chapter 15

MYCENAEAN ARCHITECTURE
louise a. hitchcock

From the nal Neolithic/Early Bronze to the end of the Bronze Age, Aegean and Mycenaean architecture is characterized by both continuity and innovation, as well as the adoption and adaptation of neighboring practices. The most obvious feature of mainland architecture is that it is hall centered, dominated by a central rectangular hall or megaron, thereby combining both axiality and simplicity. It forms the core element of the Mycenaean palaces, with additional rooms and courtyards organized around it. Construction techniques varied regionally and chronologically but include a variety of techniques including mud-brick superstructures on a stone socle, drywall masonry, rubble masonry, Cyclopean (massive unworked and partially worked boulders) masonry, and ashlar masonry on a stone socle. Mud bricks were used to construct upper-story walls and to make repairs. Terraces consisting of retaining walls with lls were used to extend the habitable area on hillsides and serve as platforms for buildings, typifying Mycenaean palatial architecture (Wright 1978, 54107). The use of local stone predominates in building. Ashlar was typically sand or limestone, although saw-cut, dressed conglomerate blocks were used in special places such as thresholds and the entrances of fortications and tholos tombs. Conglomerate is composed of naturally cemented-together pebbles, cobblestones, and other sediments, giving the worked blocks a colorful, variegated appearance. This type of rock made up the Panagia Ridge in Mycenae and also occurs in Lakonia at Vaphio. There was also a sparing use of decorative stone such as gypsum, which might reference Crete, in the palaces and other monumental structures such as tombs. Other types of decoration include carved stone elements such as horns of consecration, sparing use of carved relief, wall paintings, and painted plaster oors. Mycenaean

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architecture is also characterized by a liberal use of the corbel arch, which was used to relieve the downward pressure on the lintel blocks of monumental doorways and to create niches. Corbel vaults were used to build culverts in bridges, construct galleries and passageways, and create the domed beehive or tholos tombs.

Neolithic Architecture
Late NeolithicEarly Bronze Age architecture on the mainland is characterized by variations on a theme, namely the rectilinear hall. For example, the site of Dimini in the plain of Thessaly in central Greece is dominated by a large central, megaroid-style building (Preziosi and Hitchcock 1999). It comprises a large hall with a horseshoe-shaped hearth that is roughly centered, with four columns supporting the roof as indicated by postholes. A forehall and smaller porch connected to the hall by axially placed doorways were later additions. Rectangular Neolithic houses might also be apsidal at one end and include a rectangular porch. Apsidal houses are also well attested in the Middle Bronze Age (discussed later). Neolithic houses were more frequently composed of just a small, single rectangular room that contained a variety of internal features including bins, hearths, and platforms. Hearths might be constructed out of stones that may or may not have been coated with clay. Bins were constructed form stone slabs; pits coated with clay served as storage areas. Rainy weather in many parts of Greece suggests that roofs were slanted or gabled with a covering of clay and reeds. Neolithic houses typically employed stone foundations that would have supported a mud-brick superstructure and postholes for wooden supports. House models give some indication as to what houses may have looked like and reect an interest in symbolically representing them. while the practice of making house models does not seem to continue in later Bronze Age Greece (with the exception of the Menelaion), it did occur in Crete. Other types of installationssuch as pottery kilnsalso characterize Neolithic settlements.

The Mainland in the Early Bronze Age

Larger, hall-centered rectangular or megaroid buildings appear in signicant numbers during the Early Bronze I from Troy and Poliokhni in the northeastern Aegean and throughout mainland Greece. They were commonly entered on their short side, with axially connected rooms. A variant of this form, the corridor house, is distinguished by a more complex internal arrangement. It is composed of large, square, axially aligned halls that are encircled by long narrow corridors and/or stairways.

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The more elaborate and monumental corridor houses begin to appear on the mainland later, in Early Helladic II (ca. 29002400 BC). Although once believed to be limited to the House of Tiles at Lerna in the southwestern Argolid, more examples of this form have been detected, most notably at Kolonna on the island of Aegina. The House of Tiles was named for the enormous quantity of red clay roof tiles associated with the building. It was built of mud brick over a substantial stone foundation course (ca. 12 x 25 m), with traces of wood-sheathed doorjambs and stucco-plastered walls in some rooms. It was two stories high, as indicated by traces of stairways, and may have had several verandas upstairs, partially covered by a pitched roof, as suggested by Shaw (1990). The House of Tiles was preceded by an earlier structure of similar type, House BG. These buildings sometimes also incorporated elaborate clay hearths that are decorated with stamped-seal impressions. In addition, while monumental fortications typify the mainland, they are well known in the Cyclades during the EBA as well. These fortications were characterized by thick, stone-built walls; round (Lerna, Kastri) or square (Troy, Poliokhni) towers; heavily protected and/or hidden entranceways (Preziosi and Hitchcock 1999). Dwellings were characterized by groupings of rooms into what may have been compounds for extended families, separated by alleys, streets, or courtyards. Burial architecture was simple, consisting of rectangular cists lined with stone slabs.

Middle Helladic Architecture

On the mainland, cities were located on citadels from at least the Middle Helladic period. Early examples of the prototypes for Mycenaean palaces may be proposed for the MH through LH II periods. Among them, House D at Asine is the most convincing. It is composed of a rectangular hall and porch but lacks the column bases and hearth of a canonical megaron (see the following section). Other early structures that are worthy of mention include a Middle Helladic building with hall and porch at Eutresis; Building F at Krisa in Phocis, which was composed of a hall with ancillary chambers and side corridor as early as LH I; a large LH II hall with two preserved column bases at Kakavatos in Elis (Barber 1992); the MH settlement at Kolonna on Aegina, where a reused ashlar block with double-ax masons mark hints at a Cretan connection (Niemeier 1995); and a substantial MH building at Plasi (Marinatos 1970), which features a rectangular hall rather than the apsidal hall more common to this period. The LH II building known as Mansion I at the Menelaion in Lakonia is the earliest building of some importance on the mainland. It was a hall-centered building with a porch and a forehall, as well as rear and side chambers accessed by circulatory corridors. Its carefully rendered foundation beddings anticipate the Mycenaean palaces of the 13th century BC. Mansion I and its successor,

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Mansion II, contain some of the earliest ashlar blocks on the mainland in the form of reused poros blocks, which imply the presence of an earlier, hypothetical building dubbed the Old Menelaion (also Catling 19761977).

Characteristics of Mycenaean Palaces

Mycenaean palaces of the Late Helladic III period are best known from Pylos, Mycenae, and Tiryns, while less typical variants are known from Midea and Gla. Thebes and Orchomenos are only partially preserved, and the presumed Mycenaean palace at Athens was obliterated by later structures. In terms of design, the main Mycenaean palaces included a core set of recognizable architectural features and modules arranged in a set pattern, additional recurring features that were deployed in a varied syntax, and unusual elements that were site specic and formed the central part of a larger compound that included buildings unique to each site. This is most clearly illustrated at Tiryns and Pylos and to a lesser extent at Mycenae, where much of the palace was lost over a precipice. The core element of the Mycenaean palace is the megaron, or hall. This is generally not very large and would have t easily within the central court at Knossos. It consists of a hall, a forehall, and a porch of rectangular outline with two columns in antis to support the roof. Both the forehall and the porch are approximately one-half the depth of the inner hall. The internal arrangement of the megaron was dominated by a monumental circular hearth decorated with painted plaster and surrounded by four columns. The best-preserved hearth is at Pylos and is ca. 4 m. in diameter with an inner ring of 3 m. It is decorated with a painted stucco design depicting a running spiral motif around the top and a ame pattern around the side. There, the columns probably supported a clerestory with a balcony to admit light and draw off smoke through a two-part clay chimney found in the excavations. The megaron frequently had rear chambers, with side corridors giving access to smaller, square service rooms. All megarons incorporate variations of this basic arrangement. Most dominant among the additional recurring features alluded to earlier is a smaller, subsidiary megaron that is frequently referred to as a Queens megaron by analogy with Evanss suggestions for Knossos. At Tiryns, this feature is located to the northeast of the palace across a court, though still within the connes of the palace. In contrast, at Pylos this feature is tightly incorporated into the fabric of the palace and is located to the south of the east row of side chambers and on the east end of the courtyard leading into the palace. An H-shaped propylon with a central doorway and one or two columns between projecting antae is another characteristic feature. Layers of plaster around the column bases at Pylos preserved impressions of uted wooden columns. The propylon gives access to a colonnaded courtyard that leads to the palace at both Pylos and Tiryns. Tiryns had an additional outer courtyard and

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propylon, which initially formed the entrance to the citadel in LH IIIA1 and became the inner part of a more complex entry system by LH IIIB. At Mycenae, the palace and its associated structures was spread over multiple levels situated on three articially constructed Cyclopean terraces. A lengthy passage separates the propylon at Mycenae from the courtyard that fronts on the palace. A grand staircase also leads to the courtyard. Soles (1995) regards this staircase, throne emplacements, and heraldic decoration in Mycenaean palaces as a Knossian inspiration. Beyond the commonalities in the megaron hall, propylon, court, and similar construction techniques (discussed later), there is an extraordinary amount of variation in the appointments in the palaces, as well as in the rest of the compound. Some examples include the storage jars for oil set into benches behind the megaron and a decorated clay bathtub set into a clay bench behind the Queens megaron, both at Pylos. In contrast, Tiryns boasts a colossal, sloping, monolithic black slab with channel and mortises, which may be for washing or libation. The megaron at Mycenae was decorated with a gypsum slab pavement, which may reference earlier Minoan prestige architecture. Many of the rooms deployed around the megaron at Tiryns are included within the fabric of the building, while Pylos and Mycenae had a number of nearby but discrete buildings that were functionally associated with them. At Pylos, these include the Southwest Building, an earlier megaron-style building with a different orientation and many interconnected rooms that give the compound an indented west faade, and the Wine Magazine, a rectilinear hall to the northeast of the palace, where wine was stored. To the east of the palace at Mycenae and at another level lie several buildings, including the Artisans Quarter, a square building that may have served as an annex to the House of the Columns (also Maggidis 2008). The House of the Columns was a colonnaded, court-centered building with a north-south orientation and a west wing composed of what may be storage or workrooms. The many differences in Mycenaean palatial compounds warrant a closer functional analysis. Many of the building techniques employed in Mycenaean palatial architecture are quite similar to those used earlier by the Minoans. These include the use of timber framing and a rubble core in the interior walls, which were usually covered with plaster. The exterior walls of the palaces were constructed of ashlar blocks, many containing dovetail mortises or clamp cuttings to secure them to the rubble core and square dowels to hold horizontal timbers along the outer face of blocks, with the occasional use of mortar. A few Minoan-style masons marks have turned up on the mainland, notably on an ashlar block with a double ax found beneath the palace at Pylos and two others on the dromos of the tholos tomb at Peristeria. Although horns of consecration have also turned up at Pylos and at Gla, they are actually more common in Cypriot architecture. Doors are indicated by cut-stone doorjambs similar to those found in Crete, while the absence of these in some doorways suggested to Blegen that hangings were also used (Blegen and Rawson 1966). The oors of the Mycenaean palaces were coated with plaster that was decorated by means of an incised grid of small squares painted with nongural patterns. The absence of symmetry in the arrangement of the grid has been contrasted to

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earlier Minoan oor patterns that were executed with more precision and logically related to the architecture (Hirsch 1977). The variegated stone of Minoan paved slab oors has been suggested as possible inspiration for these oors. A similar painted oor, but incorporating oral motifs, is known from the MBA Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri, where there are also Aegean-style frescoes, suggesting that the Mycenaean painted plaster oor had its origins in Crete or the Cyclades (Niemeier and Niemeier 1998). Another painted plaster oor of Minoan inspiration has been found at Tell el Daba. Pedestals or platforms located opposite the hearths of the palaces indicate that a throne (Linear B as to-no) stood there, while other pedestals near doorways at Pylos may indicate guard stands. A narrow channel with depressions at either end, perhaps for pouring libations, was cut in the oor at Pylos near the pedestal for a throne. The Mycenaean palaces were also decorated with elaborate fresco programs, which included processions, heraldic animals, and agonistic scenes.

Tombs
Although the round or tholos tomb seems to evolve independently from humble beginnings in the western Peloponnese, the Late Helladic II period marks the appearance of monumental beehive or tholos tombs of ashlar construction. Stone architecture frequently symbolizes permanence, and Mycenaean tholoi may have been modeled on MH tumuli based on the superimposition of one of the earliest Mycenaean tholoi at Vodokoilia (Messenia) on an MH tumulus. The earliest tholoi, built as free-standing monuments, were subject to roof collapse. Building them into the hillside in order to support the vaulted dome solved this problem. They dominated the landscape as unprecedented territorial and genealogical markers of wealth and power (cf. Wright 1987). The most famous and elaborately constructed tholos tomb is the so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae. The Treasury of Atreus consists of a great chamber (14.5 m. in diameter) built into a cutting in the hillside and entered by a long corridor (dromos). The corbeled dome of ashlar blocks is built of circular courses progressively extending inward and upward to a central, round capstone. Traces of nails in the interior are regarded as the remnants of bronze ornament (rosettes?). Although robbed in antiquity, burials would have been placed in a side chamber. The building originally had a sculpted faade that included two engaged columns of greenish marble, finely carved with chevrons and spirals, and above the door a faade of alternating red and white bands of running spirals and lozenges between two smaller engaged columns. Behind the carved faade is the relieving triangle over the massive lintel, its great size symbolizing the power to harness resources (Frizell 19971998). More characteristic in the Mycenaean world is the use of chamber tombs carved into rock.

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Fortications
The drive to fortify places such as Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Athens, Thebes, and Gla occurred in stages rather than suddenly (Iakovidis 1983; Loader 1998; Scoufopoulos 1971). The beginnings of Mycenaean fortications can be traced to earlier MH and LH defensive structures in Messenia and Lakonia (Wright 1978, 162). The earliest LH III fortications were modest, lacking the elaborate features of the Tiryns gate or the unique monumental sculpture of the rampant antithetic lions of the famous Lion Gate and Great Ramp leading up the citadel at Mycenae. The fortication walls tended to follow the contour of the acropolis and were built in sections, as is especially evident in the west at Tiryns, where there are distinct offsets reminiscent of the west faades of the Minoan palaces. Sections ranged to 8 m. in thickness and reach a maximum preserved height of 13 m. Saw-cut and hammer-dressed conglomerate blocks were used for highly visible sections of the entrance systems, while the bulk of the wall was constructed of unworked limestone boulders. Although recent interpretations (Maran 2006) argue that Mycenaean fortication walls were more about display, they certainly were also intended to help the city function as a place of refuge during times of stress. The initial fortications begun in the 14th century in LH IIIA1 at Tirynsand twenty-ve years later at Mycenaesurrounded only a limited portion of each site, primarily encircling the megaron with simple entry systems: an H-shaped propylon at Tiryns and an overlapping break reconstructed at Mycenae. By their third phase, some eighty years later, around 1250 BC, both citadels had doubled in size, encompassing a much larger area. At Tiryns, the famous corbel vaulted galleries were added on the south and the east, and a complex series of ascending ramps and gateways was also added on the east. It was at this time at Mycenae that the famous Lion Gate with projecting bastion was constructed, and the west wall was extended to enclose Grave Circle A and the nearby Cult Center. At both sites, the entry systems would have served to spread out and diminish the effectiveness of an attacking force. In the west wall at Tiryns, a sally port that progressively narrowed inward would have served a similar purpose. At this time, the monumental Great Ramp leading up the Acropolis at Mycenae was constructed over the broken slabs of Grave Circle A and an earlier ramp of hard-packed earth and pebbles. A new Postern Gate was added on the north, and a tower was built on the southeast a short time later. Although undecorated, the design of the Postern Gate incorporates the same features of the Lion Gate on a smaller scale, a slab of stone placed in the relieving triangle of the corbeled arch over the lintel of the doorway. Final changes enacted around 1200 BC saw the addition of sally ports, while a further extension of the fortifications at Mycenae on the northeast enclosed an underground cistern, reached by a zigzag underground staircase leading to a rectangular shaft fed by an aqueduct from a nearby spring. It was coated with plaster, allowing the water to rise into the lower passage. At Tiryns, tunnels leading out of the citadel also gave access to the water supply.

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Other Large Building Projects

Other large-scale building projects undertaken by the Mycenaeans included roads, dams combining earthen embankments with Cyclopean walls, and drainage projects achieved by using the natural terrain combined with dykes utilizing Cyclopean masonry to create canals that channeled the seasonal lake at Copais in Boeotia into sinkholes (katabothroi).

Religious Architecture
The LC I Temple at Kea represents a regional development as indicated by its unusual plan, spectacular hoard of wheel-made, terra-cotta statuettes of females, and long history of importance to Aegean and later Greek religion. Its use continued into the Iron Age, and by at least the sixth century BC it had become a shrine of Dionysos. Preserved remains form a long, narrow, trapezoidal structure built of drywall masonry in which the northwestern wall angles inward toward the south. The entrance was probably located at the eroded southeastern end. A rectangular hall with several stone installations takes up the full southeastern end and opens onto a rectangular hall at the northwestern end, which is divided into two small, rectangular rooms on the northeast side. A small court at the west end is connected to processional walkways along the north and south sides of the temple. Other Aegean shrines, as typied at Phylakopi and at the Cult Center at Mycenae, were usually double shrines, possibly inuenced by and inuencing Near Eastern cult buildings (contrast Gilmour 1993; Negbi 1988). A possible Canaanite prototype can be found at Tell Mevorakh, and there may have been Philistine successors as at Tell Qasile and Tell Miqne-Ekron (cf. Mazar 2000). Mycenaean shrines are characterized by rectangular halls with rear chambers, small benches and/or platforms for the display of cult offerings, and a small rear chamber serving as a holy of holies or storage area for ritual paraphernalia. They also had column supports. A spherical stone baetyl was located in the court between the two shrines at Phylakopi, while the Cult Center at Mycenae included a bathtub and fresco paintings.

Postpalatial Domestic Architecture

Following the destruction of the Mycenaean citadels in the LH IIIC or Early Iron Age, rectilinear halls and various types of hearths characterized houses. At Tiryns, a new east wall was built in the palace, which may have been reused, although its

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status as a palace is uncertain. The construction of chamber tombs was replaced by the use of cist graves and cremation burials in jars, while the construction of small tholos tombs persisted in Crete.

Conclusion
The houses and palaces of mainland Greece were characterized by their organization around the rectilinear megaron hall. The palaces served as redistributive centers and regulated access to prestige goods and imported commodities such as bronze, ivory, and gold. These activities would have made it possible for craftsmen to obtain needed staples in exchange for their wares. Although the Mycenaeans augmented their traditional megaron and tholos plans with other types of buildings that may have been adapted from abroad, it is possible to speculate that some of their construction techniques were developed through the presence of Minoan builders who found their way to the mainland as part of elite gift exchanges and/or as refugees seeking new patronage after the fall of the Minoan palaces (Hitchcock 2008). The sheer monumentality of Mycenaean fortications, tombs, and public works symbolized the power of the ruling elite. As in Crete, access became more restricted in the Mycenaean palaces toward the end of their histories.

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