The ancient Greeks lived in many lands around the Mediterranean Sea, from Turkey to the south of France. They had close contacts with other peoples such as the Egyptians, Syrians and Persians.The Greeks lived in separate city-states, but shared the same language and religious beliefs.

Bronze Age Greece

During the Bronze Age (around 3200 – 1100 B.C.E.), a number of cultures flourished on the islands of the Cyclades, in Crete and on the Greek mainland. They were mainly farmers, but trade across the sea, particularly in raw materials such as obsidian (volcanic glass) and metals, was growing.

Mycenaean culture flourished on the Greek mainland in the Late Bronze Age, from about 1600 to 1100 B.C.E. The name comes from the site of Mycenae, where the culture was first recognized after the excavations in 1876 of Heinrich Schliemann.

 

The Mycenaean period of the later Greek Bronze Age was viewed by the Greeks as the “age of heroes” and perhaps provides the historical background to many of the stories told in later Greek mythology, including Homer’s epics. Objects and artworks from this time are found throughout mainland Greece and the Greek islands. Distinctive Mycenaean pottery was distributed widely across the eastern Mediterranean. These show the beginnings of Greek mythology being used to decorate works of art. They come from about the same time that the epics of Homer were reaching the form in which we inherit them, as the earliest Greek literature.

The collapse of Mycenaean civilization around 1100 B.C.E. brought about a period of isolation known as the Dark Age. But by around 800 B.C.E. the revival had begun as trade with the wider world increased, arts, crafts and writing re-emerged and city-states (poleis) developed.

Archaic period

Two of the most distinctive forms of free-standing sculpture to emerge during the Archaic period of Greek art (about 600-480 B.C.E.) were statues of youths (kouroi) and maidens (korai).

Kouros (the singular form) is a term used to describe a type of statue of a male figure produced in marble during the Archaic period of Greek art. Such statues can be colossal (that is larger than life) or less than life size. They all have a conventional pose, where the head and body can be divided equally by a central line, and the legs are parted with the weight placed equally front and back. The male figures, usually in the form of naked young men, acted both as grave markers and as votive offerings, the latter perhaps intended to be representations of the dedicator. The female figures served similar functions, but differed from their male counterparts in that they were elaborately draped.

The mouth is invariably fixed in a smile, which is probably a symbolic expression of the arete (“excellence”) of the person represented. It used to be thought that all kouroi were representations of the god Apollo. However, although some may be representations of gods or heroes, many were simply grave markers. The kouros was not intended as a realistic portrait of the deceased, but an idealized representation of values and virtues to which the dead laid claim: youthful beauty, athleticism, and aristocratic bearing, among others.

Classical period

By around 500 B.C.E.  “rule by the people,” or democracy, had emerged in the city of Athens. Following the defeat of a Persian invasion in 480-479 B.C.E., mainland Greece and Athens in particular entered into a golden age. In drama and philosophy, literature, art and architecture, Athens was second to none. The city’s empire stretched from the western Mediterranean to the Black Sea, creating enormous wealth. This paid for one of the biggest public building projects ever seen in Greece, which included the Parthenon.

Ancient Greece also played a vital role in the early history of coinage. As well as making some of the world’s earliest coins, the ancient Greeks were the first to use them extensively in trade.

Hellenistic period

Following the death of Alexander and the division of his empire, the Hellenistic period (323-31 B.C.E.) saw Greek power and culture extended across the Middle East and as far as the Indus Valley. When Rome absorbed the Greek world into its vast empire, Greek ideas, art and culture greatly influenced the Romans.

Alexander was always shown clean-shaven, which was an innovation: all previous portraits of Greek statesmen or rulers had beards. This royal fashion lasted for almost five hundred years and almost all of the Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors until Hadrian were portrayed beardless.

The British Museum collection includes objects from across the entire Greek world, ranging in date from the beginning of pre-history to early Christianity in the Byzantine era.

© Trustees of the British Museum

For most of us, architecture is easy to take for granted. It’s everywhere in our daily lives—sometimes elegant, other times shabby, but generally ubiquitous. How often do we stop to examine and contemplate its form and style? Stopping for that contemplation offers not only the opportunity to understand one’s daily surroundings but also to appreciate the connection that exists between architectural forms in our own time and those from the past. Architectural tradition and design have the ability to link disparate cultures together over time and space—and this is certainly true of the legacy of architectural forms created by the ancient Greeks.

Where and when

Greek architecture refers to the architecture of the Greek-speaking peoples who inhabited the Greek mainland and the Peloponnese, the islands of the Aegean Sea, the Greek colonies in Ionia (coastal Asia Minor), and Magna Graecia (Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily).

Greek architecture stretches from c. 900 B.C.E. to the first century C.E., with the earliest extant stone architecture dating to the seventh century B.C.E.

Greek architecture influenced Roman architecture and architects in profound ways, such that Roman Imperial architecture adopts and incorporates many Greek elements into its own practice. An overview of basic building typologies demonstrates the range and diversity of Greek architecture.

Temple

The most recognizably “Greek” structure is the temple (even though the architecture of Greek temples is actually quite diverse). The Greeks referred to temples with the term ὁ ναός (ho naós), meaning “dwelling,” temple derives from the Latin term, templum. The earliest shrines were built to honor divinities and were made from materials such as wood and mud brick—materials that typically don’t survive very long. The basic form of the naos (the interior room that held the cult statue of the God or Gods) emerges as early as the tenth century B.C.E. as a simple, rectangular room with projecting walls (antae) that created a shallow porch. This basic form remained unchanged in its concept for centuries. In the eighth century B.C.E., Greek architecture begins to make the move from ephemeral materials (wood, mud brick, thatch) to permanent materials (namely, stone).

During the Archaic period, the tenets of the Doric order of architecture in the Greek mainland became firmly established, leading to a wave of monumental temple building during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. Greek city-states invested substantial resources in temple building—as they competed with each other not just in strategic and economic terms, but also in their architecture. For example, Athens devoted enormous resources to the construction of the Acropolis in the 5th century B.C.E.—in part so that Athenians could be confident that the temples built to honor their gods surpassed anything that their rival states could offer.

The multi-phase architectural development of sanctuaries such as that of Hera on the island of Samos demonstrates not only the change that occurred in construction techniques over time but also how the Greeks re-used sacred spaces—with the later phases built directly atop the preceding ones. Perhaps the fullest, and most famous, expression of Classical Greek temple architecture is the Periclean Parthenon of Athens—a Doric order structure, the Parthenon represents the maturity of the Greek classical form.

Greek temples are often categorized in terms of their ground plan and the way in which the columns are arranged. A prostyle temple is a temple that has columns only at the front, while an amphiprostyle temple has columns at the front and the rear. Temples with a peripteral arrangement (from the Greek πτερον (pteron), meaning “wing”) have a single line of columns arranged all around the exterior of the temple building. Dipteral temples simply have a double row of columns surrounding the building. One of the more unusual plans is the tholos, a temple with a circular ground plan; famous examples are attested at the sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi and the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus.

Stoa

Stoa (στοά) is a Greek architectural term that describes a covered walkway or colonnade that was usually designed for public use. Early examples, often employing the Doric order, were usually composed of a single level, although later examples (Hellenistic and Roman) came to be two-story freestanding structures. These later examples allowed interior space for shops or other rooms and often incorporated the Ionic order for interior colonnades.

Greek city planners came to prefer the stoa as a device for framing the agora (public marketplace) of a city or town. The South Stoa (c. 700–550 B.C.E.), constructed as part of the sanctuary of Hera on the island of Samos, numbers among the earliest examples of the stoa in Greek architecture. Many cities, particularly Athens and Corinth, came to have elaborate and famous stoas. In Athens, the famous Stoa Poikile (“Painted Stoa”), c. fifth century B.C.E., housed paintings of famous Greek military exploits, including the battle of Marathon, while the Stoa Basileios (“Royal Stoa”), c. fifth century B.C.E., was the seat of a chief civic official (archon basileios).

Later, through the patronage of the kings of Pergamon, the Athenian agora was augmented by the famed Stoa of Attalos (c. 159–138 B.C.E.), which was recently rebuilt according to the ancient specifications and now houses the archaeological museum for the Athenian Agora itself. At Corinth, the stoa persisted as an architectural type well into the Roman period; the South Stoa there, c. 150 C.E., shows the continued utility of this building design for framing civic space. From the Hellenistic period onwards, the stoa also lent its name to a philosophical school, as Zeno of Citium originally taught his Stoic philosophy in the Stoa Poikile of Athens.

Theater

The Greek theater was a large, open-air structure used for dramatic performance. Theaters often took advantage of hillsides and naturally sloping terrain and, in general, utilized the panoramic landscape as the backdrop to the stage itself. The Greek theater is composed of the seating area (theatron), a circular space for the chorus to perform (orchestra), and the stage (skene). Tiered seats in the theatron provided space for spectators. Two side aisles (parados, pl. paradoi) provided access to the orchestra. The Greek theater inspired the Roman version of the theater directly, although the Romans introduced some modifications to the concept of theater architecture. In many cases, the Romans converted pre-existing Greek theaters to conform to their own architectural ideals, as is evident in the Theater of Dionysos on the slopes of the Athenian Acropolis. Since theatrical performances were often linked to sacred festivals, it is not uncommon to find theaters associated directly with sanctuaries.

Bouleuterion

The Bouleuterion (βουλευτήριον) was an important civic building in a Greek city, as it was the meeting place of the boule (citizen council) of the city. These select representatives assembled to handle public affairs and represent the citizenry of the polis (in ancient Athens, the boule was comprised of 500 members). The Bouleuterion generally was a covered, rectilinear building with stepped seating surrounding a central speaker’s well in which an altar was placed. The city of Priène has a particularly well-preserved example of this civic structure, as does the city of Miletus.

House

Greek houses of the Archaic and Classical periods were relatively simple in design. Houses usually were centered on a courtyard that would have been the scene for various ritual activities; the courtyard also provided natural light for the often small houses. The ground floor rooms would have included kitchen and storage rooms, perhaps an animal pen and a latrine; the chief room was the andron—site of the male-dominated drinking party (symposion). The quarters for women and children (gynaikeion) could be located on the second level (if present) and were, in any case, segregated from the men’s area. It was not uncommon for houses to be attached to workshops or shops. The houses excavated in the southwest part of the Athenian Agora had walls of mud brick that rested on stone socles and tiled roofs, with floors of beaten clay.

The city of Olynthus in Chalcidice, Greece, destroyed by military action in 348 B.C.E., preserves many well-appointed courtyard houses arranged within the Hippodamian grid-plan of the city. House A vii 4 had a large cobbled courtyard that was used for domestic industry. While some rooms were fairly plain, with earthen floors, the andron was the most well-appointed room of the house.

Fortifications

The Mycenaean fortifications of Bronze Age Greece (c. 1300 B.C.E.) are particularly well known—the megalithic architecture (also referred to as Cyclopean because of the use of enormous stones) represents a trend in Bronze Age architecture. While these massive Bronze Age walls are difficult to best, first millennium B.C.E. Greece also shows evidence of stone-built fortification walls. In Attika (the territory of Athens), a series of Classical and Hellenistic walls built in ashlar masonry (squared masonry blocks) have been studied as a potential system of border defenses.  At Palairos in Epirus (Greece), the massive fortifications enclose a high citadel that occupies imposing terrain.

Stadium, gymnasium, and palaestra

The Greek stadium (derived from stadion, a Greek measurement equivalent to c. 578 feet or 176 meters) was the location of foot races held as part of sacred games; these structures are often found in the context of sanctuaries, as in the case of the Panhellenic sanctuaries at Olympia and Epidauros. Long and narrow, with a horseshoe shape, the stadium occupied reasonably flat terrain.

The gymnasium (from the Greek term gymnós meaning “naked”) was a training center for athletes who participated in public games. This facility tended to include areas for both training and storage. The palaestra (παλαίστρα) was an exercise facility originally connected with the training of wrestlers. These complexes were generally rectilinear in plan, with a colonnade framing a central, open space.

Altar

Since blood sacrifice was a key component of Greek ritual practice, an altar was essential for these purposes. While altars did not necessarily need to be architecturalized, they could be, and, in some cases, they assumed a monumental scale. The third century B.C.E. Altar of Hieron II at Syracuse, Sicily, provides one such example. At c. 196 meters in length and c. 11 m in height, the massive altar was reported to be capable of hosting the simultaneous sacrifice of 450 bulls. [1]

Another spectacular altar is the Altar of Zeus from Pergamon, built during the first half of the second century B.C.E. The altar itself is screened by a monumental enclosure decorated with sculpture; the monument measures c. 35.64 by 33.4 meters. The altar is best known for its program of relief sculpture that depicts a gigantomachy (battle between the Olympian gods and the giants) that is presented as an allegory for the military conquests of the kings of Pergamon. Despite its monumental scale and lavish decoration, the Pergamon altar preserves the basic and necessary features of the Greek altar: it is frontal and approached by stairs and is open to the air—to allow not only for the blood sacrifice itself but also for the burning of the thigh bones and fat as an offering to the gods.

Fountain house

The fountain house is a public building that provides access to clean drinking water and at which water jars and containers could be filled. The Southeast Fountain house in the Athenian Agora (c. 530 B.C.E.) provides an example of this tendency to position fountain houses and their dependable supply of clean drinking water close to civic spaces like the agora. Gathering water was seen as a woman’s task and, as such, it offered the often isolated women a chance to socialize with others while collecting water. Fountain house scenes are common on ceramic water jars (hydriai), as is the case for a Black-figured hydria found in an Etruscan tomb in Vulci that is now in the British Museum.

Legacy

The architecture of ancient Greece influenced ancient Roman architecture and became the architectural vernacular employed in the expansive Hellenistic world created in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Greek architectural forms became implanted so deeply in the Roman architectural mindset that they endured throughout antiquity, only to be then re-discovered in the Renaissance and especially from the mid-eighteenth century onwards as a feature of the Neoclassical movement. This durable legacy helps to explain why the ancient Greek architectural orders and the tenets of Greek design are still so prevalent—and visible—in our post-modern world.

 

Notes:

[1] Diodorus Siculus History 11.72.2.

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Additional resources

Learn more about ancient Greek architecture in three chapters in Reframing Art History: “Pottery, the body, and the gods in ancient Greece, c. 800–490 B.C.E., ” “War, democracy, and art in ancient Greece, c. 490–350 B.C.E.,” and “Empire and Art in the Hellenistic world (c. 350–31 B.C.E.).”

Athenian Agora Excavations.

J. M. Camp, The Athenian Agora: a short guide to the excavations (American School of Classical Studies at Athens).

Architecture in Ancient Greece on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

B. A. Ault and L. Nevett, Ancient Greek Houses and Households: Chronological, Regional, and Social Diversity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

N. Cahill, Household and City Organization at Olynthus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).

J. J. Coulton,  The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).

J. J. Coulton, Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1982).

W. B. Dinsmoor, The Architecture of Greece: an Account of its Historic Development 3rd ed. (London: Batsford, 1950).

Marie-Christine Hellmann, L’architecture Grecque 3 vol. (Paris: Picard, 2002–2010).

M. Korres, Stones of the Parthenon (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000).

A. W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture 5th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).

C. G. Malacrino, Constructing the Ancient World: Architectural Techniques of the Greeks and Romans (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010).

A. Mazarakis Ainian, From Rulers’ Dwellings to Temples: Architecture, Religion and Society in early Iron Age Greece (1100–700 B.C.) (Jonsered: P. Åströms förlag, 1997).

L. Nevett, House and Society in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

J. Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian Land Frontier, 404–322 B.C. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985).

D. S. Robertson, Greek and Roman Architecture 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

J. N. Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (New York: Praeger, 1971).

F. E. Winter, Greek Fortifications (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971).

F. E. Winter, Studies in Hellenistic Architecture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).

W. Wrede, Attische Mauern (Athens: Deutsches archäologisches Institut, 1933).

R. E. Wycherley, The Stones of Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).

Cite this page as: Dr. Jeffrey A. Becker, “Introduction to ancient Greek architecture,” in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/introduction-to-greek-architecture/.

For the ancient Greeks, religion was inextricably tied to everyday life. Gods and many other supernatural beings could manifest anywhere, at any time, and often in unexpected forms. Yet even within such a boundless concept of religion, there were locations deemed especially numinous (the sense of divine presence) and appealing to the gods. These were the places where sanctuaries would be established, such as the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassos, and where more structured communications with the divine would be sought through ritual. Technically, a boundary-wall delineating the sacred area and an altar on which blood sacrifices could be made were all that was necessary to establish a sanctuary. However, in line with the piously agonistic spirit of the Greeks, sanctuaries quickly became monumental, housing colossal cult images, temples, treasuries, and copious cult accoutrements.

Greek sanctuaries were perennially lively venues, each with their idiosyncratic myths and rites. The Athenian Akropolis (also spelled Acropolis), whose slope and plateau were home to many sanctuaries, was where Poseidon and Athena had competed for the patronship of Athens. The mark left by Poseidon’s trident and the olive tree that sprung from the ground on Athena’s command (at the site of the Erechtheion) were two of the most marvelous sights the city boasted.

Every four years, during a festival called the Greater Panathenaia, Athenians dedicated to their city goddess a monumental garment (peplos) decorated with mythical images celebrating Athena’s glories. This is only one of the instances exemplifying the transactional framework of Greek religion, for it was through performing sacrifices and dedicating votives that the Greeks believed they could achieve an audience with their gods.

While certain religious festivals like the Panathenaia occurred at specific intervals and on specific dates, votaries (be they individuals, tribes, or city-states) were free to dedicate gifts to the sanctuaries practically any time of the year to commemorate events, ask for favors, and thank the gods for favors fulfilled. This meant a consistent influx of artworks in various media and of varying qualities.

Some of the more famous works recorded in inscriptions and other written sources have not reached our times not only due to weathering but also because sanctuaries were ripe for looting, as they often acted as treasuries for the city-states by which they were governed. Nevertheless, the remains which we can access still reveal interactions of various kinds. We find examples of different visual media in conversation, such a ceramics that depicted stone cult statues at sanctuaries. Some materials reveal interactions between specific city-states. Literary and visual evidence across generations also help us to understand the varied roles of Greek sanctuaries and the art that once filled them. Three sanctuaries, one Athenian and two Panhellenic, illustrate these types of interactions and provide a glimpse into life at ancient Greek sanctuaries.

Sanctuaries to Athena on the Athenian Akropolis

Commanding the ancient city of Athens from all viewpoints, the Akropolis is not the city’s highest hill but certainly the most significant and symbolically charged. The cult of Athena prospered here in the Archaic Period (600–480 B.C.E.), and well into the Hellenistic Period (323–31 B.C.E.). The crest of the Akropolis, where numerous cult structures, treasuries, and dedications to Athena were localized, saw nearly ceaseless growth in tandem with Athens’ military, financial, and (later) symbolic prominence. Nearly all Greek deities had multiple aspects to their identities, and on the Akropolis several of Athena’s aspects were venerated with votive statues.

The most sumptuous of these were generally funded by the citizens of Athens as a collective, such as two renowned colossi (no longer surviving): the bronze Athena Promachos (“in the frontline of battle”) and the chryselephantine Athena Parthenos (“the maiden”), both built by Pheidias (also spelled Phidias). Equipped with a shield and lance, the Athena Promachos towered over the Acropolis between the Parthenon and the Propylaea. In the Temple of Athena Nike (“the victorious”) was another cult statue of Athena, presumably seated and adorned with her battle gear. In the Erechtheion, the main temple of Athens, stood the relatively diminutive Athena Polias (“of the city”), and which differed from the previously mentioned votive statues because it was believed to have fallen from the sky and so was not made by human hands. [1] Such statues made tangible the different aspects of Athena (noted by the different names given to her) and typically became de facto cult images as worshippers prayed to them.

Scholars propose a busy “souvenir” industry at Greek sanctuaries, meaning visitors purchased, along the way to and perhaps even at the sanctuaries, offerings for the gods. Votive gifts, therefore, made a robust industry and also provide scholars with invaluable information on the religious life and visual culture of the Greeks. Painted pottery found on the Akropolis indicate that one of the most popular decorative subjects was, perhaps not unexpectedly, Athena herself, especially representations of her most famous sculptural forms.

A well-preserved black-figure lekythos shows a sacrificial procession, before an Athena seated in a simplified architectural setting that stands for both the Akropolis in its entirety and the sacred structures housing cult images. Other lekythoi show Athena Promachos being tended by a priest in a temple, while a sacrificial procession approaches her flaming altar.

The Athenas, while not entirely faithful to their respective cult-image prototypes, show that vase painters likely took as inspiration the sculptures and sacred structures they saw all around the sanctuary and Athens as a whole. We may suppose that a visitor dedicated an image of Athena Promachos to the Athena Promachos with the depiction of a perpetual sacrifice recalling the actual sacrifices the statue/goddess received regularly. Much like the myriad iterations the Statue of Liberty has received in other media following her erection, statues of Athena were reproduced constantly on vases and plaques that often accompanied these statues on the Akropolis.

A different kind of votive gift is the so-called “Potter Relief,” carved by Endoios and dedicated on the Akropolis by a potter whose inscribed name is now incomplete, is yet another sophisticated result of artistic collaboration. The potter, thankful for the good luck Athena Ergane (“the worker”) has bestowed, commissioned the sculptor to carve in stone the potter himself holding two of the kylikes he has produced.

An artistic battlefront: “War of Monuments” at Olympia

Arguably the most important Panhellenic sanctuary was that of Zeus at Olympia in Peloponnesos. Besides being the location of the Olympic Games, this sanctuary was where Greeks from all geographies, including the great colonies like Gela and Syracuse in Sicily, gathered to honor not only Zeus but almost all other primary deities and many ancestral heroes.

Consequently, potential visibility by a large population of divine and mortal alike made every inch of Olympia precious real estate for dedications. The Classical Temple of Zeus, itself a votive offering funded by the city-state of Elis and dedicated to the patron god, along with its immediate surroundings quickly became the most prestigious spot for other votives. Around 456 B.C.E., following their victory at Tanagra over Athens, Sparta placed a golden shield on the temple roof. We do not know the exact details of the shield, but it was certainly seen by each and every visitor of Olympia as a gleaming reminder of Sparta’s success and the property Athens and her allies lost at Tanagra.

Decades later, however, Sparta got a direct response: In 425 B.C.E., with the help of Messenians and Naupaktians, Athens achieved a significant victory over Sparta on the island of Sphakteria. Some of the war booty was used to erect a winged Nike on a triangular pedestal across from the temple’s entrance. The sculpture, carved by Paionios of Mende (hence the name of this sculpture—Nike of Paionios) together with its base stood nearly 39-feet-tall. It depicted Nike about to touch land, presumably with a victory wreath in her hand. Holes on the pedestal indicate that shields decorated each side, and the inscription succinctly explains the reason for the dedication: “The Messenians and Naupaktians dedicated this statue to Zeus Olympios from the spoils of the wars. Paionios of Mende made it, who also won the competition to make the akroteria of the temple.” [2]

As the personification of victory, the Nike of Paionios is also meant to remind the viewer of the desirability and allure of being a victor, without shying away from any erotic connotation. The left breast of the figure is bare, yet it is her luxurious garment clinging to her curves that ends up exposing more—an excellent example of the “wet style” in Classical Greek sculpture. [3]

In more ways than one, the Nike of Paionios was the perfect votive offering in a sanctuary that thrived on the Greeks’ agonistic spirit in all its incarnations: war, politics, sports, beauty, and the favor of gods. No wonder, then, the medals for the 2004 Olympics bore as their primary image this very Nike soaring before the Akropolis and the renovated Panathenaic Stadium of Athens (Kallimarmaro).

 

Images into Words: Pausanias at Delphi

Scholars of Ancient Greek art do not always have the luxury to study artworks firsthand. The colossi of Athena Parthenos and the Spartan golden shield mentioned above are just two examples that have not reached our time but live on in replicas and, more often, the written word. Cult statues by the famous sculptors Pheidias, Alkamenes, Myron, and Euphranor, for instance, are used as a zany plot device in one of Lucian’s satirical plays.

Perhaps the most valuable source, however, is a multi-volume travelogue written by Pausanias, a Greek living under Roman rule in the second century C.E. Visiting every accessible corner of mainland Greece, Pausanias noted the intricate etiologies (foundation myths), sacred rites, monuments, and conditions of cities, sanctuaries, and communities. The last book of his Description of Greece includes a lengthy section on the shrine of Apollo at Delphi (where some came to ask questions of the oracle). Two works of art that he describes extensively are two wall paintings decorating the interior of the lesche (clubhouse) of Knidians, both by the famous Classical painter Polygnotos.

Pausanias’ complete description of these paintings is too long to quote here, but it should be noted how they exemplify the fundamentality of interactions between different artistic media (inter-media) in ancient Greece. Both paintings used Archaic literary epics as their source: one depicted the fall of Troy in the aftermath of Homer’s Iliad and the other Odysseus’ journey to the underworld (nekyia) as related in the Odyssey. Polygnotos must have known these stories by heart, as they had always been cornerstones of folk song and popular literature. In each painting he depicted approximately seventy figures in what must have been overall compositions divided into several intertwining registers. So, the eighth-century B.C.E. epics were translated into monumental paintings by Polygnotos in the mid-fifth century B.C.E., and nearly half a millennium later, they were put back into words by Pausanias. This is how they were preserved until our “modern” times when scholars of Ancient Greece began parsing the Description of Greece to access so much that has been lost and recreated, albeit with a certain naivete, what Pausanias might have seen.[4]

Sanctuaries nurtured the psyche of Greeks in myriad ways, including giving them outlets to create and, consequently, opportunities to observe, appreciate, and (re)interpret all that had been created. Religion in Greece was ingrained in every aspect of life, so it makes perfect sense that sacred sites themselves were enriched by all means with which Greeks recorded their lives.

Notes:

[1] For a thorough history of the Athenian Akropolis and the cult of Athena in association with the Panathenaic Games, see Jenifer Neils, ed., Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996).

[2] Translation from the “Nike of Paionios” page of Cambridge University’s Museum of Classical Archaeology Databases.

[3] Richard Neer, The Emergence of the Classical Style in Greek Sculpture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010, pp. 138-41.

[4] Mark D. Stansbury-O’Donnell, “Polygnotos’s Nekyia: A Reconstruction and Analysis,” American Journal of Archaeology vol. 94, no. 2 (1990), pp. 213–35

Cite this page as: Müge Arseven, “Greek sanctuaries as artistic hubs,” in Smarthistory, August 26, 2020, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/greek-sanctuaries-artistic-hubs/.

Useful for scholars

Pottery is virtually indestructible. Though it may break into smaller pieces (called sherds), these would have to be manually ground into dust in order to be removed from the archaeological record. As such, there is an abundance of material for study, and this is exceptionally useful for modern scholars. In addition to being an excellent tool for dating, pottery enables researchers to locate ancient sites, reconstruct the nature of a site, and point to evidence of trade between groups of people. Moreover, individual pots and their painted decoration can be studied in detail to answer questions about religion, daily life, and society.

Shapes and Themes

Made of terracotta (fired clay), ancient Greek pots and cups, or “vases” as they are normally called, were fashioned into a variety of shapes and sizes (see above), and very often a vessel’s form correlates with its intended function. For example, the krater was used to mix water and wine during a Greek symposion (an all-male drinking party). It allows an individual to pour liquids into its wide opening, stir the contents in its deep bowl, and easily access the mixture with a separate ladle or small jug. Or, the vase known as a hydria was used for collecting, carrying, and pouring water. It features a bulbous body, a pinched spout, and three handles (two at the sides for holding and one stretched along the back for tilting and pouring).

In order to discuss the different zones of vessels, specialists have adopted terms that relate to the parts of the body. The opening of the pot is called the mouth; the stem is referred to as the neck; the slope from the neck to the body is called the shoulder; and the base is known as the foot).

On the exterior, Greek vases exhibit painted compositions that often reflect the style of a certain period. For example, the vessels created during the Geometric Period (c. 900-700 B.C.E.) feature geometric patterns, as seen on the famous Dipylon amphora (below), while those decorated in the Orientalizing Period (c. 700-600 B.C.E.) display animal processions and Near Eastern motifs, as is visible on this early Corinthian amphora  (The British Museum).

Later, during the Archaic and Classical Periods (c. 600-323 B.C.E.), vase-paintings primarily display human and mythological activities. These figural scenes can vary widely, from daily life events (e.g., fetching water at the fountain house) to heroic deeds and Homeric tales (e.g., Theseus and the bull, Odysseus and the Sirens), from the world of the gods (e.g., Zeus abducting Ganymede) to theatrical performances and athletic competitions (for example, the Oresteia, chariot racing). While it is important to stress that such painted scenes should not be thought of as photographs that document reality, they can still aid in reconstructing the lives and beliefs of the ancient Greeks.

Techniques, Painters and Inscriptions

To produce the characteristic red and black colors found on vases, Greek craftsmen used liquid clay as paint (termed “slip”) and perfected a complicated three-stage firing process. Not only did the pots have to be stacked in the kiln in a specific manner, but the conditions inside had to be precise. First, the temperature was stoked to about 800° centigrade and vents allowed for an oxidizing environment. At this point, the entire vase turned red in color. Next, by sealing the vents and increasing temperature to around 900-950° centigrade, everything turned black and the areas painted with the slip vitrified (transformed into a glassy substance). Finally, in the last stage, the vents were reopened and oxidizing conditions returned inside the kiln. At this point, the unpainted zones of the vessel became red again while the vitrified slip (the painted areas) retained a glossy black hue. Through the introduction and removal of oxygen in the kiln and, simultaneously, the increase and decrease in temperature, the slip transformed into a glossy black color.

Briefly, ancient Greek vases display several painting techniques, and these are often period specific. During the Geometric and Orientalizing periods (900-600 B.C.E.), painters employed compasses to trace perfect circles and used silhouette and outline methods to delineate shapes and figures (below).

Around 625-600 B.C.E., Athens adopted the black-figure technique (i.e., dark-colored figures on a light background with incised detail). Originating in Corinth almost a century earlier, black-figure uses the silhouette manner in conjunction with added color and incision. Incision involves the removal of slip with a sharp instrument, and perhaps its most masterful application can be found on an amphora by Exekias (below). Often described as Achilles and Ajax playing a game, the seated warriors lean towards the center of the scene and are clothed in garments that feature intricate incised patterning. In addition to displaying more realistically defined figures, black-figure painters took care to differentiate gender with color: women were painted with added white, men remained black.

The red-figure technique was invented in Athens around 525-520 B.C.E. and is the inverse of black-figure (below). Here light-colored figures are set against a dark background. Using added color and a brush to paint in details, red-figure painters watered down or thickened the slip in order to create different effects.

Watered down slip or “dilute glaze” has the appearance of a wash and was used for hair, fur, and anatomy, as exemplified by the sketchy coat of the hare and the youth’s musculature on the interior of this cup by Gorgos (below). When thickened, the slip was used to form so-called “relief lines” or lines raised prominently from the surface, and these were often employed to outline forms. Surprisingly similar to red-figure is the white-ground technique.

Though visually quite different with its polychrome figures on a white-washed background, white-ground requires the craftsman to paint in the details of forms just like red-figure, rather than incise them (see the Kylix below).

Alongside figures and objects, one can sometimes find inscriptions. These identify mythological figures, beautiful men or women contemporaneous with the painter (“kalos” / “kale” inscriptions), and even the painter or potter himself (“egrapsen” / “epoiesen”). Inscriptions, however, are not always helpful. Mimicking the appearance of meaningful text, “nonsense inscriptions” deceive the illiterate viewer by arranging the Greek letters in an incoherent fashion.

Vases and Reception

The overall attractive quality of Greek vases, their relatively small size, and—at one point in time—their easily obtainable nature, led them to be highly coveted collector’s items during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the later part of the nineteenth century, however, the study of vases became a scholarly pursuit and their decoration was the obsession of connoisseurs gifted with the ability to recognize and attribute the hands of individual painters.

The most well-known vase connoisseur of the twentieth century, a researcher concerned with attribution, typology, and chronology, was Sir John Davidson Beazley. Interested in Athenian black-, red-figure, and white-ground techniques, Beazley did not favor beautifully painted specimens; he was impartial and studied pieces of varying quality with equal attention. From his tedious and exhaustive examinations, he compiled well-over 1000 painters and groups, and he attributed over 30,000 vases. Although some researchers since Beazley’s death continue to attribute and examine the style of specific painters or groups, vase scholars today also question the technical production of vessels, their archaeological contexts, their local and foreign distribution, and their iconography.

Cite this page as: Dr. Renee M. Gondek, “Greek Vase-Painting, an introduction,” in Smarthistory, September 9, 2016, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/greek-vase-intro/.

How did ancient Greek potters make and decorate their pottery?

In ancient Greece, the phrase “to make pottery” meant to work hard. This video from the J. Paul Getty Museum reveals how the typical Athenian potter prepared clay, threw vases, oversaw firing, and added decoration or employed vase-painters. Video from the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Cite this page as: The J. Paul Getty Museum, “Making Greek vases,” in Smarthistory, December 20, 2015, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/making-greek-vases/.