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.

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.

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.

Tale and Parable: Theorizing Fictions in the Old English Boethius

PMLA ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 136 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-355
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Lorden
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Language ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Classical Myth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Consolation Of Philosophy ◽  
First Time ◽  
Fictional Story

AbstractScholarship has often considered the concept of fiction a modern phenomenon. But the Old English Boethius teaches us that medieval people could certainly tell that a fictional story was a lie, although it was hard for them to explain why it was all right that it was a lie—this is the problem the Old English Boethius addresses for the first time in the history of the English language. In translating Boethius's sixth-century Consolation of Philosophy, the ninth-century Old English Boethius offers explanatory comments on its source's narrative exempla drawn from classical myth. While some of these comments explain stories unfamiliar to early medieval English audiences, others consider how such “false stories” may be read and experienced by those properly prepared to encounter them. In so doing, the Old English Boethius must adopt and adapt a terminology for fiction that is unique in the extant corpus of Old English writing.

INTRODUCTION

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Urban Archaeology ◽  
The Moon ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Temple

This is the twenty-fifth Special Section published in Ancient Mesoamerica, and therefore it represents something of a milestone in the history of the journal. The goal has been to present in each special section a collection of related papers from a single project or region or on a selected topic to provide readers a tightly integrated summary of current research and interpretations. Certainly one of the most compelling and provocative special sections we have published was “Urban Archaeology at Teotihuacan” which appeared in vol. 2, no. 1 (1991). This collection of papers featured two stunning articles on the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, then often referred to as the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. Constructed in the early third century A.D., the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, along with the Sun Pyramid and the Moon Pyramid, was one of the three most powerful monuments in the sacred urban landscape of Teotihuacan. Rubén Cabrera Castro, Saburo Sugiyama, and George L. Cowgill (1991) reported on excavations in the 1980s of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid and the investigation of more than 137 sacrificial burials, including more than 70 males identified as soldiers because of associated offerings, discovered at the base of and underneath the pyramid. In the second article, Alfredo López Austin, Leonardo López Luján, and Saburo Sugiyama (1991) presented their brilliant iconographic analysis of the sculptural facades of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, arguing that the monumental structure was dedicated to the myth of the origin of time and calendric succession, a tangible cosmogonic proclamation that Teotihuacan was “the place where time began.”

Britannia Superior (c. AD 225–50)

2021 ◽  
pp. 313-325
Author(s):  
Dominic Perring
Keyword(s):  
Belief Systems ◽  
Government Official ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Temple

This chapter explores further manifestations of wealth and power in and around early third-century London, particularly evident in the rise of mystery cults and new burial practices. It starts by reviewing evidence of the expansion of the presumed suburban villa and building of a bathhouse at Shadwell c. AD 228. This was perhaps occupied by an important government official linked to the coastal supply routes later developed into the forts of the Saxon shore. Several other villas and townhouses were refurbished at this time, when the temple of Mithras was built. These and other finds reported on here attest to the popularity of a diverse range of mystery and salvation cults, with a particularly wide repertoire of Bacchic motifs. London’s later Roman cemeteries expanded as inhumation gained in popularity, and cremation became a rarer rite. The chapter describes the archaeological evidence for these changed burial practices which can also be linked to the rise of soteriological belief systems that encouraged ideas of physical resurrection. The reasons for these changed mentalities are considered in the context of the history of the period.

The Dikpālas of ancient Java revisited: A new identification for the 24 directional deities on the Śiva temple of the Loro Jonggrang complex

2012 ◽  
Vol 168 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 274-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Acri ◽  
Roy Jordaan
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Master Plan ◽  
Unresolved Issue ◽  
Central Java ◽  
Clockwise Direction ◽  
Temple Complex ◽  
History Of ◽  
Prime Objective ◽  
The Temple

Caṇḍi Śiva, sacred centre of the famous ninth-century Loro Jonggrang temple complex at Prambanan, Central Java, is decorated with numerous iconic and narrative reliefs. Starting from the eastern staircase and traversing the perambulatory in a clockwise direction, we find the narrative reliefs of the Rāmāyaṇa on the balustrade wall on our left, and the iconic reliefs of twenty-four seated male deities, each flanked by several attendants – collectively referred to in the accompanying iconographic plan as ‘Lokapālas with attendants’– on our right, that is, on the temple body proper. The prime objective of the present inquiry is propose a new identification of this set of twenty-four deities forming Śiva’s entourage, which remains an unresolved issue in the art history of Central Java. Our findings will have implications for our understanding of the iconographical master plan of Loro Jonggrang, and, in a wider sense, of certain developments in Indo-Javanese and Balinese iconography.

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.

An Ornamentalist View of Metaphor in Arabic Literary Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Khaled M. Shuqair
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Classical Theory ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Verbal Expression ◽  
The Third ◽  
Arabic Rhetoric

The aim of the present paper is to examine the kind of thinking and the chain of assumptions that lie behind the reduction of metaphor to a mere ornament in Arabic literary theory.   For this purpose, Arabic ornamentalist thinking is traced from the third century A.H. (the ninth century A.D.) to the seventh century A.H. (the thirteenth century A.D.).  This is not to say, however, that the seventh century marks the end of such thinking in Arabic literary theory, but that at that time the Arabic literary theory, and the theory of metaphor, was developed into fixtures with an increasing emphasis given to form over content and the art of verbal expression in general.  Inordinate attention was given to ornate style, and rhetoric became an arena for displaying verbal acrobatics.  The axioms, "closeness of resemblance" and "congruity of metaphorical elements," represent metaphor's highest degree of formalization and stereotyping.  That is why some of the images in classical theory are mainly based on complete parallelism between the objects compared, particularly with regard to form, size and color.  From that time onwards, the fixtures of the classical theory have been kept intact.   Metaphor, and rhetoric in general, is nowadays reduced to textbooks to be studied in abstract and rigid terms developed by the classical theory.  Arabic rhetoric is a dead discipline: it is merely an ornamental repertoire of figures that could only be used as a sweet adorner for the language.

Rome's Holy Mountain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Moralee
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Hill ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Remote Past

Rome’s Capitoline Hill was the smallest of the Seven Hills of Rome. Yet in the long history of the Roman state it was the empire’s holy mountain. The hill was the setting of many of Rome’s most beloved stories, involving Aeneas, Romulus, Tarpeia, and Manlius. It also held significant monuments, including the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, a location that marked the spot where Jupiter made the hill his earthly home in the age before humanity. This book follows the history of the Capitoline Hill into late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, asking what happened to a holy mountain as the empire that deemed it thus became a Christian republic. This is not a history of the hill’s tonnage of marble- and gold-bedecked monuments but, rather, an investigation into how the hill was used, imagined, and known from the third to the seventh century CE. During this time, the triumph and other processions to the top of the hill were no longer enacted. But the hill persisted as a densely populated urban zone and continued to supply a bridge to fragmented memories of an increasingly remote past through its toponyms. This book is also about a series of Christian engagements with the Capitoline Hill’s different registers of memory, the transmission and dissection of anecdotes, and the invention of alternate understandings of the hill’s role in Roman history. What lingered long after the state’s disintegration in the fifth century were the hill’s associations with the raw power of Rome’s empire.

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