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A re-evaluation of the roof of the South Stoa at the Argive Heraion1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Abstract
The fifth-century BC South Stoa at the Argive Heraion was first excavated in the 1890s and was published in 1902 by E. Tilton. It was subsequently re-examined by J. J. Coulton, who clarified important aspects of the stoa's design. Ongoing investigations of the architecture of the Argive Heraion have now brought to light new evidence for the building which requires modification of the previous restorations of the roof. A series of slotted wall blocks assigned to the back wall of the building indicate that the stoa had a large shed roof instead of the saddle roof restored by Tilton and Coulton. This article presents the case for a new reconstruction of the roof and explains the appropriateness of the roof design to the specific conditions of the building site.
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References
2 Coulton 1973, 65–85.
3 Argive Heraeum, i. 79.
4 The length given here is my own direct measurement (Tilton in Argive Heraeum, i, pl. 21 gives 44.45 m for the same dimension). The width given here is an estimate based on the doubling of the average distance between the inner face of the preserved top of the back wall and incised lines marking the axis of the interior colonnade.
5 For the date of the stoa, see Amandry 1952, 273; M.-F Billot, ‘Terres cuites architecturales de l'Argolide’, RA 1991, 205; Coulton 1973, 79; Coulton 1976, 40. Amandry and Billot both support a date near the mid-5th c. BC. Coulton, while acknowledging that such an early date may be correct, suggests that the building could date as late as the 420s.
6 The earliest attested stoa to combine an interior Ionic colonnade with a Doric exterior order seems to be the Stoa Poikile in the Athenian Agora, which is dated to the second quarter of the 5th c. BC; Shear, T. L. Jr., ‘The Athenian Agora: excavations of 1980–1982’, Hesp. 53 (1984), 5–19Google Scholar, figs. 6–8; Camp, J. McK., The Athenian Agora: Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens (London, 1986), 66–72, figs. 43, 44Google Scholar. The Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios in the Athenian Agora, which is dated to the 420s BC, also used Ionic interior columns behind the Doric exterior order. Thompson, H. A., ‘Buildings on the west side of the Agora’, Hesp. 6 (1937), 25–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, figs. 12–23. For general remarks on the combination of the Ionic and Doric orders in stoas, see Coulton 1976, 100.
7 Argive Heraeum, i. 127–30, pls. 21, 22.
8 Coulton 1973, 65, 67. Tilton had incorrectly restored the krepidoma as a direct continuation of the wide flight of stairs in front of the building (see FIG. 1), whereas it is clear that there must have been a narrow terrace intervening between the krepidoma and stairway.
9 For the frieze-blocks, see Coulton 1973, 69 and Amandry 1952, 249–50. For the frieze-backers, see Coulton 1973, 71, fig. 5, pl. 27 f; Amandry 1952, 254–5.
10 Coulton 1973, 71. Here he followed Amandry 1952, 247–9. Pace Miller, S. G., ‘The date of the West Building at the Argive Heraion’, AJA 77 (1973), 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, these blocks cannot possibly be associated with the Classical temple of Hera. Among the technical features that link the blocks with the West Building, the most decisive is the anathyrosis on their beddings. Of all the buildings at the Argive Heraion, only the West Building provides evidence for this feature; the surviving blocks of the other buildings all show flat beddings without anathyrosis.
11 Argive Heraion, i. 128; Coulton 1973, 77.
12 All other characteristics of these blocks (such as the material, the tooling, the form of the clamps, and size of the anathyrosis margins on the vertical joint faces) correspond with those of the other blocks of the stoa, but they are not unique to the blocks of the stoa.
13 There is insufficient evidence to indicate why this slot differs from the others.
14 The height of the wall is estimated on the basis of the difference in elevation between the top of the foundations of the Classical temple, located on the terrace, and the restored level of the stylobate of the stoa. The actual height might have been 1 m or more higher or lower, depending on whether the surface of the terrace was horizontal or sloped down from the temple to the terrace wall and whether or not the wall rose above the ground level of the terrace.
15 According to Coulton's study of Greek stoas, shed roofs are far rarer than saddle roofs; examples of stoas with shed roofs cited by him are the Stoa of the Athenians at Delphi, a stoa at Naousa, the East Stoa in the Asklepicion at Athens, and the East Stoa by the theatre at Pergamon; Coulton 1976, 151–3, figs. 7, 38.
16 Presumably the horizontal timbers of the shed roof above the one-aisled south wing of the stoa at Naousa would have served this same purpose; sec Coulton 1976, 152, fig. 38.
17 For a discussion of the use of trusses in Greek architecture, see Hodge, A. T., The Woodwork of Greek Roofs (Cambridge, 1960), 38–44Google Scholar; Coulton 1976, 162–5; Coulton, J. J., Greek Architects at Work (London, 1977), 157–60Google Scholar; Klein, N. L., ‘West Greek influence on mainland Greek roof construction,’ Hesp. 67 (1998), 368–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Coulton 1976, fig. 38.
19 The fabric and technical features of the tiles are consistent with those produced at Corinth. Without specifying its place of origin, Billot (n. 5, p. 205) links the roof revetment of the South Stoa with the same atelier that produced several roofs at Delphi, a sima from the sanctuary of Pythian Apollo at Argos, and three simas at Corinth.
20 A restored drawing of an antefix and a portion of the front of an eaves pantile appears in Argive Heraeum, i, pl. 23 b.
21 Eaves tiles with projecting tenons were used on the 6th-c. Temple of Athena at Assos; Clarke, J. T., Bacon, F. H. and Koldewey, R., Investigations at Assos (London, 1902), 155Google Scholar, fig. 1. They also appear on the bottom of a 6th-c. eaves tile from Perachora, which Humfry Payne associated with the hearth building (‘Temple of Hera Limenia’); Payne, H. et al. , Perachora, i (Oxford, 1940), 113–15Google Scholar, fig. 18, pls. B, 127 e. The rebates cut into the outer edges of the eaves tiles of the 7th-c. temples at Corinth and Isthmia would have served the same function as projecting tenons and may be regarded as their precursor; see Broneer, O., Isthmia, i (Princeton, 1971), 49, fig. 60Google Scholar; Robinson, H. S., ‘Roof tiles of the early seventh century BC’, AM 99 (1984), 63Google Scholar, fig. 2; Roebuck, M. C., ‘Archaic architectural terracottas from Corinth’, Hesp. 59 (1990), 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I thank Nancy Winter for calling my attention to this feature of the Protocorinthian roofs.
22 See Hodge (n. 17), 60.
23 The spacing of the rafters did, on the other hand, relate, at least approximately, to the rhythm of the exterior order so that there were three rafters to each intercolumniation.
24 In addition to the fragment shown here, which is in the National Museum at Athens, there are others in the Argos Museum that I have not seen. One of these fragments is illustrated in Billot (n. 5), 202, fig. 3. Tilton incorrectly associated with the stoa a lateral sima with an Archaic ovolo profile. This clement is likely to belong to the West Building, because of the appropriateness of its date and because of the find-spot designation, ‘West Building,’ written on one fragment of the sima; Argive Heraeum, i. 130, pls. 22 (reproduced here in FIG. 1), 23 g; Van Buren, E. D., Greek Fictile Revetments in the Archaic Period (London, 1926), 7, 87Google Scholar (no. 56), fig. 9; Shoe, L., Profiles of Greek Mouldings (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), 33Google Scholar, pl. 18. 4; Amandry 1952, 248 n. 59; Le Roy, C., Les Terres cuites architecturales (FdD ii; Paris, 1967), 111–12Google Scholar. Without supporting argumentation, Billot, M.-F., in ‘Terres cuites architecturales d'Argos et Epidaure’, Hesp. 59 (1990), 137CrossRefGoogle Scholar, asserts that the Archaic sima belongs to a repair of the roof of the early temple of Hera.
25 One fragment of the raking geison appears in Amandry 1952, 261, fig. 19. I have identified three other fragments of the raking geison and one or two fragments of the horizontal geison. The restored width of the mutule of one of the latter is c. 0.450 m, whereas the corresponding dimension on the geison blocks of the façade is 0.468–0.475 m. From this I would suggest that Coulton's frieze-block b, which has a triglyph 0.448 m wide, be assigned to one of the ends of the stoa and that his block c, which has a triglyph 0.469 m wide, be assigned to the façade. I am inclined to dissociate the lost frieze-block a from the stoa altogether, since its height (as recorded by E. Tilton) was 0.012–0.013 m shorter than the other frieze blocks of the building. For these various frieze blocks, see Coulton 1973, 69–71.
26 See Coulton 1976, 165, who observes: ‘A shed roof cannot be terminated satisfactorily except with hipped ends, however, for half pediments would be most unpleasant.’
27 In the light of the concern for the strength of the terrace wall that is evident from the use of large buttresses to reinforce it from behind, the desire to maintain the thickness and strength of the wall is likely to have been an important factor for determining the design of the back wall and roof of the South Stoa.
28 The contemporaneity of the staircase and stoa is plainly evident from the bonding of the blocks of the stairs and the blocks of the east wall of the stoa.
29 To understand better the relationship of the roof and staircase, see the section drawing prepared by Kolokotsas, K. in Amandry, P., ‘Sur les concours argiens’, in Études argiennes (BCH suppl. 7; Paris, 1980), 239, fig. 17Google Scholar.
30 Even in the case of conventional temples with saddle roofs there are no fixed rules. Because the slope of Greek roofs is more or less consistent, the height of a roof is dependent upon its width; consequently a tetrastyle temple of a particular scale would normally have a proportionally lower roof than a hexastyle temple of the same scale.