A Companion to Greek Architecture

Margaret M. Miles, Margaret M. Miles

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781118327609
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

A Companion to Greek Architecture provides an expansive overview of the topic, including design, engineering, and construction as well as theory, reception, and lasting impact.

• Covers both sacred and secular structures and complexes, with particular attention to architectural decoration, such as sculpture, interior design, floor mosaics, and wall painting
• Makes use of new research from computer-driven technologies, the study of inscriptions and archaeological evidence, and recently excavated buildings
• Brings together original scholarship from an esteemed group of archaeologists and art historians
• Presents the most up-to-date English language coverage of Greek architecture in several decades while also sketching out important areas and structures in need of further research

PART I
Invention, Design, and Construction

CHAPTER 1
Landscape and Setting

Betsey A. Robinson

Greek civilization encircled the Mediterranean, touching all three continents that border the nearly landlocked sea. In the first millennium BCE (and even much earlier) that sea supported trade, transportation, and a share of sustenance, while on land, plants and animals were cultivated, and native resources were tapped. Landscape is here considered not only as setting but indeed also as a companion to Greek architecture, the product of complex interactions of local populations with the land and native flora and fauna. Buildings and cities exist within such landscapes, testaments to human relations with the natural world, not only in the raw materials transformed into ordered forms but also through dynamic interplays with space and place, the experiences of visitors, and their very motivation across and among regions. This overview will emphasize mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, the Aegean islands, Ionia (coastal Asia Minor), and southern Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia). But the Greek experience was likewise embedded in the diverse environments of other archipelagos, Crete, coastal Egypt and Cyrenaica, and still more distant reaches, from southern France to the northern Black Sea shore.

This survey of ancient landscapes will begin with broad discussions of current approaches, geomorphology, and environmental and climatic regimes showcasing the intense regionality of the Greek world, for general trends are punctuated by very different conditions very near each other. Snapshots of ancient agriculture and the exploitation of earth minerals will follow, weighing ancient and modern claims of depletion and highlighting sustainable practices. Although the temporal frame is on the first millennium BCE, I should note that Bronze Age inhabitants had already pursued many activities discussed here and had themselves left visible traces. Few pristine settings, or true wildernesses, existed in the classical Greek world, so it is more useful to distinguish zones of cultivation from roughland (Grove and Rackham 2001: 167).

Approaches

A definition of the term “landscape” is in order, with some discussion of the different ways in which it is understood in current scholarship. Landscape archaeology, field survey, and theoretical geography are three current approaches to the subject. The landscapes discussed here are all “human landscapes,” formed, impacted, and viewed by humans. These landscapes not only record human activity but are also vested with a wide range of conceptual, ideational, and constructed qualities, and they reflect political circumstances, sociocultural values, and communal identities (Knapp and Ashmore 1999).

Landscape archaeologists deploy diverse methods to understand gardens and other planted areas, from remote sensing and imaging to intensive survey and excavations. Specialists recognize cultivated soils; features such as pits, fence‐lines and stake‐holes; and artifacts like planting pots and other implements, and they collaborate with biological scientists to understand faunal and floral remains (Miller and Gleason 1994; Gleason 1994). An early success in garden archaeology came in excavations around the Athenian Hephaisteion, which revealed rows of rectangular cuttings north and south of the building that have been recognized as third‐century BCE pits into which seedlings were planted in root pots, perhaps laurel and pomegranate (Thompson 1937).

Nondestructive and less expensive than excavation, field survey offers macro‐ and micro‐level diachronic perspectives on human landscapes, especially in final analyses. Model studies are the Boeotia Survey (e.g., Bintliff, Howard, and Snodgrass 2007; Bintliff and Slapšak 2007) and the Argolid Exploration Project (Jameson, Runnels, and van Andel 1994). In the Peloponnese, the Minnesota Messenia Expedition focused on the Bronze Age (MacDonald and Rapp 1972), while the Laconia Survey (Cavanagh et al. 2002) and Pylos Regional Archaeological Project have sought broader perspectives (Davis 2008). Such regional surveys have flourished in the new millennium, ever‐expanding coverage and promising important results (e.g., Bevan and Conolly 2004; Tartaron et al. 2006). Disciplined environmental or ecological studies, often undertaken in conjunction with surveys, offer important data against which to evaluate ancient sources and serve as correctives for modern generalizations about ancient conditions and sometimes fallacious backward projections (van Andel and Runnels 1987; Rackham 1996; Grove and Rackham 2001).

In contrast to these empirical field studies, cultural geographers use the concept of landscape as a springboard for engaging with a spectrum of phenomena relating to natural and human‐driven occurrences; their focus shifts from description to interpretation (Wylie 2007). Their use of the term, influenced by its etymological origin in pictorial art, is highly visual and always socially charged (Cosgrove 1998; Wylie 2007). To landscape theorists, topography and geomorphology, plants, and animals all exist in dynamic and reciprocal relations with human inhabitants, and the resulting human landscapes also assume conceptual and symbolic dimensions. Landscape thus becomes a participant in cultural processes. While perceptions and relationships with environment and landscape are fundamental phenomena of human experience, they are, of course, just parts of complex systems. Some classical scholars have embraced the challenges of articulating the ways in which the countryside influenced Greek society and politics, and vice versa (Osborne 1987; Shipley 2006). Much recent scholarship has focused on religious foundations, favoring sociopolitical practicalities over affective or emotional responses as the driving forces for the placement and growth of sanctuaries (following de Polignac 1995). Other studies have attempted to articulate the importance, and complex interplays, of both (Edlund 1987; Cole 2004; also works in Alcock and Osborne 1994).

Physical Geography

The topography of the ancient Greek world is highly varied, stretching from the edge of the Eurasian steppe to the African desert fringe. In the Greek heartland (Hellas proper), sea, islands, and mountains offer spectacular scenery, but for much of antiquity, coastal dwellers tempted fate, and mountain life was very austere. Only about 20 percent of mainland Greece is arable (Thompson 1963: 30), with only half of that figure given to permanent crops. In short, Greece is rich in beauty but relatively poor in fertile ground. Over the first millennium BCE, Greeks would carve out niches in more diverse regions and environments.

Hills and highlands offer the most desirable sites of human settlements, surrounded by “ribbons of cultivation” along coastal plains. Deltas, alluvial plains, and poljes (landlocked karstic plains) occupy significant territory, offering both benefits and challenges. They often host deep and fertile soils, but they require significant irrigation and drainage efforts to ensure livability and productivity. Likewise, of the innumerable Greek islands, the largest and those with good water and soil fostered significant populations, while the barren majority supported fewer inhabitants, who lived humbler lives.

The sea was an integral part of the Greek way of life. In the middle of the Greek world, the Mediterranean Sea is a remnant of the primordial Tethys, virtually landlocked, tideless, and highly saline. The Greeks’ main “frog pond,” however, is the Aegean, a smaller basin with more than 1000 islands scattered across it. Projecting peninsulas and constellations of islands with prominent headlands facilitated navigation and encouraged movement across the water. Early shipping hugged coasts and island‐hopped where possible; oared warships would always be coasters. Risking peril for profit, long‐distance transit increasingly left the safety of the shallows. It became possible to cross the Mediterranean in a few days in favorable conditions. Roman‐period figures show what could be done. The run from the Bay of Naples to Egypt could be as short as nine days, while the upwind return might stretch to two months (Casson 1971: 282–291). But many long‐distance voyages ended in disaster, as told by ancient authors and confirmed by underwater archaeology. Land transport, however, was expensive and slow, with individuals and small parties perhaps covering 24 km in a day, and armies somewhat less (Shipley 2006: 60).

Climate and Microclimate

The greatest changes to climate and environment occurred before human occupation. The climate of the first millennium BCE seems to have been similar to that of the present day (though perhaps there was more snow), and environmental conditions were not unlike modern conditions prior to 1900 (Meiggs 1982: 40; Rackham 1990: 88; Rackham 1996: 23). In many areas, especially lowland and littoral zones, the climate is appropriately Mediterranean, characterized by hot, dry summers and relatively mild winters, during which more than half the total precipitation normally falls. Northwesterly Etesian winds prevail in the summer, while the winter’s jet stream‐driven westerly and southwesterly winds bring showers. These are interrupted by blasts from the north, the bitingly cold mistral (or bora), and from Africa, the sirocco, with its red skies and warm, sandy rain. The climate of central and eastern Macedonia and Thrace is temperate, also hot in the summer, but colder in winter. The rugged Pindos Mountains have an Alpine climate, bitterly cold and hostile in winter, with th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• List of Illustrations
• List of Maps
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• PART I: Invention, Design, and Construction
• PART II: Temples and Sanctuaries
• PART III: Civic Space
• PART IV: Reception
• Glossary
• Index
• End User License Agreement