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[German version] Private family sanctuary or cult memorial - most commonly situated in the atrium, sometimes also in the kitchen, peristyle or garden of the Roman house - for the lares familiares ( Lares; Personification), either in the form of a niche, a small temple ( Aedicula) or even in the form of a wall painting creating an architectural illusion. Lararia were originally decorated with statuettes and additional votive offerings, depending on wealth, and served a vital purpose within the larger context of social interaction as each family's representative focal point. Numerous lar…

[German version] I. Mesopotamia The Sumerian term é and the Akkadian term bītu, meaning 'temple' or 'house (of the deity)', were not restricted to 'dwellings' of deities of a particular size or importance. They applied to sanctuaries from small neighbourhood shrines in residential areas to large, freestanding, tall buildings, from one-room cult sites to temple complexes with extensive auxiliary buildings, and they could be used for temples where one or many deities were worshipped.…

[German version] [1] Architectural term (κρηπίς/ krēpís, κρηπίδωμα/ krēpídōma). Ancient term, documented frequently in building inscriptions, for the stepped base which served as the foundation for various edifices, but particularly for Greek colonnade construction (sources: Ebert 7-9). The krepis rests on the euthynteria (the top layer of the foundation, the first to be precisely planed) and ends in the stylobate, the surface on which the columns stand. The shaping of the initially one- or two-stepped krepis in the early 6th cent. BC is an important result of the coming into being of the Doric order in stone construction ( Temple). In the early wooden constructions the columns predominantly rested on simple stone slabs. From the late 6th cent. BC, a …

[German version] One of the seven hills of Rome ( Roma), located on the right bank of the Tiber and already during the Republican period connected to the  Campus Martius by four bridges. Because of its military significance, the I. was incorporated into the ager Romanus at an early date (Cass. Dio 37,27,3 - 37,28,1). The name I. probably refers to a cultic site of Ianus. In the later Republic this hill, which was traversed by the via Aurelia was the location of several large  gardens ( horti Agrippinae; horti Caesaris). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography P. Liverani, s.v. I., LTUR 3, 1996, 89f. (sources) …

[German version] (Καρυάτιδες; Karyátides). Female figures, mostly in long robes, used as supports for various utensils (i.a. mirror handles) or in an architectural context ( Architectural sculpture), where they replace columns, semi-columns or pilasters. According to Vitruvius (1,1,5), the term was derived from the Peloponnesian town of  Caryae [2]; it cannot be found in Greek before the 4th cent. BC (Lynceus in Ath. 6,241d). In inscriptions on buildings of the 5th cent. BC (Erechtheion), caryatids are referred to as κώραι ( kṓrai). The earliest architectural caryatids occur in Greece in the 6th cent. BC (Cnidian and Siphnian treasuries in Delphi); also from this time originates the earliest reference to female support figures for beams in a non-architectural context in a description by Pausanias of the throne of Apollo of Amyclae (3,18,9f.). To what extent the motif of caryatids, which seldom occurs in the 5th and 4th cents. BC (Korai of the Erechtheion, tomb chamber of S…

[German version] Roman mosaicist, signed a figural mosaic found at Oberwenigen near Zurich ( Attillus fecit). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography A. Blanchet, La mosaïque, 1928, 56 L. Guerrin…

[German version] I. Introduction Polychromy is a term of modern art theory for the phenomenon of colour composition in sculpture, relief, architecture and pots and tablets of clay, stone, etc. It is the opposite of monochromy (Monochromata, Ornaments, Painting, Pigments). The Greek adjectives polýchroos (πολύχροος) and polychrṓmatos (πολυχρώματος), which denote material (Emp. fr. B23 DK) or surface (Aristot. Gen. an. 785b 19) pol…

[German version] Modern term for the problem arising in Greek stone constructions of the Doric order in the attempt to effect a regular sequence, around a corner of,  triglyph and  metope in the  frieze above a row of columns. In canonical Doric structure, every other triglyph rests over the centre of a column. At angles this becomes unfeasible where the depth of the architrave ( Epistylion) exceeds the breadth o…

[German version] Modern term coined by the ancient historian Ch. Meier [1. 435-439], which refines, in a democratic-pluralistic context, the technical-qualitative self-image of the artisan class in the classical Greek period, as well the political self-awareness which interacts with it; Könnenbewußtsein encompasses in this sense an important aspect, resp. subarea of the Greek term …

(‘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 rainwater in cisterns were vital construction duties especially in urban communities in the arid and semi-arid zones of the eastern Mediterranean region and at the margins of Mesopotamia. Initially, they consisted of natural cavities (which could be extended in a bottle or pot shape) in impervious rock. The rock cistern of the Bronze Age mountain fortress of Fuente Alamo (province of Almería, SE Spain; El Argar culture…

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[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 lite…

[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-…

[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] The first toilet fa…

[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 of history and culture and which should be regarded as such. Sparta, on the other hand, was considered already in antiquity to be the politically more attractive counter-model and it did not completely lose this fascination even after the Second World War. Even the ancient states of the federation, particularly the Achaean Confederacy, are regularly assigned a role in the course of historically comprehensive discussions in the field of political thought. Undoubtedly Atlantis (often connected with A.) then inspired utopian dreams part…

[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 (containing building inscriptions). W. Müller-Wiener, Griechisches Bauwesen in der Antike, 1988, 217 s.v. P.