Tag Archives: agora

The Meeting Halls of the Hellenistic Epirus

Author: E. Rinaldi

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The birth of an urban culture in Epirus between 4th and 3rd cent. B.C. shows the progressive construction and monumentalisation of the places of civic participation (agoras and sanctuaries) in the Hellenistic period. The political architecture displayed the greatest level of monumentality and was the result of the growing needs of the local communities to attribute autonomy and sacredness to civic and federal institutions. In this sense, this article argues that the buildings with a quadrangular plan, built within the main public spaces of the Epirote cities, were especially meeting venues for political gatherings of officials and civic bodies. These public “meeting halls” were perfectly integrated in the framework of the cultural Hellenistic koinè shared throughout the Ancient Mediterranean.

The Pigment Production Site of the Ancient Agora of Kos (Greece): Revisiting the material evidence

Author: Ariadne Kostomitsopoulou Marketou

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A late-Hellenistic production site was found at the eastern stoa of the agora of Kos. The presence of destroyed fire-structures indicates pyrotechnological processes, related to pigment manufacture and metallurgy. Pigment production included the treatment of natural earths and the manufacture of the artificial material Egyptian blue. Among the excavation’s finds were hollow tubular litharge rods, amorphous lead lumps and drops, and a small quantity of silver, which point to lead production and silver separation through cupellation. The co-existence of the two separate manufacturing activities at the same site may have been beneficial in supplying the workshop with raw materials and fuel. The strategic location of the production site in the commercial centre of the ancient town, with its connection to the port, would have facilitated trade. The production debris from the Koan site underlines the relationship between pigment manufacture and metallurgy.

Dreros e Priniàs: nuovi dati e prospettive di ricerca sulla polis a Creta

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The present paper focuses on Priniàs and Dreros. These two Cretan sites show both analogies and differences concerning the construction and development of the civic and religious spaces during the Iron Age and the Archaic period. Furthermore, they allow to investigate the birth of the polis temple in connection with both the rise of an urban entity around an open space (agora) and the socio-political changes carrying from the Geometric society to archaic polis community. Furthermore, the paper underlines the importance of the new archaeological investigations of areas and buildings already excavated over the past century, which often allow a new reading of the archaeological evidence.

Edifici pubblici e pasto rituale in Attica

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This paper was presented at the International Conference Cibo per gli uomini, cibo per gli dei. Archeologia del pasto rituale, Piazza Armerina, 5-8 of May, 2005. This is now an updated version. The article concerns the issues related to ritual meal in Attica, especially by analyzing the function of several buildings showing an array of cases that has not been properly assessed yet. Each case’s specific features lead to the hypothesis that banquet building rooms’ plan and furniture, as well as the overall number of available seats, point to the existence of different usage methods reflecting coherent social and religious structures. Athens, Eleusis and Brauron are taken into account as examples of a functional system that autonomously organizes its own spaces on the basis of social and institutional needs.