QUIZ 3 - Early Aegean and Ancient Greek I

ashlar

hewn stone masonry with even faces and square edges laid in horizontal courses with vertical joints—as opposed to rubble or unhewn stone straight from the quarry.

corbel

parallel masonry layers, each projecting beyond the one below.

corbel arch

a “false” arch constructed by progressively cantilevering or corbelling from the two sides with horizontal joints.

cushion capital

in pre-Classical Greek architecture, a simple rounded capital carved from a block of stone, resembling a round cushion or pillow.

cyclopean stones

in pre-Classical Greek architecture, masonry constructed of very large irregular blocks of stone. the later Greeks believed suck masonry was the work of a race of giants, the Cyclopes.

dromos

a long, high-walled, sloping entrance passage to a Mycenean tholos tomb.

jamb

the vertical face of an archway, doorway, or window.

labyrinth

a building with, or arrangement of, winding and confusing passageways.

megaron

the principal hall of an Anatolian, Cretan, or Mycenean palace or house. it is rectangular in plan, with a circular central hearth and a front porch formed by the prolongation of the side walls.

postern

a small gateway, sometimes concealed, at the back of a castle, town or monastery.

propylaeum (propylon)

an entrance-gateway to an enclosure (usually to a temple or palace precinct).

relieving arch

an arch, usually of rough construction, placed in a wall above an arch or any opening, to relieve it of much of the superincumbent weight.

tholos (pl.tholoi)

a round tomb. in mycenean architecture, a round, coorbel-vaulted tomb; also reffered to as a “beehive” tomb.

Palace Complex (“Palace of King Minos”), Knossos, Crete, ca. 1700-1380 BC

• plan

• magazines

• courtyard

• throne room

• Queen’s megaron

• grand staircase

Citadel at Tiryns, Peloponnesus, Mycenae, ca. 1300 BC

• plan

• Cyclopean walls

• postern gates

• megaron

Megaron, Palace at Pylos, 13th century BC

Citadel and Palace of Mycenae, Greece, ca. 1600-1250 BC

• Lion Gate, ca. 1300 BC

• Grave Circle A

• Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae, Greece, ca. 1330 BC

Mary Bonner, Untitled [Bull Rider], etching, 1924; from the series Les Cowboys, exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, Paris, 1925

acropolis

Greek, “high city.” the upper citadel of a Greek city, usually the site where important temples were excavated.

caryatid

a sculptured female figure used as a column, on the Erechtheion at the Acropolis of Athens.

cella (or naos)

the sanctuary of a Greek temple, which houses the cult statue.

order

in classical architecture, a column with base (usually), shaft, capital, and entablature, decorated and proportioned according to one of the accepted modes (e.g., Greek Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian).

polis

Greek, city.

pteron

(from Greek, ptero-, row of columns) an exterior colonnade.

Doric Column Parts

Greek shrine, votive clay model, from Argos (Greece), eighth century BC

Plates of primitive buildings, from Sir William Chambers, A Treatise on Civil Architecture (London, 1759)

The Doric Order, illustration from Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Entretiens sur l’architecture (Paris, 1872)

The Greek Orders: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian

crepidoma

in Greek architecture, the stepped platform upon which the superstructure of a building is erected. the uppermost level of the ____ is the stylobate. the lower levels are called the stereobate.