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[German version] Roughly hewn, unfinished external surface of a piece of work in stone ( Sculpture or  Architecture). The final shaping of the external surface constituted the final phase of work in both construction and sculpture; up to that point the boss provided protection from damage ( Construction technique;  Sculpting, technique of). Unremoved bosses on buildings may indicate incompleteness, but at times a ‘boss style’ was also seen as a distinct aesthetic element in construction art and wa…

[German version] General term for an ornament ( Ornaments) shaped like a strip or a ribbon, which is encountered in all the plastic arts from antiquity, above all in relief sculpture or architectural sculpture, painting/vase painting, and toreutics. Scholars distinguish the Doric kymation, consisting of a double band of orthogonal elements not dissimilar to the maeander, the Ionian kymation, with its sequence of egg and darts ( Egg-and-dart moulding), as well as the Lesbian kymation with its heart-shaped leaves, separated by lance-like darts. Especially Ionian and Lesbian kymatia …

[German version] [1] Name to describe the plurality of gods In modern scholarship on religious history, the term 'pantheon' is used in systematizing the plurality of ancient gods (Polytheism). In the following, it will be used accordingly to denote all the many deities worshipped in a particular geographical area and socio-historical context. Richter, Thomas (Frankfurt/Main) [German version] I. Mesopotamia Sumerian does not have its own expression for a collective of gods corresponding to the term 'pantheon'. The Sumerian term A-nun-na, 'seed of the prince' (i.e. of Enki, …

[German version] [1] Vitruvius Vaccus, Marcus According to Livy (8,19,4-8,20,10), V. was an influential citizen of Fundi (Fondi) who led the revolt against Rome that was undertaken by Privernum (Piperno) with the support of Fondi in 330/329 BC.  After the failed insurrection he was executed in Rome.  It is difficult to explain V's role in this revolt, given that he was clearly not an unimportant figure in Rome and owned a house there, which was then destroyed by decree of the Senate (Cic. Dom. 101 sti…

(θησαυρός/ thēsaurós; 'treasure', 'treasure house'). [German version] [1] Treasure house A treasure house in the sense of a protective structure within a sanctuary that housed a valuable object crafted from delicate materials, e.g. a votive offering (votive practice), although in ancient Greek terminology, thesauros not only referred to the location or the structural container but to the actual content (the respective piece of value) as well. In Greek sanctuaries esp. from the 7th to the early 5th cents. BC, thēsauroí were the generally common form of votive offerings. Th…

[German version] (πρόθυρον; próthyron). The entrance hall of the Greek house in the form of a roofed vestibule leading to the courtyard, marking the connection of the private and the public areas and thus used as a communicative, connecting element (because the próthyron could also serve as a shelter or meeting place for passers-by). Sometimes, the próthyron was even equipped with benches. The próthyron could usually be closed from the inside by a wooden folding door . Numerous próthyra have been preserved in the houses of Olynthus. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W. Hoepfner,…

[German version] (eaves). Upturned edge of the roof (together with the waterspouts needed to carry water off the roof) of a Greek columned building on the slopes of the pediment and the long sides of the roof. The name is recorded as a Latin technical term in Vitruvius (3,5,12 et passim) [1; 2]. In archaic architecture, particularly in Doric columned buildings, the sima was a favourite location for architectural decoration; it is part of the roof and has no essential static function. Initially - probably in the tradition of wooden buildings - terracotta simae were predominant; they were…

[German version] A. Definition In this article, masonry will be understood as the various construction and design techniques of the structure of the walls of buildings, terraces, and defensive architecture (city walls, etc.) in ancient stonework, but not the various areas of application of woodworking; cf. construction technique; materiatio; on Roman cement construction cf. also opus caementicium. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) B. Greece [German version] 1. Simple masonry The walls of simple early Greek buildings were first made of wood or wattle work. From the 8t…

[German version] Modern technical term which in the archaeology of buildings denotes the interaxial distance between two columns (as different from the free interspace, which has been known as the intercolumnium since Antiquity, cf. [1]). The interaxial space was a clearly defined subset of the axial distances, i.e. the distances between the centres of the four corner columns and as such served as one of the crucial design parameters in temple architecture (Temple; Building trade). This goes especially for the peripteral temp…

[German version] Modern architectural term, borrowed from French, for a spiral or helical decorative element on corbels, pediments and capitals usually of the Ionic order (Column). The much-admired precise incision of a High or Late Classical capital volute with its often painted or inlaid decoration (Intarsia) was presumably produced with the help of a pair of compasses uniformly decreasing in diameter; a corresponding instrument can at least hypothetically be reconstructed. The V. also appears a…

[German version] Ancient technical term, frequently appearing In Greek architectural inscriptions as well as in Vitruvius (4,3,4 and passim); applicable to all ancient orders of column construction, it refers to that part of the entablature of the peristasis which rests immediately on top of the columns. Modern architectural terminology often refers to the epistylion as ‘architrave’, whereas the entablature in its entirety ─ i.e. architrave,  frieze, and cornice ( geison) together ─ are referred to as epistylion. The translation of the initially wooden epistylion to stone rep…

[German version] (γραμμή; grammḗ). A component of the start and finish line in the Greek stadium (  balbís ), which indicated the start and finish marking. It usually consisted of two parallel lines carved into stone and sunk into the ground. Examples are preserved, e.g., in Olympia, Delphi, Epidaurus and Priene. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W. Zschietzschmann, Wettkampf- und Übungsstätten in Griechenland I. Das Stadion, 1960, 35-39 O. Broneer, Isthmia II, 1973, 137-142 P. Roos, Wiederverwendete Startblöcke vom Stadion in Ephesos, in: JÖAI 52, 1979/80, 109-113.

[German version] The most important church of Constantinople, built on the site of the church Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία ( Megálē Ekklēsía; 1st half of the 4th cent.). It was destroyed in AD 532 in an uprising, instigated and paid for by Justinian based on designs by the architect Anthemius of Tralles and  Isidorus [9] of Miletus as a combination of nave and  central-plan building of gigantic dimensions. The huge dome rests on four pillars with foundations in rock. Dedicated on 27 December 537 in the presence of the emperor …

[German version] I. Ancient Orient In Egypt and the Near East, the history of the brick and its predecessor, the mud brick, dates back to the 8th/7th millennia BC. The raw material was generally a local mixture from clay/loam and sand/gravel, in Egypt the silt deposits of the Nile. The mixture, made lean through the addition of vegetal (chopped) straw, chaff, mineral (crushed stones or potsherds) or waste material (animal dung), was shaped into bricks in wooden frames. After drying out in the sun, th…

[German version] (ξυστός/ xystós; Latin xystus). In Roman Antiquity a walkway ( ambulatio) or a terrace, usually an element of a hortus (garden) and hence part of a villa. According to Vitr. 5,11,4 such a xystus consisted of an unroofed path edged by plane trees. In a Greek gymnasiun, the original context of a xystus (in evidence there since the 5th cent. BC), in contrast, a covered running track was meant. There is disagreement about the precise definition of a xystus in Roman architecture; sometimes (Varro Men. 162; Cic. Att. 1,4,2) it is only the course of a sp…

[German version] Latin for drops (pl.); in the architectonic sense, ancient technical term only attested in Vitruvius (4,1,2 and 4,3,6) for the drop-like cylindrical shapes that are found on parts of the stone entablature of the Doric building style and that as imitated nails or nail heads attest to the anachronistic transformation of the only wooden building form into the canonical Doric stone temple [1. 53-55; 3. 10-13]. Guttae are to be found (mostly) in three parallel rows of six on the   mutulus of the   geison and on the architrave as the bottom completion of the   regula …

[German version] Ancient technical term used in  construction technique. According to Vitruvius (2,8,7 and passim), a term for the frames or facings of walls made from cast cement (  opus caementicium ), later used generally for the covering of floors, roofs and walls with  stucco, marble, travertine or  mosaic. In  toreutics crusta also refers to the relief-adorned ‘jacket’, the ‘shell’ surrounding the body of the receptacle proper. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Georges 1, s.v. c., 1775f. A. Rumpp, s.v. C., KlP 1, 1336 H.-O. Lamprecht, Opus Caementicium Bautechnik…

[German version] Architectural term recorded at Vitr. De arch. 3,2,3, denoting one of the temple forms listed in that work (Temple). According to Vitruvius' description, a prostylos is an ante temple with one row of columns in front of the pronaos (Cella). An extended variant of the prostylos is the amphiprostylos. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W. Müller-Wiener, Griechisches Bauwesen in der Antike, 1988, 217 s. v. P.

[German version] Architect or building craftsman from Naxos, active around 600 BC. Pausanias (5,10,3) concluded from a supposed epigram that B. was the first to produce roof tiles of marble. An inscription on a marble roof tile from the Athenian Acropolis (CY=BY in the Naxian  alphabet) was interpreted as a reference to B. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography H. Svenson-Evers, Die griech. Architekten archa. und klass. Zeit, 1996, 374.

[German version] Steep trapezoidal hill in Rome, stretching from the southernmost point of the city to the Tiber. It includes the Augustan regio XIII and parts of regio XII. The MA consists of two hilltops connected by a ridge (Aventinus Maior and Aventinus Minor). Until the regency of the emperor Claudius it was outside the Pomerium (but within the Servian walls). The MA was inhabited early, evidently Ancus Marcius [I 3] settled there natives of various Latin localities he had conquered and devastated. Subsequently the MA…