The final Geometric-early Archaic era saw more elaborate houses develop, multi-roomed rather than single-space, associated with defined courtyards, and rectilinear rather than oval-apsidal forms. The construction shows more investment with greater use of stone, whilst expensive terracotta roof-tiles become general. This house plan becomes the commonest form of Classical Greek home and appears to embody a pronounced conceptual contrast between the family, shielded from direct contact with others, busy with internalized social and economic activities (the prime domain of women), and the public (male) world of the city’s public spaces.
Using the illuminating approach of “space syntax” (Hillier and Hanson 1984), a key part of which involves a systematic mapping of access routes through built structures, Lang (2005) shows how Iron Age homes are typically single linear sequences of one to a few rooms, and with rare multiple movement-paths. In Archaic times the number of rooms tends to rise at the same time as the access plan develops into a more radial route system focused on an enclosed courtyard. If the Geometric house offers privacy with depth, its outside face (where most everyday family life would have occurred) was public and unshielded from general view, whilst the spaces inside were a mere one to two rooms with minimal differentiation of function. In contrast, the Archaic house with its closed entrance leading into a private yard cuts the family off from public access and gaze. Once into the yard, a range of two to three and often several more roofed spaces are separately accessed, suggesting more differentiated activities, especially if the closed yard is seen as a formal bounded space as well. A more elaborate and distinct life for the citizen family can be read as reflecting the rise of the city-state and its mentality. Jameson (1990) suggests that the creation of this typical “courtyard-house” for polis citizens arose from two sources: firstly from a conscious elaboration of more complex forms of living as the wealth and status of ordinary families improved, and secondly from copying the homes of the elite. In the “Dorian” type of serf-states (famously represented by Sparta), the emphasis on male citizen communal eating might be expected to reduce the focus on elaborating the citizen family house, and indeed excavated Cretan homes largely confirm this (see Chapter 12) (Westgate 2007).
The Archaic state is most commonly run by a class of aristocratic families. We therefore would expect to find wealthier mansions. Few are known, probably due to research limitations. We would need Archaic town quarters dug with extensive horizontal excavation to demonstrate a cross-section of social classes. Unfortunately most excavated Archaic homes are also from old projects where limited finds were kept (Lang 2005). Actually some putative Archaic town mansions exist, such as Building F in the periphery of the Athenian Agora, whilst the late phase at Zagora has distinct areas with larger and smaller homes perhaps denoting class differences (Hall 2007). City-states in the Eastern Aegean have also evidenced elite rural mansions from excavation (Crielaard 2009).
World History
