The Southern Fountain House In The Athenian Agora Summary

Jessica Paga's article, “The Southeast Fountain House in the Athenian Agora,” is an attempt to reconsider the accepted chronology of the Athenian Agora, specifically through examining the established estimated dates of the building of the Fountain House, and by comparing those dates to revised ones that she has extruded from her research and examinations of the site and its artifacts. More specifically, the Fountain House is commonly dated at approximately 525 BCE, whereas Paga believes that she has found significant evidence to suggest that more accurate dating would place its construction between 480 and 450 BCE. To this end, she provides circumstantial evidence across four main spectra; architectural evidence, evidence from ceramics and

pottery, a study of the pipes and potentially restricted access to the pipes, and evidence drawn from historical context.

Perhaps the most abundant form of evidence Paga uses to attempt to prove her time frame is comparing architecture and architectural stylings of structures that she believes to be contemporary to the Fountain House, due to similar techniques or designs. For instance, she alludes to the Archaic Temple of Dionysos and its dating, controversial but proposed to be around 500 BCE. The 'temple' exhibits similar structures and techniques to the fountain house, such as “the hard gray-blue limestone and the careful polygonal masonry,” (Paga, 363), thus Paga concludes that they are likely to be from approximately the same time frame. However, the date for the construction of the Archaic Temple of Dionysos itself is rather contested, so there is questionable reasoning in using that structure as a chronological benchmark to date the Fountain House. This is the case with regards to the other buildings that Paga dates the Fountain House to as well, as the dates of both The Archaic Telesterion at Eleusis and The Old Bouleuterion “have been questioned,” (Paga, 363). Furthermore, the only comparative structures she mentions that do have an accepted—or less than contested—date of construction are the “Dörpfeld foundations on the Acropolis,” (Paga, 363). However, this relatively conclusive date is around 570-560 BCE, well outside of the 480-450 BCE time frame that Paga proposes for the Fountain House, and closer to the more commonly accepted Fountain House dating of about 525 BCE. Yet, despite these deficiencies, there is some, more compelling, architectural evidence to lend Paga's time frame some credence. This is found specifically in the utilization of Z-clamps. Z-clamps are present at the Fountain House and, with the presently accepted date of the edifice, the Fountain House serves as the earliest known example of the use of Z-clamps. This in itself is not unreasonable—some example must serve as the first—but it in no way explains the approximately twenty five year gap between its use in the Fountain House and the Z-clamps' next occurrence. However, with Paga's approximates for dating the Fountain House, the building is constructed after techniques using Z-clamps are already established, thus eliminating the quandary of a potentially over two decade gap between their first use and their emergence as a more commonplace construction element. Yet, perhaps the most specific evidence that Paga references is a result of studying the ceramics and pottery found on the site of the Fountain House and related sites.

Paga describes in detail the pieces of ceramics found at the outlet pipe channels at the Fountain House.

Relying on the assumption that the channels could not have been accessed at a date later than the construction of the Fountain House, and that debris could not have made its way into the channels or surrounding areas after construction, Paga seems to be able to provide rather compelling evidence to support her dating of the Fountain House at circa 480-450 BCE. Most convincingly, she notes a saltcellar and a black-gloss Vicup or kylix base (Figure 15, Pg. 372 and Figure 12, Pg. 370 respectively). Saltcellars “are generally associated with the first quarter of the 5th century and rarely appear before 500,” (Paga, 374) and Vicups are “a particular type of cup that was manufactured for a brief time, perhaps for only a single generation, and almost all of its examples date to the second quarter of the 5th century,” (Paga, 374). However, Paga never distinguishes why the black-gloss base is “more likely,” (Paga, 374) from a Vicup than a less esoteric kylix, leaving reason to doubt the evidence she extrapolates from the shard originating as a part of a Vicup. Furthermore, and more significantly, the assumption Paga makes with regards to debris access to the areas the ceramics were found seems unfounded. While she is more than comfortable with the assumption, she does not identify why “such a hypothesis—that the later sherds [sic] represent an intrusion...seems highly unlikely,” (Paga, 376), she only identifies that—to her—it does. In contrast to this, Paga's supporting of her ideas with evidence from the pipelines themselves is more potentially more

objective.

With regards to pipe repair skewing the dating of both the ceramics found and pipes themselves, she notes how “there is no positive evidence...for such a repair in the architecture of the building or in the pipelines,” (Paga, 375-376), which can reasonably be assumed to mean that there are no objective indicators of repair, as “the pipes in the overflow channel are identical to those in the outlets, and none of them show evidence of damage, repairs, or cleaning,” (Paga, 376). Furthermore, this evaluation is not unique to Paga, it is shared with the earlier excavators as well. This is further supported by the consistency of the type and dimensions of the pipes used in the original building period—being smaller than their future replacements and using a neck and collar style fitting with a groove and flange system (Figure 19, Pg. 375). This would lend credence to her time-frame for the Fountain House, due to the piping essentially serving as an indicator that supports the idea that the debris found must have been from original construction, because it indicates that no further construction, or other disturbance of the area, was necessary or occurred. However, the most interesting 'evidence' that Paga calls upon to support her time-frame is not physical evidence in of itself. It, rather, is focused on examining the historical context—namely political shifts and impending or past wars—around the construction of the Fountain House.

The first of those two historical context based factors—political shifts—is represented by a change from dictatorial to democratic rule. The physical evidence that supports this is extremely circumstantial, and includes the notion that fragments of certain dishes found in public areas (namely the controversially determined Vicup) directly indicate public and communal eating, which directly indicates that the rule of tyrants was not prevalent at the building of the Fountain House. While there are too many assumed direct implications in that thought process, there is further evidence to support it when considering the possession of land and wells. Along with the closings of several private wells, there seems to have been a land seizure, opening up the land to development as a public space, which would indicate a governmental directive aimed towards meeting the needs of the masses, a need not often associated with being met by tyrannical leadership. Furthermore, this theory is backed by the location of the Fountain House with respect to modes of travel, as it is located near the junction of main roads, indicating that it was an accessible site for public use. However, it is important to note that Paga does not assert that the public seizures and closings of the private wells is a direct result of the building of the Fountain House. Rather, she claims, that “the closure of the private wells in the second and third quarters of the 6th century is not disputed, but their function was not replaced by a public water source for nearly 50 years,” (Paga, 376), thus the Fountain House was built after the wells were closed, to fulfill the needs of the community, again coinciding with a political shift more centered on the needs and desires of the people. These needs potentially could have been made more dire due to risk of foreign assault, namely Persian invasion. One of Paga's assertions on this matter is that the Fountain House was most likely built pre-Persian destruction (specifically the Persian invasion of 480), as there would have been an emphasis on civic construction “within the general spate of post-Marathon constructions,” (Paga, 378), but more focus on the development of defense and residencies as a result of the 480 invasion. Thus, perhaps the most compelling set of evidence that Paga provides is mostly conjecture based on information she believes to be true, but lacks concrete evidence to support.

Paga's argument to shift the time frame of The Southeast Fountain House in the Athenian Agora's construction is, therefore, based primarily on speculation with occasional pieces of evidence to enable its consideration without outright rejection. Furthermore, those occasional pieces themselves are reasonably countered. For instance, Paga takes issue with a two decade long gap between the first appearance of the Z-clamp—in the Fountain House—and its appearance as a commonplace building technique. However, it is possible that a maturing Athenian society used the Fountain House as a trial space for the Z-clamp and then, after observing its durability over time and under exposure to the elements (including a potentially high rate of exposure to aquatic trauma), began implicating it for its advantages. Similarly, it is reasonable to suggest that the small pieces of ceramics found along the pipes simply could have been vessels from the era Paga suggests that were broken whilst trying to acquire water from the previously built Fountain House, and thus they made their way into the subterranean portion of it. Paga's article asserts that the time-frame for the construction of the Fountain House should be shifted by upwards of three quarters of a century, but the article lacks an abundance of concrete evidence to support that, with ample speculation to fill in the gaps of evidence.