Greek Architecture Notes

Modern Greece is a section of the Greek-occupied territory in antiquity.
Greeks founded cities in Spain, France, Sicily, southern Italy, and North Africa, as well as along the west coast of modern Turkey (Asia Minor).
The Greeks turned to the sea as their major highway because their land was mainly rough with mountains.

The Greeks of the Classic period (roughly 479 BCE to 338 BCE) descended from Bronze Age cultures that flourished on Crete and the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea.

The Knossos palace measured more than square, centered about an open court running on a roughly north-south axis, from the sacred mountains to the sea.
The building had a sophisticated plumbing and drainage system.
The palace walls were four and five stories high in places, in a series of setbacks around light courts and stairwells.
The principal chambers had walls brilliantly painted with murals depicting religious activities and festive sports, especially contests involving men vaulting over charging bulls.
The palatial complexes on Crete were remarkable for the complete absence of defensive walls, suggesting that the Minoans had such complete control of the sea that they feared no invasion.
The focus on the secular life of the palace sets Minoan culture apart from that of Egypt, with its focus on the tomb, or that of Mesopotamia, with its focus on the towering ziggurat temple.

Megaron: The heart of the palace, consisted of an entry porch formed by projecting walls framing two columns, a vestibule, and the throne room.

The Mycenaeans developed a form of monumental stone masonry, created by piecing together large polygonal blocks of stone in irregular patterns, with minimal cutting and fitting.
Later Greeks called this type of construction cyclopean because they believed that only the mythical Cyclops could have been strong enough to move such enormous stones.

Acropolis:
- A term composed of the Greek akron (“high”) plus polis (“city”) meaning “high city.”
Megaron:
- (from Greek megas, “great”) The principal reception room of a Mycenaean residence or palace; rectangular in plan, with a central hearth, and entered through a porch with two columns in antis.
Cyclopean:
- (from Greek Cyclops, the one-eyed giant in Homer’s Odyssey) A type of dry masonry characterized by huge irregular stones laid in random patterns.

*Theories for destruction:
* Dorian invasions
* The raids of the Sea People
* Natural Disasters (volcanic eruption)
* Intercity Warfare

A protogeometric terracotta skyphos with painted cross and circles from the necropolis at Dion Macedonia. The name is derived from the style of pottery prevalent at the time, which consisted of heavy and often clumsy vessels, decorated with concentric circles painted in black.

Kore, early 6th century BCE: Unlike the kouros to the right, the female figure is completely clothed, although both have the same rigid stance. The figure's right lower arm was probably slotted into the hole at the elbow with the hand extended outwards. Note the careful depiction of the drapery
Kouros, c. 600 BC: Note the detailed treatment of the hair, the carefully balanced design of the body, and the absence of a sense of movement: although one foot is forward, there is no displacement of the hips.
Keuros, c. 530 BC: Note the realism of the muscles and the new sense of power. According to the inscription on the base, this was the funerary monument to a young man, Kroisos, who had died heroically in battle.