INTERPRETING ROPE CHANNELS: LIFTING, SETTING AND THE BIRTH OF GREEK MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE

2019 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 167-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Pierattini
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Peculiar Feature ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Construction Process ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
Greek Architecture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Greek World

The first stone ashlar blocks of Greek architecture, those of the mid-seventh-century temples at Isthmia and Corinth, pose a problem for understanding the beginnings of Greek stone construction.1Their peculiar feature is the presence of grooves plausibly explained as a way to move the blocks with ropes. Yet scholars disagree about how these ropes would have been used, and during what stage of construction. The first excavators of the two temples suggested that the ropes would have served to lift each block into place, and were subsequently extracted from the grooves once the block had been set against its neighbour. Later scholars dismissed this theory as both inconsistent with the evidence and technically impracticable, questioning whether lifting machines were used in Greek construction as early as the mid-seventh century. Currently, the widely accepted view holds that the crane appeared in the Greek world only in the late sixth century. An alternative hypothesis is that the grooves were cut early in the construction process so that ropes could be used to manoeuvre the blocks within the quarry. However, the ‘lifting’ theory continues to have its adherents. Clarifying the significance of these parallel grooves is thus a matter of some importance to the history of Greek construction. This article reassesses the alternative theses on the basis of a new examination of the evidence, and demonstrates that the idea that the grooves served for lifting is the most plausible. Furthermore, it argues that forerunners of the crane appeared in Greece well before the late sixth century. Finally, by examining how the blocks would have been manoeuvred into place after lifting, it contends that the grooves also served the purpose of placement, with a method anticipating the Classical period's sophisticated lever technique.

Lifting in early Greek Architecture

1974 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Coulton
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
History Of Technology ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Mechanical Advantage ◽  
Greek Architecture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Temple

In the standard handbooks on the techniques of Greek architecture, the problem of lifting heavy architectural members is considered mainly in terms of the various cranes and hoists based on compound pulley systems which are described by Vitruvius and Hero of Alexandria. It is assumed that the same basic method was employed also in the Archaic period, and that the use of an earth ramp by Chersiphron to raise the architraves of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos in the mid-sixth century was exceptional. If this is true, it is a matter of some interest in the history of technology. The simple pulley, used not to gain mechanical advantage but just to change the direction of pull, is first known from an Assyrian relief of the ninth century B.C., and may well have been known to the Greeks before they began to build in megalithic masonry in the late seventh century B.C.; but the earliest indisputable evidence for a knowledge of compound pulley systems is in the Mechanical Problems attributed to Aristotle, but more probably written by a member of his school in the early third century B.C. This is a theoretical discussion of a system which was already used by builders, but it is not so certain that practice preceded theory by three centuries or more. It is therefore worth looking again at the evidence for the use of cranes, hoists and pulleys in early Greek building.

3. Material clues

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Barbara Graziosi
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Original Audience ◽  
Greek World

‘Material clues’ considers the archaeological evidence for when the Iliad and Odyssey were composed, including Heinrich Schliemann’s quest to find Troy on the basis of clues in the texts. The Iliad and the Odyssey refer to material circumstances not found before the later eighth or early seventh century BCE. They describe a distant, mythical past, but are set in a real and recognisable landscape. No interpretation leads to a single original audience, historical context, or specific political agenda, but earliest quotations from, and references to, Homer in other poets’ work prove that by the late sixth century BCE, the poems were well known throughout the Greek world.

Longobardi in the Sixth Century without Paulus Diaconus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Geary
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Early History ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material Evidence

This chapter attempts to construct a model of the relationships between Pannonia and Italy in the sixth century from archaeological, textual, and genetic sources without recourse to the master narrative imposed by Paulus centuries later. Although frequently criticized, the seductiveness of his account and his putative reliance on the Origo gentis Langobardorum and a lost history of Secundus of Trent have inevitably led scholars to attempt to reconcile his account of Longobard early history with fragmentary material evidence and the testimony of authors contemporary to the events Paulus recorded over two hundred years later. However, since the Origo is itself a seventh-century text and Secundus, too, was writing in the seventh century, it is perhaps worthwhile to consider, as a thought experiment, what the history of the Longobards would look like if one attempted to reconstruct it from sixth century sources without recourse to Paulus or to the Origo. The purpose of this chapter is not ultimately to reject Paulus or the Origo in their entirety, but rather, as a thought experiment, to ask what image might emerge of Pannonia and Italy in this crucial period without them.

The Impact of Inscriptions on the Interpretation of Early Śaiva Literature

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 211-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Prescriptive Literature ◽  
Fundamental Cause ◽  
History Of ◽  
Popular Devotion ◽  
The Impact

This paper considers the limitations of the Śaivas’ prescriptive literature as evidence of the reality of their religion and stresses the benefits of reading it in the light of inscriptions and other forms of non-prescriptive evidence. It utilizes these other sources to address a number of questions that the prescriptive texts do not or cannot address. The first is that of the early history of Śaivism between the Mauryas and the Guptas. It concludes that when initiatory Śaivism achieved its dominance, as it did after the Gupta period, it did so on the basis of a widespread tradition of popular devotion that goes back at least to the second century bc, and that while the ingenuity and adaptability of the emerging Śaiva traditions were instrumental in this rise, a more fundamental cause may have been that in investing in these traditions their patrons were adopting an idiom of self-promotion that would be efficacious in the eyes of an already predominantly Śaiva population. It then presents evidence of this rise to dominance, explains the contradiction between the power and wealth of the Atimārga’s pontiffs seen in inscriptions and the ascetic disciplines prescribed in its literature, shows that the Āmardakamaṭha, the Mantramārga’s earliest monastic centre, at Auṇḍhā, was already active in the sixth century, argues that it was the initiation of rulers, seen in inscriptions from the seventh century on, that enabled the Mantramārga to spread throughout the subcontinent, and demonstrates that already in the seventh century Śaiva initiation had become routinized as a calendrically fixed duty imposed on temple-attached officiants as a condition of their tenure, thus illustrating how inscriptions can reveal mundane realities that the high-minded prescriptive literature is designed to conceal and transcend.

The History of the Judahite Bench Tomb

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Suriano
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Iron Age Ii ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Insight Into

The history of the Judahite bench tomb provides important insight into the meaning of mortuary practices, and by extension, death in the Hebrew Bible. The bench tomb appeared in Judah during Iron Age II. Although it included certain burial features that appear earlier in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, such as burial benches, and the use of caves for extramural burials, the Judahite bench tomb uniquely incorporated these features into a specific plan that emulated domestic structures and facilitated multigenerational burials. During the seventh century, and continuing into the sixth, the bench tombs become popular in Jerusalem. The history of this type of burial shows a gradual development of cultural practices that were meant to control death and contain the dead. It is possible to observe within these cultural practices the tomb as a means of constructing identity for both the dead and the living.

Secular Monograms, Social Status, and Authority in the Late Roman World and Early Byzantium

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Noble Identity ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter examines the use of monograms as graphic signs of imperial authority in the late Roman and early Byzantine empire, from its appropriation on imperial coinage in the mid-fifth century to its employment in other material media in the following centuries. It also overviews the use of monograms by imperial officials and aristocrats as visible signs of social power and noble identity on mass-produced objects, dress accessories, and luxury items. The concluding section discusses a new social function for late antique monograms as visible tokens of a new Christian paideia and of elevated social status, related to ennobling calligraphic skills. This transformation of monograms into an attribute of visual Christian culture became especially apparent in sixth-century Byzantium, with the cruciform monograms appearing in the second quarter of the sixth century and becoming a default monogrammatic form from the seventh century onwards.

The Growth of Historical Method in Tang China

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Hartman ◽  
Anthony DeBlasi
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Daily Production ◽  
Successor State ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Official History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time

This chapter discusses how the full emergence of the centralized, aristocratic state in the seventh century brought about an official historiography that was part of the bureaucracy of that state. Beginning in the Tang, each dynastic court maintained an office of historiography. Over time, a regularized process evolved that, in theory and often in reality, turned the daily production of court bureaucratic documents into an official history of the dynasty. Although this process was ongoing throughout the dynasty, the final, standard ‘dynastic history’ was usually completed after the dynasty's demise by its successor state. Indeed, the very concept of a series of dynastic histories that, taken together, would present an official history of successive, legitimate Chinese states, dates from the eleventh century.

History of Recording Demotic Epigraphy

2020 ◽  
pp. 491-507
Author(s):  
Jan Moje
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Rosetta Stone ◽  
Roman Egypt ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter gives an overview of the history of recording and publishing epigraphic sources in Demotic language and script from the Late Period to Greco-Roman Egypt (seventh century bce to third century ce), for example, on stelae, offering tables, coffins, or votive gifts. The history of editing such texts and objects spans over two hundred years. Here, the important steps and pioneering publications on Demotic epigraphy are examined. They start from the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt found the Rosetta stone, until the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals THE HISTORY OF BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES RECONSIDERED: AN ANCIENT FRAGMENT RELATED TO PS.-PHILOXENUS (P.VARS. 6) AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Eleanor Dickey
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Alphabetical Order ◽  
Bilingual Dictionaries ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

Abstract This article identifies a papyrus in Warsaw, P.Vars. 6, as a fragment of the large Latin–Greek glossary known as Ps.-Philoxenus. That glossary, published in volume II of G. Goetz's Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum on the basis of a ninth-century manuscript, is by far the most important of the bilingual glossaries surviving from antiquity, being derived from lost works of Roman scholarship and preserving valuable information about rare and archaic Latin words. It has long been considered a product of the sixth century a.d., but the papyrus dates to c.200, and internal evidence indicates that the glossary itself must be substantially older than that copy. The Ps.-Philoxenus glossary is therefore not a creation of Late Antiquity but of the Early Empire or perhaps even the Republic. Large bilingual glossaries in alphabetical order must have existed far earlier than has hitherto been believed.

Finding a Home for a Roof in Production within the Building History of Poggio Civitate (Murlo)

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 65-94
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Winter
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Under Construction

Abstract The unique workshop excavated at Poggio Civitate (Murlo) contained elements of a terracotta roof in the process of production (Roof 2–22 [Winter 2009]). The conflagration that destroyed the buildings on the plateau at the beginning of the sixth century B. C. E. in effect fired the raw clay elements, which were lying on the workshop floor in the shade of the roof to dry before firing. No building under construction has previously been identified as the planned home for this roof. Possible candidates can now be proposed, buildings which show no evidence of being finished to the point of having a tiled roof or of having objects in the interior that would represent use levels.

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