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(‘Chamber, room, cell, booth’). [German version] [1] Enclosed cella in an ancient temple Technical term coined by Vitruvius (4,1 and passim) for the space enclosed by walls within an ancient  temple (Greek: σηκός, sēkós). The formal development of the Greek temple cella from early Greek domestic architecture ( House), together with the related development of the peripteral temple ( Peristasis), is still a subject for debate. In monumental stone structures from the 7th cent. BC onwards, the cella served for the safe-keeping of the cult image or the image of the god, and…

[German version] I. General Cisterns as storage for rain water or as reservoirs for spring and well water were customary and necessary for a regulated and sufficient  water supply in the climatically unfavourable regions of the southern and eastern Mediterranean, both as small systems for individual houses and farms and as communal systems for settlements. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) [German version] II. Ancient Orient s.  Water supply I. D. Niemeyer, Hans Georg (Hamburg) [German version] III. Phoenician-Punic region Systems for securing the water supply by collecting …

[German version] I. Ancient Orient and Egypt There is evidence of vaults and arches in western Asia, chiefly in crypts and on canals. There are only few surviving examples of the vaulting of above ground spaces. Both true and corbelled vaults are documented, over quite small or passage-like rooms, posterns, staircase substructures and doorway, gateway and bridge arches. Barrel vaults and domes were comparatively common, primarily on storage spaces and furnaces. For the most part techniques were used in…

[German version] (Latin). A primitive hut of perishable building materials; as a rule, a wood and clay construction, roofed with reeds, tree bark or turf (house), in Roman literature, originally described as humble housing (Varro Rust. 3,1,3; Verg. Ecl. 1,68; Plin. HN 16,35) and predominantly classified as for primitive peoples (cf. the huts of the Dacians and Marcomanni in reliefs on the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome). The principle of the 'natural house', which had been described…

[German version] Ostentatious monumental facade, almost 90 m long, at the intersection of the Via Triumphalis and the Via Appia , which led into the city, near the Circus Maximus, forming the conclusion of the southeastern slope of the Palatine in Rome (and terminologically often confused with the Septizonium). The splendid facade, presumably of five storeys, consisted of three exedra side-by-side, which were provided with terminations at right angles towards the sides of the monument. The S. wa…

[German version] In Classical Antiquity, the playful and wasteful use of water – already known occasionally from the Near East – became a factor within the context of a secured water supply, an unrestrictedly enjoyed, at least in part positively defined, public and/or private luxury and especially in the framework of a specifically Roman understanding of nature (Environment II.); it was also reflected in the architecture relevant for them. Waterworks were uncommon in the Greek polis world. Waterworks are first recorded in connection with opulently designed gardens. Parti…

Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) I. Material Remains (CT) A. General (CT) [German version] 1. Introduction (CT) The present article offers a survey of the ways in which material remains from the ancient world have been transmitted to the modern age. Not included are the active acquisition of antiquities for display or their representation in art museums, or the systematic post-Classical acquisition of remains for research purposes (cf. Antiquarianism; Antiquities, collections of; Classical Archaeology;  Art works, acquisition of/ Art theft; Museum). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) …

[German version] The first toilet facilities connected with sewers in the Graeco-Roman cultural area are to be found in Minoan Crete (sit-down latrines in the palace of Knosos), then not again until the Hellenistic period; in archaic and classical Greece, latrines that consisted of a seat over a transportable vessel were predominant. This comparably primitive principle is also further encountered in Roman culture (for instance in the multi-storey tenement blocks in the large cities), whilst from…

[German version] Scratched or scored lines in architecture (Construction technique; Building trade). The architect's plan was successively transmitted to the emerging building at a scale of 1:1 by tracing. Tracings are recorded from the pre-Greek era in Mesopotamian and Egyptian architecture; in Graeco-Roman architecture, tracing long made scale construction drawings unnecessary. Well-preserved or documented tracings are found, among other places, on the Propylaea in Athens, the large tholos in Delphi and the more recent temple of Apollo in Didyma. Höcker, Christoph (Kissi…

Näf, Beat (Zürich RWG) [German version] I. History and interpretation (CT) Näf, Beat (Zürich RWG) [German version] A. Introduction (CT) Among the great places of antiquity that are of decisive importance for the culture and heritage of the western world, Athens (A.) plays a most important role. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the historical influence of Rome is greater. Since time immemorial Jerusalem, in particular, has been in competition with A. with respect to the question of which city was the foundation…

[German version] (περίστασις; perístasis). Ancient Greek term for a ring of columns (Column), and hence a colonnade in a Greek temple or other ancient buildings with surrounding columns [1]. The colonnade can be formed of a single row (Peripteros) or a double row (Dipteros) (cf. also Peristylion. On formal problems relating to peristaseis in Greek temple construction: Angle triglyph problem; Inclination; Curvature; Proportion). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography 1 F. Ebert, Fachausdrücke des griechischen Bauhandwerks I. Der Tempel, Diss. Würzburg, 1910, 23…

[German version] of Megara, son of Naustrophus, as an  architect and engineer, presumably under the tyrant  Polycrates, was responsible for the construction of a  water supply system for the town of  Samos (modern Pythagoreion on the island of Samos) described by Herodotus (3,60) as one of the great feats of Greek engineering; there is no evidence of further work by E. The system that was rediscovered in 1853 consists of four building complexes connected with each other: a fountainhead building situated high in the mountain ( Wells) with a great covered water reservoir, a pipeline c. 840…

(Κόροιβος; Kóroibos). [German version] [1] Hero founder of Tripodiscus in the Megaris Hero founder of Tripodiscus in the Megaris. The legend is told in Callim. Fr. 26-31 in connection with an Argive aition according to the local historians Agias and Dercylus (FGrH 305 F 8 to) [1]:  Linus, the son of Apollo and  Psamathe, is torn apart by dogs, and Psamathe is killed by her father  Crotopus. As a punishment Apollo sends a child-murdering demon, the Poineḗ or   Ker , to Argus. When the brave C. kills the monster, the god sends a further plague, whereupon…

[German version] ( tector albarius). According to Vitr. De arch. 2,8,20 a Roman craftsman who was responsible for plastering walls, as a rule in three layers, the top layer of which could be painted or stuccoed while still moist. Construction technique; Fresco; Stucco; Wall-painting Höcker, Christoph (Kissing)

[German version] I. Architecture 'Proportion' is a modern technical term in the archaeological research of monuments. In the description of a structure, a proportion represents the ratio of two lines or the ratio of the sides of a rectangular area, in the mathematical sense of a division (x:y). The proportions of a building are determined based on its detailed measurement. Increasingly precise and generally binding procedures for obtaining and evaluating the relevant data have been developed by W. Dörpfeld; K. Koldewey; O. Puchstein i.a. since the late 19th century. The extent to wh…

[German version] (also Lauretum, from laureus, ‘bay-tree’). Place on the Aventine Hill in Rome ( Roma) where bay-trees grow. According to legend the burial place of Titus Tatius (Festus 496 L.). Already at the time of Varro (Varro, Ling. 5,152) the site could no longer be located with certainty. The possibility that L. was divided into two parts ( L. minor and L. maior) is a matter for discussion because of two corresponding street names in Regio XIII (cf. CIL 6,975). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Richardson, 234f.

(Ἄνδρων; Ándrōn). [German version] [1] One of the 400 (end of the 5th cent. BC) From Gargettus, son of an Androtion and father of the Atthidographer  Androtion (FGrH 324), with sophistic interests (Pl. Grg. 487C; Prot. 315C). About a debt affair Dem. Or. 22,33 and passim. Probably identical with A., one of the 400 (500: [1]), author of a   psephisma against Antiphon [4] 411 BC (Craterus FGrH 342 F5). Kinzl, Konrad (Peterborough) Bibliography 1 G. Pesely, in: Illinois Class. Stud. 20, 1995, 66-76. Davies, 913 Traill, PAA 129265, 129130 P. Harding, Androtion and the Atthis, 1994, 14 f. …

[German version] Architect of Samos. For a considerable fee he built the pontoon bridge over the Bosporus (Hdt. 4,87,1ff.) for Darius [1] I in 513/2 BC in the context of the campaign against the Scythians. M. attained fame through a votive offering in the Heraeum of Samos: a panel painting described in detail by Herodotus (4,88,1-89,2), which depicted the (pontoon) bridge and praised the architect in an epigram. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography H. Svenson-Evers, Die griechische Architekten archaischer und klassischer Zeit, 1996, 59-66 (with additional literature).

[German version] From the Greek κρυπτή ( kryptḗ); in the description of the Nile barge of Ptolemy IV, transmitted in Athenaeus 5, 205a, it designated a closed walkway lit by windows. In Lat. texts cryptoporticus could cover various items of architecture such as cellars (Vitr. De arch. 6, 8), vaults (Juv. 5, 106) or even subterranean, vaulted cult or grave structures. In modern archaeological terminology the term cryptoporticus is used synonymously with crypta; this compound word from crypta and   porticus that comes to us only from Pliny (Ep. 2,17,20; 5,6…

[German version] The cylinder, in some cases lavishly sculpted and sometimes decorated with a double trochilus and convex and concave sections, that forms the 'middle layer' of a conventional old-Ionic column base (Samos, Heraion; Column). The spira supports the equally sculpted and convexly curved torus . The spira customarily rises from a plinth. A special form of Ionic basis is developed in late 6th- and 5th-cent. BC Attic architecture, consisting of a torus as base surface, a concavely curved trochilus lying on it and a further torus on top of that, and dispenses with the spira as an …