Amorgos, Siphnos. These types of towers are more
  characteristic of Hellenistic Greece.
• Large quantities of beehive pottery (large
  vessels with striations and a circular cap) were
  found. Slopes of nearby Mt. Hymettos were ideal
  for beekeeping, so the house may have been built
  for that purpose.

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Attic Farmhouse (Vari)
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Vari House Inner Room Reconstruction
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Vari Courtyard Reconstruction
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Towers

• Classical period much rural land was dotted with
  such towers, which had various functions.
• Primary (?) landowners need and determination
  to protect his property.
• Other uses lighthouses, watchtowers
• By late 4th c., large parts of rural areas were
  fortified.

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Attic Farmhouses (Atene)
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Rural Settlement Patterns

• Some (e.g. Osborne) see a relatively empty
  countryside, with a few dense settlements
  (nucleated pattern).
• Others (e.g. Lohmann) see a countryside dotted
  with isolated farmsteads (dispersed pattern).
• Rural areas were filled with sanctuaries (big
  small) and were regions of production (grain on
  plains, animals on hills, silver mines, etc.).
• Population of Attika by 4th c 300,000 or so.

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Atene (Deme in SE Attika)

• Walked by Hans Lohmann (one man survey).
• He found a dispersed pattern of settlement, 16
  isolated farmsteads, 9 of which had towers.
• Area was extensively terraced (labor-intensive
  and costly) olive cash crop/slaves?
• Some were complex enough to have been permanent
  residences.
• LE17 had threshing floor, sheepfold.
• LE16 had andron that could hold 7 couches.

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Settlement Densities

• Surface survey done of island of Keos in the
  1980s.
• Small Polis Koressos
• 60 new sites discovered, most from Classical
  period.
• 29 Archaic sites
• 40 Classical sites
• However, most of the Archaic sites date from the
  6th century, not earlier.

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Keos
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Keos in Archaic Period
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Classical Settlement Patterns
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Classical Period Keos

• Settlement patterns show the entire landscape
  dotted with sites (dense but dispersed pattern).
• Shows a certain amount of security was felt (to
  live so spread out).
• 400 BCE around Greece is the peak in density of
  rural settlement.
• This pattern changes in the Hellenistic period.
• Rural sites are abandoned. Why? Pirates? Or
  social reasons?

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Hellenistic Keos Settlement Patterns
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Regional Differences

• Patterns of rural settlement may vary by region
  and over time (influenced by geology, survey
  biases, bulldozing).
• 2 models (patterns)
• Boiotia model dense but dispersed settlement
  (small farmsteads/hamlets).
• Messenia model dispersed rural settlement
  constant from Archaic to Classical periods,
  increasing in Hellenistic period.

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Settlement Signs

• Roof tiles are sure signs of settlement,
  especially of farm houses.
• 2 main styles Corinthian and Laconian.
• Key feature in identifying a farmhouse
• Circumscribed area, high density of remains at
  center, with halo density around (not very
  high) surrounded by a background noise density.
• Artifacts like potsherds are carried out in such
  patterns by farming techniques such as plowing,
  manuring fields, etc.

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Sizes of Poleis

• Example Boiotia
• 5th century total population of around 165,500.
• About 55,000 lived in 14-15 poleis.
• About 12,000 lived in towns.
• 98,500 left living in the countryside, or about
  60 of total population.

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Comparative Territory Size

• Small scale.
• Keos 4 city-states had a territory size of 130
  km squared.
• Melos 1 city-state had 150 km squared.
• Attika and Athens about 4 times the size of
  Douglas County, Nebraska.
• Lato on Crete very small polis, but had agora,
  shrine, theater. Population c. 2000. Small poleis
  like this often got pushed around, and so banded
  together in alliances.
• Poleis boundaries usually at topographical
  features, clearly defined easily defended.

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Urban Orthogonal Grid Planning

• Hippodamos of Miletos (5th century)
• Aristotle discusses urban design in Politics
  2.8.1-3, says that Hippodamos was the first
  person to plan towns with separate areas for
  religious, public, and private use.
• Although the grid plan was in use before
  Hippodamos (rectangular block plans in Greek
  towns in Sicily, 6th c.), he was the most famous
  proponent of it. Credited with replanning the
  city of Miletos after it was destroyed in the
  Ionian revolt, rebuilt on grid plan.

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Urban Rural Planning

• In poleis, citizens were entitled to a block of
  land in the country and a house in the city. Both
  were necessary conditions of citizenship.
• The city as the physical embodiment of the polis
  principle became apparent mostly in the 4th
  century. Equal-sized units equality of male
  citizens

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Piraeus Urban Planning

• Athens access to the sea, had 3 harbors.
  Kantharos harbor was used for commercial
  shipping, the other 2 were bases for Athens
  fleet of triremes (warships).
• Fortified in the 490s, established as a
  settlement after 478 (Persian Wars).
• 475-450, the area was laid out on the grid system
  of Hippodamos of Miletos.

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Piraeus Houses

• Unlike those in Athens, which varied greatly in
  size and plan.
• Remarkably similar to those in Priene, 100 years
  later.
• Most had similar ground plans, and were quite
  small.
• Had internal courtyards, cisterns, and andrones
  (held no more than 7 diners).
• epitome of 5th century political correctness,
  embodiment of isonomia (equal rights) and
  demokratia (rule by the people) Whitley

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Olynthos

• Best example of Hippodamian grid planning is
  Olynthos in Chalcidiki (H. dead by this point).
• Archaic Period Olynthos was a small hilltop
  town.
• After 479 the population began to increase,
  especially when Olynthos became the capital of
  the new Chalchidian League (432).
• Olynthos was a powerful city in the 5th-4th
  centuries, because it was the gateway to
  Macedonia.

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Olynthos

• 432 big population increase due to Athenian
  colonists
• New area (north hill) was built to accommodate
  them.
• Plan standard blocks laid out, 10 houses per
  block.
• Houses are not identical.
• Olynthos destroyed in 348 by Philip of Macedon
  and not rebuilt (great for us).
• New Greek cities were laid out on Hippodamian
  plans.

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Hearths

• At Olynthos, only 7 out of 42 excavated houses
  had stone-built hearths.
• Literary sources led scholars to believe that
  each house had one as the center of the home.
• Literary ideal of hearth and home not borne out
  in the material remains.
• Didnt need a hearth - could cook over portable
  braziers (terracotta or bronze).

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Olynthos Plan of Villa Section
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House of Many Colors Plan
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House of Many Colors Andron
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Olynthos Villa of Good Fortune
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Olynthos Gendered Spaces
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Priene (now in Turkey)
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Priene

• Tiny polis built in the 4th century to replace an
  earlier town.
• Probably had population of 4,000 or so.
• German excavations (late 19th c.) uncovered a
  great portion of it.
• Acropolis, fortification wall, lower town.
• Lower town laid out on a modified Hippodamian
  plan.
• EW streets ran across the slope were relatively
  level NS streets were often just staircases.

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Priene

• Residential areas maintained the grid
• Public areas such as agora interrupted the grid.
• City had the usual polis parts
• Temples (principal one Athena Polias)
• Theater
• Gymnasia
• Stadium

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Plan Temple of Athena Polias
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Temple of Athena Polias
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Domestic Architecture

• Houses date from late 4th century into the
  Hellenistic period.
• Some vary from other dwellings by having a big
  main room fronted by a porch (rival of megaron
  form?).
• Some were built of stone, most probably mud-brick
  and wood.

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Priene Houses Reconstructed
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Close-up of Megaron House