Hellenistic Architecture and Human Action: A Case of Reciprocal Influence (Scales of Transformation)

This book examines the mutual influence of architecture and human action during a key period of history: the Hellenistic age. During this era, the profound transformations in the Mediterranean’s archaeological and historical record are detectable, pointing to a conscious intertwining of the physical (landscape, architecture, bodies) and social (practice) components of built space.

Compiling the outcomes of a conference held in Kiel in 2018, the volume assembles contributions focusing on Hellenistic architecture as an action context, perceived in movement through built space. Sanctuaries, as a particularly coherent kind of built space featuring well-defined sets of architecture combined with ritual action, were chosen as the general frame for the analyses. The reciprocity between this sacred architecture and (religious) human action is traced through several layers starting from three specific case studies (Messene, Samothrace, Pella), extending to architectural modules, and finally encompassing overarching principles of design and use. As two additional case studies on caves and agorai show, the far-reaching entanglement of architecture and human action was neither restricted to highly architecturalized nor sacred spaces, but is characteristic of Hellenistic built space in general.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Hellenistic Architecture, Landscape, and Human Action
Annette Haug – Asja Müller

Three sanctuaries as case studies

The Sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis in Messene: Natural Setting and Human Action
Stefan Feuser – Maria Spathi

Interstitial Space in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace
Bonna D. Wescoat – Susan Ludi Blevins – Maggie L. Popkin – Jessica Paga – Andrew Farinholt Ward – Michael C. Page – William Size

Sanctuary Disposition and Cult Practice: The Thesmophorion in Pella
Soi Agelidis

Principles of design: Hellenistic sanctuaries between agency and perception

The Usage of the Pronaos of Hellenistic Temples
Philipp Kobusch

Constructing the Sublime: Landscape, Architecture and Human Encounter in Hellenistic Sanctuaries
Christina G. Williamson

Secluded or Entangled: Two Modes of Architecture-Landscape Design in Hellenistic Sanctuaries
Asja Müller

Roman Awe for Greek Sanctuaries: Polybius and Livy Illustrate Roman Encounters with Greek Patrimony
Jessica van ‘t Westeinde

Man-Made Space versus Natural Space in Greek Sacred Caves
Katja Sporn

Beyond sanctuaries: the agora

The Upper Agora at Ephesos in Hellenistic Times: in Search of the ‘State Market’ (in honour of Wilhelm Alzinger, 1918-1998, on his centenary)
Dirk Steuernagel

Since 2012, Dr. Annette Haug has been Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Dr. Haug was also PI of the ERC Consolidator Grant “Decorative Principles in Late Republican and Early Imperial Italy” from 2016-2022. She is also former Co-Speaker and actual PI of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS.