Transcript Primitive and Prehistoric Architecture

Ancient and Egyptian
Architecture
Architectural History
ACT 322
Doris Kemp
7/21/2015
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Topics
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Paleolithic Era: The Early Stone Age
Neolithic Era: The New Stone Age
Post and Lintel
Corbelling
How did they move all that stone?
Megalithic Structure Categories
Megalithic Theories of Origin
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Paleolithic Era:
The Early Stone Age
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Earliest dwellings of Western and Southern
Europe took two forms:
Multichambered caves and rock shelters
 Fragile, tent-like assemblages of poles covered with
hides or thatched reeds.
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Permanent structures were impractical
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Occupants were nomadic, or constantly moving
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Paleolithic Era:
The Early Stone Age
Swimming Deer, Lascaux, France, circa 15,000-13,000 BC.
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Neolithic Era:
The New Stone Age
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Began about 9000 B.C.
Humanity learned to farm as well as hunt
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More permanent structures begin to appear
Dwellings were crude fabrications of organic
and impermanent materials including:
Timber
 Straw
 Mud
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Neolithic Era:
Catal Huyuk
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Catal Huyuk
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Anatolian Plain in Turkey
Community dating back
to 7000 B.C.
Includes the first known
religious shrine
Structures were made of
shaped mud-brick
Excavation, Catal Huyuk
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Neolithic Era:
Catal Huyuk
Reconstructed Shrine Interior of Catal Huyuk
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Neolithic Era:
City of Jericho
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Jericho
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In modern day Jordan
c. 7000 – 6000 B.C
Rectangular, two room
houses
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Smoothly finished plaster
floors and walls.
Settlement was enclosed
by large stone walls
View of excavation, Jericho
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Neolithic Era:
City of Jericho
Settlement Wall and Tower, Jericho
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Neolithic Era
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Most impressive Neolithic architecture was not
built for practical uses
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Served spiritual and magical needs of the society
Megalithic
Means “great stone”
 Huge stones assembled without mortar in basic
structural arrangements
 Characteristic of most later Neolithic architecture
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Neolithic Era:
Post and Lintel
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Post and Lintel
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Vertical uprights support
a horizontal beam
Remains the single most
important structural
device used in
architecture
Post and Lintel, Dolmen de la Frébouchère, France
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Neolithic Era:
Corbelling
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Corbelling
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Successive courses of
masonry project forward
progressively from the
wall plane to bridge a gap
Could provide:
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solid roof for a space
between two parallel walls
worked forward from the
sides of a centralized
enclosure to form a
domelike ceiling.
Corbelling at Agamemnon’s Citadel at Mycenae
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Neolithic Era:
How did they move all that stone?
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Megalithic builders most likely quarried the large
stones by splitting them at the lode
Barges and sleds using huge timber rollers
probably provided transport
Lifting was provided through leverage over
inclined masses of earth materials
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Later removed after construction
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Structure Categories
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Two categories:
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Tombs (called Dolmens)
Chamber tomb
 Passage Grave
 Gallery grave
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Non-tombs - Used for religious or spiritual purposes
Menhirs
 Cromlechs or henge monuments
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Dolmens
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Chamber tomb (simplest)
Single roofing stone supported by two more uprights
 Post and Lintel
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Passage Grave
Rectangular polygonal chamber
 used for collective rather than a single burial
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Gallery grave
Elongated, rectangular chamber
 no entrance passage
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Passage Grave
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Tomb, New Grange, Ireland, c. 3000-2500 BC
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Menhirs
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Menhirs
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Single stones standing
alone or in rows
Common in Europe
Menhirs, Carnac, Brittany, France, c. 4250-3750 BC.
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Menhirs
Menhirs, Carnac, Brittany, France, c. 4250-3750 BC.
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Henge Monuments
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Henge monuments – also known as cromlechs
Composed stone groups, often in a circular shape
 Extensive use of post and lintel in many formations
 British Isles
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Greatest concentration of henge monuments in the world
 Sanctuary near Avebury
 Stonehenge
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Henge Monuments
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Sanctuary near Avebury
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Largest prehistoric
monument in Europe
1300 ft. diameter enclosing
several rings of stones
Only markers exist today
representing the locations
of the stones
Sanctuary near Avebury, England
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Henge Monuments
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Stonehenge
Located on the Salisbury Plain not far from Avebury
 Built in the form of concentric rings
 Construction was highly accurate for the time
 Most likely built by a Sun worshipping cult
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Henge Monuments
Stonehenge, England
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Henge Monuments
Stonehenge, England
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Theories of Origin
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“Diffusionist” Theory
Older theory
 Megalithic buildings types and techniques originated
in the Aegean Bronze Age of Crete and Greece
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c. Second Millennium B.C.
Spread westward across the Mediterranean Sea and
upwards to the Atlantic coastal region through the
British Isles
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Neolithic Era:
Megalithic Theories of Origin
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Recent scientific findings have questioned the
“Diffusionist” Theory
Carbon dating has dated northern European
structures 2000 years older than their Mediterranean
predecessors
 Great stone structures in Avebury and Stonehenge
date back to 3000 B.C.; centuries before the great
pyramids of Egypt
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References
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Sullivan, Mary; http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/
http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Cities/wld/wdpt1.html
Trachtenburg/Hyman; Architecture: From Prehistory to
Postmodernity
Wodehouse/Moffett; A History of Western Architecture
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Ancient and Egyptian
Architecture
Architectural History
ACT 322
Doris Kemp
7/21/2015
27