Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T04:06:25.171Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Housing and the Household

from Part I - The Urban Fabric

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2021

By
Katherine B. Harrington
Edited by
Jenifer Neils  and
Dylan K. Rogers
Jenifer Neils
Affiliation:
American School of Classical Studies, Athens
Dylan K. Rogers
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Get access

Summary

Though millennia of building and rebuilding in the city center have affected archaeologists’ ability to recover domestic architecture and assemblages from the Archaic and Classical periods, the evidence which does survive provides a window into the daily lives of ordinary Athenians. Ancient Athenian houses hosted many activities, including family life, ritual practice, and craft production.

Keywords

household archaeologydomestic architecturegenderdomestic religiondaily life
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens , pp. 124 - 139
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

The most comprehensive account of Greek houses generally is Nevett 1999. On rescue excavations in Attika, see Parlama and Stampolidis 2000, Kaza-Papageorgiou 2016, and Eleftheratou 2019. For town planning, see Hoepfner and Schwandner 1986 and Shipley 2005. On gender in Greek houses, see Jameson 1990, Nevett 1994 and 1999, and Goldberg 1999. Tsakirgis 2005 is a good introduction to household industry near the Agora. For domestic religion, see Morgan 2007, and for saucer pyres specifically, see Rotroff 2013. On depictions of domestic life on Athenian vases, see Oakley 2020, 7–46. In the chora, see Nevett 2005 on ‘suburban’ houses and McHugh 2017 on farmsteads.

Bibliography

Additional resources to accompany this chapter can be found at: www.cambridge.org/NeilsRogers

Andrianou, D. 2009. The Furniture and Furnishings of Ancient Greek Houses and Tombs. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Eleftheratou, S. 2019. Μουσείο Ακρόπολης: η ανασκαφή. Athens.Google Scholar
Fine, J.V.A. 1951. Horoi: Studies in Mortgage, Real Security, and Land Tenure in Ancient Athens. Princeton.Google Scholar
Goldberg, M.Y. 1999. “Spatial and Behavioral Negotiations in Classical Athenian City Houses.” In The Archaeology of Household Activities, ed. Allison, P.M., London, 142–161.Google Scholar
Harrington, K.B. 2015. “Privacy and Production: Sensory Aspects of Household Industry in Classical and Hellenistic Greece.” Archaeological Review from Cambridge 30: 63–69.Google Scholar
Hoepfner, W., and Schwandner, E.-L.. 1986. Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland. Munich.Google Scholar
Jameson, M.H. 1990. “Domestic Space in the Greek City-State.” In Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: An Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Study, ed. Kent, S., Cambridge, 92–113.Google Scholar
Jones, J.E., et al. 1973. “An Attic Country House below the Cave of Pan at Vari.” Annual of the British School at Athens 68: 355–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaza-Papageorgiou, K. 2016. The Ancient City Road and the Metro beneath Vouliagmenis Avenue. Athens.Google Scholar
Knigge, U. 2005. Der Bau Z. Kerameikos 17. Munich.Google Scholar
Lynch, K.M. 2011. The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora. Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHugh, M. 2017. The Ancient Greek Farmstead. Oxford.Google Scholar
Morgan, J.E. 2007. “Space and the Notion of Final Frontier: Searching for Ritual Boundaries in the Classical Athenian Home.” Kernos 20: 113–129.Google Scholar
Morris, I. 2007. “Archaeology, Standards of Living, and Greek Economic History.” In The Ancient Economy: Evidence and Models, eds. Manning, J.G. and Morris, I., Stanford, 91–126.Google Scholar
Morris, S.P., and Papadopoulos, J.K.. 2005. “Greek Towers and Slaves: An Archaeology of Exploitation.” AJA 109: 155–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevett, L.C. 1994. “Separation or Seclusion? Towards an Archaeological Approach to Investigating Women in the Greek Household in the Fifth to Third Centuries bc.” In Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space, eds. Parker Pearson, M. and Richards, C., London, 89–112.Google Scholar
Nevett, L.C. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Nevett, L.C. 2005. “Between Urban and Rural: House-Form and Social Relations in Attic Villages and Deme Centers.” In Ancient Greek Houses and Households: Chronological, Regional, and Social Diversity, eds. Ault, B.A. and Nevett, L.C., Philadelphia, 83–98.Google Scholar
Oakley, J.H. 2020. A Guide to Scenes of Daily Life on Athenian Vases. Madison.Google Scholar
Parlama, L., and Stampolidis, N.C., eds. 2000. Athens: The City beneath the City: Antiquities from the Metropolitan Railway Excavations. Athens.Google Scholar
Pritchett, W.K. 1956. “The Attic Stelai: Part ii.” Hesperia 25: 178–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapoport, A. 1969. House Form and Culture. Englewood Cliffs.Google Scholar
Rotroff, S.I. 2013. Industrial Religion: The Saucer Pyres of the Athenian Agora. Princeton.Google Scholar
Shipley, G. 2005. “Little Boxes on the Hillside: Greek Town Planning, Hippodamos, and Polis Ideology.” In The Imaginary Polis: Symposium, January 7–10, 2004, ed. Hanson, M.H., Copenhagen, 335–403.Google Scholar
Tsakirgis, B. 2005. “Living and Working around the Athenian Agora: A Preliminary Case Study of Three Houses.” In Ancient Greek Houses and Households: Chronological, Regional, and Social Diversity, eds. Ault, B.A. and Nevett, L.C., Philadelphia, 67–82.Google Scholar
Young, R.S. 1951. “An Industrial District of Ancient Athens.” Hesperia 20: 135–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×