Period, which began in roughly 600 b.c.e. During the Archaic
Period and the earlier part of the Classical Period, structures
were built primarily with mud brick, clay, and wood. Th ese
materials are not very durable, so virtually nothing remains
of them, nor are there any surviving written descriptions of
them. Only in the Classical Period did architects and builders
begin to use more durable stone so that many of their build-
ings survive, at least in part.
Archaeologists, though, have excavated sites from earlier
Bronze Age civilizations around the Aegean Sea, including
such sites as the cities of Knossos, Mycenae, and Troy. (Bronze
Age refers to the period in history beginning in about 3000
b.c.e. when bronze, an alloy of tin and copper, was widely
used for tools and other purposes.) Th ese were the very ear-
liest civilizations that can be called Greek, fl ourishing from
about 3000 to 1200 b.c.e. Th e fi rst of these, the Cycladic cul-
ture, rose during the Early Bronze Age (about 3000–2200
b.c.e.). Th e second was that of the Minoans, who fl ourished
from about 2700 to 1450 b.c.e. on the island of Crete. Th e
third, the Mycenaean, rose during the Late Bronze Age, from
about 1600 to 1200 or 1100 b.c.e. and provided the setting for
such literary works as the epics of Homer. Th e Mycenaeans
occupied an area of the Greek mainland south of what would
become Athens. Surviving from each of these civilizations
are remains of structures that give archaeologists clues about
the roots of Greek architecture.
One of the most famous of these sites is Knossos, a city
on the island of Crete. Archaeologists believe this site was the
political capital of the Minoan culture. It was discovered in
1878 by an amateur archaeologist, who began excavating it
then. In 1900 a British archaeologist purchased the entire site,
and with the help of a team of archaeologists he excavated and
began reconstructing the palace of Knossos. Further study
revealed that humans began inhabiting the site in about 7000
b.c.e. Th e population grew until it numbered from 5,000 to
8,000 people in the years 1900–1600 b.c.e. Th e community’s
central building, both for religious and administrative pur-
poses, was the palace. Archaeologists’ best guess is that the
palace was built sometime between 1700 and 1300 b.c.e.
Th e pa lace is a wonder of a ncient a rch itec t u re. It occupies
a site of some six acres and comprises 1,300 rooms. Among
them are storage rooms that contained numerous large vas-
es (called pithoi) used for food storage. Beneath the storage
rooms were holes used to store valuables. Th e fi ve-story-high
palace also had running water and a sewage system. Its porti-
coes (porches) and airshaft s provided ventilation and allowed
the building to catch sea breezes to remain cool during the
hottest weather. Th e plaster walls of the palace were decorat-
ed with numerous frescoes. Th ese frescoes were in a state of
decay and were reconstructed by Piet de Jong, a 20th-century
artist who specialized in fresco reconstruction. Th e Th rone
Room has an alabaster throne that was built into the wall and
fl anked by carvings of mythological animals.
At the end of the Bronze Age, architecture in eff ect “dis-
appeared” from ancient Greece. It reemerged during the
seventh century b.c.e. It was at about this time that Greek
civilization began to fl ourish. Greece became more prosper-
ous, and a more urban culture developed. Th is gave rise to
cities and the buildings that fi lled them.FEATURES OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE
Most ancient Greek buildings were either cube shaped or had
a rectangular footprint. Public buildings, such as temples,
were constructed primarily of limestone, an abundant build-
ing material in ancient Greece. Architects would probably
rather have built using marble, but marble was expensive,
hard to transport, and not readily available; the only marble
available had to be transported from Mount Pentelus and
Attica or from a few of the Greek islands. Marble was used,
though, for decorative and structural components in some of
the most important buildings, including the Parthenon.
Most buildings were fl anked with a colonnade, or a row
of columns. Sometimes the colonnade was just at the front
entrance, but other times it was on all four sides. Many build-
ings, too, had a portico, or a covered porch supported by
columns. In general, Greek buildings did not have arches or
domed roofs, so all the buildings had a squarish appearance;
only later did the Romans add arches and domes to their
buildings. Roofs consisted of wooden beams covered with
tiles, usually made of terra-cotta, or unglazed clay. (Terra-
cotta, meaning “burnt earth,” is the material used to make
modern fl owerpots; the word also refers to their brownish-
orange color.) Some buildings were roofed with marble tiles.
A common feature of Greek buildings was their low-
pitched roofs. (Th e Greeks did not have to worry about snow
building up on roofs, so the roofs did not need a steep pitch,
or angle, for snow to fall off .) At each end of the building
was a pediment, or a triangular area under the angle of the
roofl ine. Pediments were typically fi lled with stone statues.
Many buildings, too, featured an entablature. Th is term refers
to a horizontal row of stone blocks under the roof between the
tops of the columns that supported the building. Th e entabla-
ture provided an “easel” for sculptors, who carved friezes on
them, or sequences of carvings that oft en told a story. Th ese
friezes oft en alternated metopes and triglyphs. A metope was
simply a pictorial panel; a triglyph was a group of three pro-
jecting vertical blocks that separated the metopes.FORMS OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE
A theater could be found in nearly every Greek town of any
size. Th ese theaters were used not only for dramatic perfor-
mances but also for offi cial meetings. Th e origins of Greek
drama lay with religious ceremonies, but by about the sixth
century b.c.e. drama came to be regarded as one of the high-
est forms of art, and the plays of such dramatists as Sophocles
(ca. 496–406 b.c.e.), Aeschylus (525–456 b.c.e.), and Eu-
ripedes (ca. 484–406 b.c.e.) are still performed throughout
the world. Th e theaters were typically built into a hillside with
tiered seating arranged in a semicircle. Behind the stage area
was a low building used for storage and as a place where the74 architecture: Greece