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Domestic architecture in Early Helladic II: some observations on the form of non-monumental houses1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Steven Harrison
Steven Harrison
Affiliation:
Amsterdam
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Abstract

A re-examination of the EH II architecture at Zygouries and other sites suggests that the traditional model of rectangular houses with two or three rooms may be inappropriate in many instances, and that in fact domestic architecture of the period, while showing greater diversity of form than has hitherto been supposed, may instead have been based on larger and more complex structures.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 90 , November 1995 , pp. 23 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1995

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References

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3 Zygouries, 6 (my emphases).

4 e.g. Overbeck, J. C., A Study of Early Helladic Architecture (University Microfilms, 1963), 145.Google Scholar

5 Organisation, 254–5.

6 e.g. Overbeck (n. 4), 146; Themelis (n. 2), 337–8; Hiller, S., ‘Early and Late Helladic Megara: questions of architectural continuity in bronze age Greece’, in Architecture, 85–9.Google Scholar

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8 Pullen notes the existence of such clusters at Tiryns, Lithares, and perhaps Zygouries, and implies that they were non-domestic in function; see Organisation, 257–8.

9 zygouries, 4–5 (my emphasis).

10 Naroll, R., ‘Floor area and settlement population’, American Antiquity, 27 (1962), 587–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but see also Leblanc, S., ‘An addition to Naroll's suggested floor area and settlement population relationship’, American Antiquity, 36 (1971), 210–11)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cook, S. F. and Heizer, R. F., ‘Relationships among houses, settlement areas and populations in aboriginal California’, in Chang, K. C. (ed.), Settlement Patterns in Archaeology (Addison–Wesley Modular Publications in Anthropology 24; 1968), 79–116.Google Scholar

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13 Organisation, 260.

14 Harrison, S. G., Settlement Patterns in Early Bronze Age Greece: An Approach to the Study of a Prehistoric Society (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Nottingham, 1992), appendix 1.Google Scholar

15 Zygouries, 6.

16 Pullen, D., ‘A House of Tiles at Zygouries? The function of monumental EH architecture’, in Architecture, 79–84.Google Scholar

17 Ibid.

18 Zygouries, 19.

19 Overbeck (n. 4), 69; Organisation, 203.

20 Zygouries, 21.

21 It has been suggested, for example, that house Y was a monumental building similar to the ‘House of Tiles’ at Lerna: Organisation, 200; Felten, F., ‘Early urban history and architecture of ancient Aigina’, in Architecture, 21–8.Google Scholar

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24 Pullen (n. 23), 539.

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31 Ibid. 12.

32 Ibid. 13–15.

33 Sampson, A., Manika, i (Athens, 1985), 322–7Google Scholar; id., Manika, ii (Athens, 1988).

34 Sampson 1985 (n. 33), 379.

35 Ibid; Sampson, A., ‘Architecture and urbanization in Manika, Chalkis’, in Architecture, 48.Google Scholar

36 Sampson 1985 (n. 33), 379–80.

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38 Kilian (n. 7), 69–70.

39 Pullen, D., ‘The early bronze age settlement at Tsoungiza hill, ancient Nemea’, in Architecture, 74.Google Scholar

40 Ibid. 75–6.

41 Organisation, 259–63.

42 The data are set out in full in Harrison (n. 14), appendix 1.

43 Incidentally, the EH III pattern is not too dissimilar: both apsidal and rectilinear buildings could easily cover 60–70 sq m, as is shown by houses A1, B1, C1, and D1 at Lerna and house H at Eutresis. The Lerna evidence would suggest that these larger structures were sometimes associated with smaller buildings in the range 20–30 sq m.

44 Tzavella-Evjen (n. 30), 12.

45 Goldman (n. 28), 9.