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[German version] An artificial hill, like modern rubbish dumps, to the south of the mons Aventinus in Rome, a heap of rubble dating from classical times measuring about 30m in height and a good 1000m in circumference. It consists for the most part of shards (lat. testa, testaceum -hence the name) of container amphorae (Earthenware vessels) which accumulated as breakages in the nearby port and storage facilities. The greater part of the shards, which were brought there via a ramp, originate from around AD 140 to 250. As a complete archaeologi…

[German version] The most northern of the seven great hills of Rome; in classical antiquity it was actually called collis rather than mons. It has been inhabited since the Iron Age; the Sabines are said to have settled there under Titus Tatius. The Quirinal was mainly a residential area up until the late Imperial era, with a mixed social structure in the west but a more impoverished one in the east. (The poet Martialis [1] describes very vividly the conditions in which he lived here on the 3rd floor of a block of fla…

[English version] The polis of Poseidonia, founded in the late 7th cent. BC by colonists from Sybaris, was transformed into a Roman veterans colony named Paestum ( P.) in 274/3 BC, with profound consequences for its urban profile and the social composition of its populace. Early in the Roman Imperial period, it began to fall increasingly into decline, firstly because of the new north-south major travel routes which now bypassed it, and secondly because the plain to the south of Salerno, already ment…

[German version] (τροχίλος; trochílos). Cavetto moulding, a concavely curved element in a Classical Attic/Ionic column base separating the upper and lower convex shaped tori (Torus); also current in Archaic/Ionic architecture as a formative element of representational column bases (Column II. B.3. with ill.). The contours of the trochiloi of the column bases in the archaic Temple of Hera on Samos [3], turned on a lathe and of remarkably varied shape, are famous. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Ebert, 26 (terminology and etymology)  Ch. Höcker, Sekos, Dipteros, Hyp…

[German version] (τρίγλυφος/ tríglyphos, feminine). The triply grooved panels on the  frieze of the Doric order (cf. Angle triglyph problem, with ill.; Column II. B.). According to an assumption recorded by Vitruvius (4,2,2), that the basic forms of the Doric order derive from a transition from building in wood to building in stone, the tríglyphos marks the notched end of roof beams lying horizontally on the architrave. The indentations of the ends in wooden constructions were (primarily) due to technical rather than decorative reasons; they, together with the roof overhang and the mu…

[German version] (γυναικωνῖτις; gynaikōnîtis). In contrast to the   andrṓn [4], gynaikonitis describes the introverted women's wing in the Greek  house that as a rule was closed off in the upper floor from the rather extroverted area of the world of men and that also held the tools of economic production of the woman (weaving stool, spinning wheel etc.); the inferior position of the  woman in the patriarchal society of Greece was expressed in this hierarchization of building conditions. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W. Hoepfner, E. L. Schwandner, Haus und Stadt im kla…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient and Egypt Apart from their architectural function as the transition between inside and outside or between spatial units of a building, doors possessed a symbolic and magical meaning in the Ancient Orient and Egypt. For example, in the Neo-Assyrian period (9th -7th cents. BC), doors and passages of public buildings were flanked by apotropaic hybrid creatures. In the Ancient Orient doors mostly consisted of wooden posts to which a panel of wood or reed was firmly attached. The post, which was anchored at the top, turned on…

[German version] Particular form of funerary architecture in Classical Antiquity, following the Pharaonic pyramid of Egypt in form and purpose. Rare in Classical Antiquity, but always used with high aspirations to grandeur; the best-known example is the pyramid of Cestius in Rome near the Porta San Paolo (built as a monument to the tribune and praetor C. Cestius [I 4] Epulo, d. 12 BC). Further examples, primarily in the area from Asia Minor to Egypt. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography F. Coarelli, Rom. Ein archäologischer Führer, 1975, 307 f.  C. Ratté, The Pyramid Tomb at Sa…

[German version] (γεῖσον; geîson). Ancient architectural term (instances from Greek antiquity in [1. 32f.]) designating the cornice, the upper section of the entablature, originally in columned buildings with a hipped or saddleback roof, later also in storey and wall construction. The compact, monolithic or many-stone, horizontal cornice runs around the whole colonnade. Used since the first Doric peripteral temples, imitates the overhang of roof beams providing shelter from rain water in buildings …

[German version] Hearth of limekiln or furnace; also central heating chamber in Roman thermal bath systems. Baths; Heating; Thermae [1] Höcker, Christoph (Kissing)

[German version] A. Concept Collective term used in Vitruvius (4,2,1) for all kinds of timber construction and the carpentry trades necessary in building. Materiatio thus comprises the field of constructional wood building, including the construction of framework structures, roof-trusses ( Roofing), galleries and inserted ceilings but also the manufacturing of the necessary tools and implements (dowels, wooden nails, wedges, rafters, pegs) as well as, finally, the provision of temporary scaffolding for moving stone in…

[German version] Modern technical term in urban studies derived from Latin insula (‘island’, ‘residence’) that in  town planning describes an area surrounded on all sides by streets and marked for development because of this structure. Insulae are not exclusively the products of comprehensive town planning. Within an orthogonal street grid they are usually rectangular or trapezoid, and rarely square, but the cut-out section of the irregular street system of a ‘grown’ town is also called an insula (e.g. in Delos or parts of Pompeii). In Greek town planning the insula as the resu…

[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 …

(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…