(at settlements such as Százhalombatta Földvár in Hungary)
and elsewhere throughout the region.
Wonderful preservation of building materials is found
in hundreds of so-called lake-dwelling settlements occu-
pied from 4000 to 500 b.c.e. (the Neolithic, Bronze, and
Iron Ages) scattered on both sides of the Alps from France
to Greece (most famously in Switzerland). Because the sites
are waterlogged, wood and other perishable materials are well
preserved and show a range of uses. Wooden posts were driv-
en into the ground to support the house. Covered with sap-
lings and branches, this became a foundation for a wooden
fl oor; the structure’s framework was also of wood. Th e walls
were made of wattle and the roof was probably of reeds or
straw. Similar materials were used in Ireland during the late
Bronze Age and Iron Age to construct artifi cial islands called
crannogs. Tree trunks were driven into the mud of a lakebed
to create a stable base, which was then covered with stones
and peat. Dwellings and other structures were then built on
this platform.
Besides being used for plaster, the earth itself could be
part of structures. Large ditches were sometimes dug around
settlements throughout Europe during the Bronze and Iron
ages, usually interpreted as defensive and defi ning the terri-
tory of the settlement, and perhaps also serving to confi ne
domestic animals. Th e earth dug out of the ditch was usually
piled up next to the ditch in a bank or berm or rampart. Th is
made the ditch seem even deeper.
It was mainly during the Iron Age that sod or turf was
used to build structures by cutting it into slabs like bricks
and stacking them up to form walls. Turf slabs could also be
used to make roofs if they were laid over a strong wooden
framework; this was done because they became heavy aft er
soaking up water when it rained. Th is building material was
used extensively in Scandinavia during the Iron Age, but it is
also known from the United Kingdom. Elsewhere in Europe
during the Iron Age wood, wattle, and daub continued to be
the main building materials.
GREECE
BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL
Archaeological excavations in Crete, beginning with those of
Sir Arthur Evans in the late 19th century, have revealed the
earliest buildings in the Greek world. Th e lowest excavated
levels at the Cretan palace of Knossos, dating to around 7000
b.c.e., suggest structures with stone foundations and walls of
mud bricks that had been sun-dried but not baked in an oven
or furnace. On top of these ruins the monumental palaces of
the Bronze Age (second millennium b.c.e.) were built. Th ese
structures combine fi nely worked walls, built of limestone
and gypsum blocks shaped by masons who would “sign”
blocks using unique marks, with rubble walls built of un-
evenly shaped stones, which were oft en the left over remains
of earlier structures that had been destroyed in this earth-
quake-prone area.
Th ese walls were frequently plastered over and covered
with frescoes. Th e walls defi ned rooms—oft en kept small so
as to survive earthquakes—and served as retaining struc-
tures, creating terraces that allowed the palaces to sprawl
over large, hilly areas. Wooden columns supplemented the
stone walls in supporting ceilings that covered rooms and
open-air colonnades. Th ere is evidence of wooden beams
inserted horizontally in the fabric of stone walls; these may
have served as shock absorbers to protect the otherwise brit-
tle walls during earthquakes.
During the latter third of the second millennium b.c.e.,
the Mycenaean Greeks of the Peloponnesus favored large,
strongly fortifi ed settlements. Th ese are notable for their
megalithic constructions—immense blocks of stone, rough-
ly shaped and stacked without mortar or with only a thin
layer of clay. Some of the blocks in the walls of the palace
at Mycenae measure 26.25 feet in every dimension. Th e an-
cient Greeks of centuries later believed that the mythical gi-
ants called Cyclopes must have built them, and this style of
construction is still called Cyclopean. Th ese immense stones
lie in regular courses, forming so-called ashlar walls. Inside
their corridors, the upper levels of stone project inward, each
slightly farther, until the two walls meet and lean into each
other; this technique, also used to create large domed cham-
bers, is called corbel vaulting.
Th e period aft er the collapse of the Bronze Age civiliza-
tions until the reemergence of literacy in the eighth or seventh
centuries b.c.e. is known as the Greek dark ages. Construc-
tion from this period is much more modest, with sites such as
Lefk andi in Euboea (the long island along the eastern coast
of Greece) and Smyrna (modern İzmir, Turkey) yielding the
remains of simple mud-brick structures. Th ese show evidence
of thatched roofs supported by wooden poles. Even the Tem-
ple of Apollo Daphnephoros (“Laurel-bringing Apollo”) in
Eretria was, during the mid-eighth century, a small building
(26.25 feet by 19.6 feet) of wood and brush.
By the Archaic Period (seventh to sixth centuries b.c.e.)
and the Classical Period (fi ft h to fourth centuries b.c.e.),
deforestation had made wood scarce in Greece, so much
so that wooden structures were remarkable. A character
in Plato’s Critias says of Greece in the early fourth century,
“Th ere are some mountains that now have nothing but food
for bees, but they had trees not very long time ago, and the
raft ers from those felled there to roof the largest buildings
are still sound.”
Th e monumental architecture of the Classical Period,
therefore, was constructed mainly of limestone, trachite (a
kind of sandstone), and marble. For economic reasons, build-
ings in any area would tend to use local stone. Th e ancient
travel writer Pausanias notes this when he describes the
temples and public buildings of Athens as being built mainly
from Pentelic marble that had been brought from Mount Pen-
telicon just to the east of Athens. Stone blocks were fi tted and
joined with wooden or metal clamps, and important build-
ings had roofs of terra-cotta tiles.158 building techniques and materials: Greece