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A Tympanum Fragment at Perachora1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2013
Extract
In a useful study, M. C. Llinas has made some important contributions to our knowledge of the stoa at Perachora, and has devoted further attention to the problems of that interesting but sometimes enigmatic building. In the last section of his paper, however, he attributes to one of the stoa pediments a fragmentary tympanum block, and on the strength of the cutting in it he has proposed a roof structure quite abnormal in a stoa. It is his restoration of the roof which provokes these few remarks, for although the Greeks were sometimes lavish in their use of roofing timbers, their structures were not as a rule illogical.
M. Llinas proposes a Gaggera roof with three or four heavy purlins, c. 0·20 × 0·30 m. in section and centred c. 0·67 m. apart on either side of a ridge beam (cf. Fig. 1, a). Support for these beams was presumably provided from a cross-beam at every pier of the upper colonnade (intercolumniation 2·30 m.); for since all the piers were of uniform strength, there would be no advantage in cross-beams spaced further apart. Now purlins 0·30 m. high seem unreasonably large to be supported every 2·30 m.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1967
References
2 BCH lxxxix (1965) 484–97, referred to below as Llinas. Particularly necessary are the joins, overlooked by me, which he has made in the piers of the upper story, and there is illuminating discussion of such features as the re-entrant angle and the upper story piers and barriers. The suggestion of an attached half-column at the end of the east wing is attractive, but as M. Llinas admits, it has objections: (a) the blocks he found are dressed smooth behind (Llinas, 487); (b) the half-column is unfluted, at the bottom at least, while the other columns are fully fluted; i.e. the case of the Pythion at Delos (Vallois, R., L'architecture hellénique et hellénistique à Délos 287, fig. 3Google Scholar) is not parallel; (c) the anta against which the half-column is set is abnormally narrow; contrast the similar half-columns at the Abaton, Epidauros (Roux, G., L'architecture de l'Argolide 346, pl. 92, 3Google Scholar), the Propylon, to Lerna, , Corinth, (Corinth xiv. 173, fig. 22)Google Scholar, the temple of Amphiaraos, , Oropos, (AM xxxiii (1908) 252, pl. ix)Google Scholar, the South Stoa, Olympia (Olympia, Plates: Architecture i, pl. lxi, 2), the Stoa, Lindos (Blinkenberg, C., Kinch, K. F., Dyggve, E., Lindos, Fouilles et recherches, 1902–14, 1952 III. i, pl. vi L)Google Scholar, etc.
3 For the type of roof see A. T. Hodge, The Woodwork of Greek Roofs, fig. 8. M. Llinas does not draw out the type of roof he envisages, but the description below and the beams shown in Fig. 1, A are based on his suggestions (Llinas, 496–7). The rafters are not shown, since they would be higher, at the level of the raking cornice. The presence of a tympanum makes a penthouse roof virtually impossible, since it would entail a half-pediment. Penthouse roofs, which are uncommon on stoas, always appear to have had hipped ends.
4 Hodge, op. cit. 17–18.
5 Hodge, op. cit. 22.
6 BSA lix (1964) 121, fig. 11.
7 A. T. Hodge tells me that the side of the cutting is vertical, not perpendicular to the slope of the roof as in a Gaggera roof (cf. Llinas, 496, n. 2).
8 Cf. the Stoa, Lindos (Blinkenberg, C., Kinch, K. F., Dyggve, E., Lindos, Fouilles et recherches, 1902–14, 1952 III. i, pl. vi CGoogle Scholar).
9 Llinas, 494; shown as 0·092 in fig. 6b.
10 Not 0·52 m. as shown for the longer tympanum in Llinas, fig. 6C.
11 Cf. the temple of Artemis, Corcyra (G. Rodenwaldt, Korkyra, Bildwerke, fig. 4, 75), tympanum height 3·19 m., upper taenia 0·295 m., lower taenia 0·271 m. high; South Stoa, Corinth, tympanum height c. 2·10 m., taenia along bottom, 0·121 m. high (Corinth 1. iv, 41–42); Stoa of Orophernes, Priene, tympanum height 1·60 m., taenia along top, 0·16 m. high (JdI xxxi (1916) 306), etc.
12 BSA lix (1964) 116, fig. 8e. This fragment could not be found in 1964 or 1967, and its attribution to the stoa could be questioned.
13 e.g. at the Great Temple of Apollo and at the Temple of the Athenians at Delos (Exploration archéologique de Délos xii, fig. 43–48, 140–2).
14 Payne, H. G. G., Perachora i, pl. 126.Google Scholar
15 Hodge, A. T., The Woodwork of Greek Roofs 56.Google Scholar
16 I can find no exact parallel, but the Treasury of the Megarians at Olympia has a front façade more detailed than its rear (Olympia, Plates: Architecture i, pls. xxxvi–xxxviii).
17 Llinas, 494.
18 Payne, H. G. G., Perachora i. 84, fig. 15.Google Scholar
19 BSA lix (1964) 106, drums 5 and 6.