4 - Housing in Mainland Greece during the Classical Period

Summary

Chapter 4 considers to what extent housing on the rest of the Greek mainland was organised in a similar way to that in Athens and Attica, during the fifth and earlier fourth centuries BCE. The discussion includes evaluation of excavated houses in northeastern Greece (Olynthos, Thasos, Torone), northwestern Greece (Ammotopos, Kassope, Leukas), and central and southern Greece (Halieis, Dystos, Ano Siphai, Elean Pylos). By exploring the spatial extent of the single-entrance courtyard house, and addressing the potential underlying social significance of some of the continuities or variations in form and organisation, the Chapter addresses how representative this house-form, with its associated social norms, may have been, of Greece more widely. It is argued that the single-entrance, courtyard house is most characteristic of larger households in larger, urban settlements, and that co-existing alongside it were smaller houses which were most characteristic of smaller settlements but were sometimes also found in urban locations. The relative proportions of the different types cannot be estimated due to the fact that the archaeological data are unlikely to provide a representative sample.