Book contents
- Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Kinship ‘In the Halls’
- 2 Domesticating the Ancient House
- 3 Mind the Gap
- 4 A Family Affair
- 5 Textiles in Alkestis’ thalamos
- 6 Architectural Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of Architecture
- 7 The Reconstruction of an Agricultural Landscape
- 8 Mudbricks and Papyri from the Desert Sand
- 9 Housing and Community
- 10 The Elusive vestibulum
- 11 Living in the Liminal
- 12 Experiencing Sense, Place and Space in the Roman Villa
- 13 Houses and Time
- 14 Spaces of Desire
- 15 A Response: ‘Using the Material and Written Sources’ Revisited
- Index
- References
1 - Kinship ‘In the Halls’
Poetry and the Archaeology of Early Greek Housing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 July 2022
By
Book contents
- Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Kinship ‘In the Halls’
- 2 Domesticating the Ancient House
- 3 Mind the Gap
- 4 A Family Affair
- 5 Textiles in Alkestis’ thalamos
- 6 Architectural Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of Architecture
- 7 The Reconstruction of an Agricultural Landscape
- 8 Mudbricks and Papyri from the Desert Sand
- 9 Housing and Community
- 10 The Elusive vestibulum
- 11 Living in the Liminal
- 12 Experiencing Sense, Place and Space in the Roman Villa
- 13 Houses and Time
- 14 Spaces of Desire
- 15 A Response: ‘Using the Material and Written Sources’ Revisited
- Index
- References
Summary
Scholarship on Early Greek housing has moved from creating fictional reconstructions based on Homeric poetry, through typological sorting of archaeological houses by shape and rooms, to analysing access patterns and functionalization. These more recent approaches have largely estranged epic poetry from archaeology. However, since they seek to understand domestic structures as experienced by living people, there is a way to build poetry back in by using it to explore the ways their inhabitants thought about domestic spaces. The phrase ‘in the halls’ is used abundantly in the Homeric and Hesiodic corpus as a metonymy for familial life and prosperity. The phrase should be read not as a reality to be sought in the archaeological record but abstractly as an indicator of the importance of physical space in a household’s formation and success. The link between prosperity, family and house can also be seen in the renovations and increasing complexities in some early Greek domestic architecture. Success and wealth modify and are expressed in the house. ‘In the halls’ thus refers to an important cultural idea, also seen in archaeology, linking house, home and family with prosperity.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean WorldMaterial and Textual Approaches, pp. 27 - 67Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Acosta-Hughes, B. (2014). Introduction to Jason and the Argonauts, trans. Poochigian, Aaron. New York: Penguin, vii–xix.Google Scholar
Allison, P. M. (1999). Labels for ladles: interpreting the material culture of Roman households. In Allison, P. M., ed., The Archaeology of Household Activities. London and New York: Routledge, 57–77.Google Scholar
Ault, B. (2007). Oikos and oikonomia: Greek houses, households and the domestic economy. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 259–65.Google Scholar
Autenrieth, G. (1880). Homeric Dictionary, trans. Keep, Robert. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Cambitoglou, A., Birchall, A., Coulton, J. J. and Green, J. R. (1988). Zagora 2. Athens: Athens Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Cambitoglou, A., Coulton, J. J., Birmingham, J. and Green, J. R. (1971). Zagora 1. Sydney: Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, David A., ed. (1991). Greek Lyric III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Carpenter, R. 1946 (1962). Folk Tale, Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics. Berkeley: University of California.Google Scholar
Christophilopoulou, A. (2007). Domestic space in the geometric Cyclades: a study of spatial arrangements, function and household activities in Zagora on Andros and Kastro on Siphnos. Proceedings of the Danish Institute at Athens 5, 23–33.Google Scholar
Crielaard, J. P. (1995). Homer, history and archaeology: some remarks on the date of the Homeric world. In Crielaard, J. P., ed., Homeric Questions: Essays in Philology, Ancient History, and Archaeology. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 201–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, R. J. (1963) [1924]. A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
De Angelis, F. (2002). Trade and agriculture at Megara Hyblaia. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21, 299–310.Google Scholar
De Angelis, F. (2003). Megara Hyblaia and Selinous: The Development of Two Greek City-States in Archaic Sicily. Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Dörpfeld, W. (1885). The buildings of Tiryns. In Schliemann, H., ed., Tiryns: The Prehistoric Palace of the Kings of Tiryns. London: J. Murray, 177–308.Google Scholar
Drerup, H. (1969). Griechische Baukunst in geometrischer Zeit. Archaeologia Homerica 2, 1–136.Google Scholar
Evans, A. (1912). The Minoan and Mycenaean element in Hellenic life. Journal of Hellenic Studies 32, 277–97.Google Scholar
Fagerström, K. (1988). Greek Iron Age Architecture: Developments through Changing Times. Stockholm: Paul Åströms Förlag.Google Scholar
Finley, M. I. (1957). ‘Homer and Mycenae: property and tenure.’ Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 6(2), 133–59.Google Scholar
Foxhall, L. (2007). House clearance: unpacking the ‘kitchen’ in Classical Greece. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 233–42.Google Scholar
Gill, D. and Flecks, P. (2007). Defining domestic space at Euesperides, Cyrenaica: archaic structures on the Sidi Abeid. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 205–11Google Scholar
Gladstone, W. E. (1878). Preface. In Schliemann, H., Mycenae; A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycenae and Tiryns. London: John Murray, vi–xxvi.Google Scholar
Green, J. R. (1990). Zagora population increase and society in the later eighth century BC. In J.–P. Descoeudres, ed., Eumousia: Ceramic and Iconographic Studies in Honour of Alexander Cambitoglou. MeditArch Suppl. no. 1, 41–46.Google Scholar
Hall, J. (2014). Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Helbig, W. (1887). Das homerische Epos aus den Denkmälern erläutert, archäologische Untersuchungen, 2nd ed. Leipzig: Teubner.Google Scholar
Hemelrijk, J. M. (1972). Review of Griechische Baukunst in geometrischer Zeit, by H. Drerup. Mnemosyne 25, 110.Google Scholar
Hoepfner, W. (1999). ‘Die Epoche dei Griechen.’ In Hoepfner, W., ed., 5000 v. chr.–500 n. chr. Vorgeschichte – Frühgeschichte – Antike. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 129–607.Google Scholar
Jameson, M. (1990a). Domestic space in the Greek city-state. In Kent, S., ed., Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: An Interdisciplinary Cross Cultural Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 92–113.Google Scholar
Jameson, M. (1990b). Private space and the Greek city. In Murray, O. and Price, S. R. F., eds., The Greek City: From Homer to Alexander. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 171–95.Google Scholar
Jebb, R. C. (1886). The Homeric house, in relation to the remains at Tiryns. Journal of Hellenic Studies 7, 170–88.Google Scholar
Kontoleon, N. (1953). Ἀνασκαφὴ εν Τήνῳ. Praktika Tes En Athenais Archaiologikes Etaireias 1953, 258–67.Google Scholar
Kourou, N. (2002). Tenos – Xobourgo: from a refuge place to an extensive fortified settlement. In Stamatopoulou, M. and Yeroulanou, M., eds., Excavating Classical Culture: Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Greece. Oxford: Archaeopress, 255–68.Google Scholar
Lang, F. (1996). Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland: Struktur und Entwicklung. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Lang, F. (2005). Structural change in Archaic Greek housing. In Ault, B. A. and Nevett, L., eds., Ancient Greek Houses and Households. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 12–35.Google Scholar
Lang, F. (2007). House – community – settlement: the new concept of living in Archaic Greece. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 183–93.Google Scholar
Leach, E. W. (1997). Oecus on Ibycus: investigating the vocabulary of the Roman house. In Bon, S. E. and Jones, R., eds., Sequence and Space in Pompeii. Oxford: Oxbow, 50–72.Google Scholar
Mazarakis-Ainian, A. (2001). From huts to houses in Early Iron Age Greece. In Brandt, R. and Karlsson, L., eds., From Huts to Houses: Transformation of Ancient Societies. Jonsered: Paul Åströms Förlag, 139–61.Google Scholar
Mazarakis-Ainian, A. (2006). The archaeology of Basileus. In Deger-Jalkotzy, S. and Lemos, I. S., eds., Ancient Greece: From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 181–211.Google Scholar
Mazarakis-Ainian, A. (2007). Architecture and social structure in Early Iron Age Greece. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 157–68.Google Scholar
McDonald, W. A. and Thomas, C. G. (1990). Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Homeric Greece. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Middleton, J. H. (1886). A suggested restoration of the Great Hall in the Palace of Tiryns. Journal of Hellenic Studies 7, 161–69.Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1997). Homer and the Iron Age. In Morris, I. and Powell, B., eds., A New Companion to Homer. Leiden: Brill, 535–59.Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1998). Archaeology and Archaic Greek history. In Fisher, N. R. E., van Wees, H. and Dickmann Boedeker, D., eds., Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence. London: Duckworth, 1–92.Google Scholar
Morris, I. (2000). Archaeology As Cultural History: Words and Things in Iron Age Greece. Oxford: Blackwell. Most, G. W., ed. (2007). Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, and Other Fragments. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Muhly, J. D. (2012). History of research. In Cline, E. H., ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3000–1000 BC). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–10.Google Scholar
Myres, J. L. (1900). On the plan of the Homeric House, with special reference to Mykenaian analogies. Journal of Hellenic Studies 20, 128–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevett, L. (1999). House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nevett, L. (2003). Domestic space as a means of exploring social change: household organisation and the formation of the classical Greek polis. In Droste, M. and Hoffmann, A., eds., Wohnformen und Lebenswelten im interkulturellen Vergleich. Frankfurt am ain: Peter Lang, 11–20.Google Scholar
Nevett, L. (2007). Greek houses as a source of evidence for social relations. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 5–10.Google Scholar
Nevett, L. (2010). Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Noack, F. (1903). Homerische Paläste; eine Studie zu den Denkmälern und zum Epos. Leipzig: Teubner.Google Scholar
Page, D. L. (1959). History and the Homeric Iliad. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1948). The Homeric and the Indo-European house. Transactions of the Philological Society 47, 92–120.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1965). Mycenaeans and Minoans: Aegean Prehistory in the Light of the Linear B Tablets, 2nd ed. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Parisinou, E. (2007). Lighting dark rooms: some thoughts about the use of space in early Greek domestic architecture. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 213–23.Google Scholar
Platon, N. (1955). Ἀνασκαφὴ Ονυθὲ γουλεδιανῶν ρεθύμνης. Praktika Tes En Athenais Archaiologikes Etaireias 1955, 298–305.Google Scholar
Raaflaub, K. (1997). Homeric society. In Morris, I. and Powell, B., eds., A New Companion to Homer. Leiden: Brill, 624–48.Google Scholar
Raaflaub, K. (1998). A historian’s headache: how to read ‘Homeric Society’? In Fisher, N. R. E., van Wees, H. and Boedeker, D. Dickmann, eds., Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence. London: Duckworth, 169–94.Google Scholar
Raaflaub, K. (2011). Riding on Homer’s chariot: the search for a historical ‘epic society’. Antichthon 45, 1–34.Google Scholar
Redfield, J. M. (1975). Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rose, P. W. (2009). Class. In Raaflaub, K. A. and van Wees, H. eds., A Companion to Archaic Greece. Oxford: Blackwell, 468–82.Google Scholar
Rougier-Blanc, S. (2002). Maisons modestes et maisons de héros chez Homère. Matériaux et techniques. Pallas 58, 101–15.Google Scholar
Rougier-Blanc, S. (2005). Les maisons homériques: Vocabulaire architectural et sémantique du bâti. Etudes d’archéologie classique 13. Paris: Association pour la diffusion de la recherche sur l’Antiquité.Google Scholar
Rougier-Blanc, S. (2009). Remarques sur le vocabulaire architectural chez Hésiode. Pallas 81, 43–62.Google Scholar
Schliemann, H. (1885). Tiryns: The Prehistoric Palace of the Kings of Tiryns. London: J. Murray.Google Scholar
Schuchhardt, C. (1891). Schliemann’s Excavations: An Archaeological and Historical Study.,trans. Sellers, E.. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A. M. (1974). An historical Homeric society? Journal of Hellenic Studies 94, 114–25.Google Scholar
Thomas, C. G. (1966). The roots of Homeric kingship. Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 15(4), 387–407.Google Scholar
Thomas, C. G. (1977 [1970]). Homer’s History: Mycenaean or Dark Age? Huntington, IN: Robert E. Krieger.Google Scholar
Tsakirgis, B. (2007). Fire and smoke: hearths, braziers and chimneys in the Greek house. In Westgate, R., Fisher, N. and Whitley, J., eds., Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cardiff University 17–21 April 2001. London: British School at Athens, 225–31.Google Scholar
Ulf, C. (2009). The world of Homer and Hesiod. In Raaflaub, Kurt A. and Van Wees, Hans, eds., A Companion to Archaic Greece. Oxford: Blackwell, 81–99.Google Scholar
Vallet, G., Villard, F. and Auberson, P. (1976). Mégara Hyblaea I. Rome: École française de Rome.Google Scholar
Van Wees, H. (1992). Status Warriors: War, Violence and Society in Homer and History. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben.Google Scholar
Wace, A. J. B. (1951). Notes on the Homeric House. Journal of Hellenic Studies 71, 203–11.Google Scholar
Wace, A. J. B. (1962). Houses and palaces. In Wace, A. J. B. and Stubbings, F. H., eds., A Companion to Homer. London: Macmillan, 489–97.Google Scholar