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Characteristics of classical Greek architecture
Characteristics of classical Greek architecture
History of greek architecture
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The citadel of Mycenae is located in the mainland of Greece. It is situated on a rocky hill and the site is 30,000 square meters big. The Mycenaean citadel walls were built with masonry and stone blocks. The blocks were believed by ancient Greeks to be made by one-eyed giants because they were too big to be carried by men. The main entrance to the citadel was the Lion Gate. It was built in 1250 B.C and it was the only entrance and exit out of the citadel. Rock, gold and clay were the 3 main materials being used for the Lion’s Gate. There used to be gold on the lion’s head but unfortunately they’re long gone. The entrance of the gate is an example of post and lintels. A post and lintel is when two vertical stones hold a horizontal
As the name suggests the Bronze Age is a period of human culture, in which civilizations heavily used copper and bronze for various aspects of life and trading. The beginning of the Bronze Age is estimated to date before 3000 BCE in parts of Med. Europe, Middle East and China. Knossos and Mycenae are both archeological sites, and date back to the Bronze Age. Knossos was the capital of the ancient Minoan civilization; located on the island of Crete. Mycenae was a massive fortified palace, located between two hills on the plain of the Peloponnese, Greece.
It was underneath this fortification that numerous statues of Gudea were discovered, which make up the heart of the Babylonian collection at the Louvre Museum#. Overall the statues had been damaged, some decapitated and others broken in various ways, having been put into the foundation of the new fortification. Also in this section came a mixture of fragments of basic artifacts including various objects made from bronze and stone, of high artistic excellence. Some of these objects have been dated to the earliest Sumerian period enabling historians to trace Babylonian art and it’s history to a date some hundreds years prior. Excavations in the other mound resulted in the uncovering of the remains of various buildings.
Archaeology and the Trojan War “. he [Heinrich Schliemann] found layers of ruins. and two bore unmistakable signs of violent destruction. One of these layers, the seventh according to more recent excavators, was no doubt the city of Priam and Hector. The historicity of the Homeric tale has been demonstrated archaeologically.”
The significance of monumental architecture lies not only in the function it is built to serve but also in the cultural values it represents. Monumental architecture is aesthetic as well as functional, and in its aesthetic aspects it is a form of cultural expression. In Bronze Age Mediterranean civilizations, the development of monumental architecture was influenced primarily by the political structure of the state. Perhaps the most disparate forms of monumental architecture in this region were developed in Pharaonic Egypt and Minoan Crete, reflecting the differences in their political systems. The socio-political structure of these two cultures can be sharply contrasted through an examination of a predominant type of monumental architecture found in each region.
The Mycenaeans existed within the years of 2000 b.c. It began with the people settling around the coastal area to provide good agriculture. This coastal area being near the Mediterranean. The Mycenaeans came after the Minoans, and were strongly driven by war, unlike it’s neighbors. The Mycenaeans were ruled over by a “warlord” king, and the civilization was always ready to fight for power. The civilization grew in power by overtaking other city-states etc. In this way it gained it’s wealth which is what was most important in the “Bronze age” of Greece. (Green 5) At one point in time, the Mycenae held rein over Greece and called it the early Helladic period. During this stage, the civilization was relatively calmer and less warlike. At first the society lived peacefully with the original inhabitants and took over the area successfully. In the middle Helladic period agriculture was proven to be tough. Geographically the Greek lived in a hot climate that made only a few things grow, such as olives and grapes. Due to this, people relied heavily on fishing. Other needs were supplied mostly by the Minoans, who bonded after a long period of trading. In the late Helladic period, the culture thrived at it’s highest. The cities gradually grew larger and more people occu...
Greek architecture is a huge demonstration of Arete. Buildings such as the Parthenon in Athens and the incredibly iconic Greek pillars are great Greek, architectural achievements. The Parthenon is a particularly interesting demonstration of Arete. The Greeks built this astonishing temple over another temple, to replace it, after the Persians destroyed the old temple. It cost the Greeks four hundred and sixty nine silver talents to build and after, only a short fifteen years, the astonishing structure was finished. The Parthenon was built mainly out of ivory and gold and
The first permanent stone fortifications was built in Jericho. They constructed the building using roughly shaped stones laid without mortar (Kleiner, 24). Once Jericho’s inhabitants left their site, a different group of people came to settle there. They used different techniques, “…established a farming community of rectangular mud-brick houses on stone foundations with plastered and painted floors and walls” (Kleiner, 25). The megalithic tomb in Ireland was built in the form of a passage grave. “At Newgrandge, the huge megaliths forming the vaulted passage and the dome are held in place by their own weight without mortar, each stone countering the thrust o neighboring stones. Decorating some of the megaliths are incised spirals and other motifs” (Kleiner, 27). The main chamber used early examples of corralled vaulting and in addition the Newgrandge tomb illuminates sunlight through the passage and the burial chamber during the winter solstice. Nearing the end of the fourth millennium BCE, Neolithic civilization had spread in every diffraction even to small remote areas. “…Hagar Quim is one of many constructed on Malta between 3200 and 2500 BCE” (Kleiner, 27).The builders of Malta constructed the temple by pilling cut stone blocks very carefully in stacked horizontal rows. “To construct the doorways at Hagar Qim, the builders employed the post-and-lintel system in which two upright stones
Mycenae’s fortified city and amplitude of swords and daggers could indicate a civilization that was offensive or
Mycenaean sites employed Cyclopean masonry as the means of building their fortification walls. Cyclopean masonry was used at all of the fortified Mycenaean sites and it is built by using large flat-surfaced blocks with smaller stones fitted in the cracks (Dickinson, 1994). The walls would have two faces and the space would then be filled with rubble. It is believed the fortification walls were not truly meant to fortify a citadel, but were a means of displaying the city’s wealth (Loader, 1995). According to Loader (1995) Cyclopean masonry was a distinct style of Greece. The use of corbelled vaults was also common. The Mycenaeans did not know the principle of the true arch so they stacked blocks on top of one another and pushed the ends of both sides in to create a sort of vault before creating a smooth interior surface. This method requires heavy weight on the backs of the blocks used to make the vault to avoid a collapse.
The Ishtar Gate to the city of Babylon stood as a testament to the aim of King Nebuchadnezzar II to rebuild the ancient city of Babylon as the most grandiose and magnificent of the ancient world’s cities. Citizens of the neo-babylonian empire were the first to bear witness to its grandeur and were likely the best equipped to appreciate the aesthetics contributing to its religious meaning. Given that it was a main entrance to the central capital of Babylon, the gate could have been seen by citizens of different social classes and levels of education, and in turn may have conveyed different meanings to different classes of citizens. In the eyes of a merchant or artisan, the brilliant blue faience bricks adorned with religiously symbolic animals
The most interesting part of the exterior was the entrance. The two glass doors at the entrance were surrounded by glass windows in a concave shape toward the building. This concave area is held up in the middle by a post made of brick.
The Trojan War happened a long time ago between two groups of people. The location of the war was in present day Hissarlik, in northwest Turkey. Many tourists go there every year, but are disappointed because there isn’t much scenery. There are forts with big walls, but the hilltop is very dusty. Many scientists and even other people dig in that area and find many things trying to rediscover the war.
Tzonis, Alexander, and Phoebi Giannisi. Classical Greek Architecture: The Construction of the Modern. Paris: Flammarion, 2004.
The Mycenaeans were barbaric war people from Mycenae, which is in Greece. The Mycenaeans were jealous of the surrounding civilizations. For example, we know that the Mycenaeans traded with the island of Crete and also wrote in Linear B with is the first form of Greek writing on clay tablets. According to The Iliad, which is an epic poem that depicts the story of Greece trying to conquer Troy.
In Ancient Greece, religion dominated their life, so it is understandable that their architecture would be dominated by their religion. Before Greece became many different city-states, they had kings, and they would build a room called a megaron to show they King’s authority. A typical megaron is a single chamber with a fire pit in the middle with a throne off to the side. This room opened up into a porch (portico) that had four columns in the front. After there were no more kings these megarons turned into temples. The fire pit, which turned into some type of altar or a place to show a sacrifice for that god, was now outside in front of the temple. The altar was now outside so people could see you make these sacrifices to their gods. The first Greek temples were made out of wood and were long rectangular buildings with a porch all the way around which was supported by columns made from tree trunks. A Greek temple consists of five basic parts: the pediment, entablature, columns, base, and the cella, or the inner sanctum. The pediment is triangular and would have a type of sculpture or ornament known as acreteria on each corner. An entablature consists of three parts: the cornice, frieze, and architrave, which holds up the pediment. The columns are the support between the entablature and the base. The base usually consists of three steps. The cella is the inner sanctum, which has different rooms with more columns for support. Each temple would have a cella but they were not identical.