2.1 Urbanisation in the Aegean region
Colin Chant states 'A necessary condition of the emergence of cities in Europe was the diffusion of Neolithic agriculture and animal husbandry from the Near East, (...) and by about 3000 BCE had been adopted throughout Europe'. (Bk1,p48). V.Gordon Childe's diffusionists model suggests that the city came to Europe as a result of trade with the urban civilisations of the Near East as they sought to acquire raw materials not locally available. (Diffusion in this context refers to the spread of technological innovation). This was especially true of the quest for tin ores required for the creation of bronze.
Trade in these raw materials alone was not sufficient for urbanisation to occur as the ability to create agricultural surplus nearby was required to allow the development of specialization. Childe suggests that the 'idea' of the city invented in the Near East was diffused to Crete, Greece and Rome, but Chant suggests this is an over-simplification, and that having developed agriculture and animal husbandry a sudden expansion in metal working associated with the use of bronze and other copper alloys from about 3000 BCE accompanied rapid population growth and the development of a ranked and hierarchical society. This with the intensive trading in the Eastern Mediterranean region saw urbanization develop. The geographical considerations of mountain ranges to the north and west of the Aegean encouraged sea borne trade. This was also encouraged by the indented coastline full of natural harbours and accessible islands. Cities located on small coastal plains or a little way inland on one of Greece's relatively small rivers had abundant building stone, clay for pottery, a good quality timber from Northern Greece. 'The situation was in reverse of that in Mesopotamia, which had abundant agricultural land and limited raw materials, but the effect was the same: a resource imbalance that stimulated trade'. (Bk1,p50)
Table 1.1 Selected period and (in italics) reigns of ancient Mesopotamian history (adapted from Postgate, 1992,p.22 and Oates, 1986,pp199-202
Dates (BCE) Period Dates (BCE) Period
5000-4000 Ubaid 1950-1600 Old Babylonian
4000-3200 Uruk 1792-1750 Hammurabi
3200-2350 Early Dynastic 900-650 Neo-Assyrian
2350-2150 Dynasty of Akkad 704-681 Sennacherib
2334-2279 Sargon 650-539 Neo-Babylonian
2150-1950 Third Dynasty of Ur 604-562 Nebuchadnessar II
Table 2.1 Periodisation of ancient Aegean history
Dates (BCE) Civilization (Period)
2600-1400 Minoan
1400-1200 Mycenae
1100-750 Greek (Dark Age; also subdivided into Protogeometric
and Geometric, after distinctive pottery styles)
750-500 Greek (Archaic)
500-338 Greek (Classical)
338-31 Greek (Hellenistic)
The first European cities
This section recounts the first Bronze Age civilisation, the Minoan which lasted from around 2600 to 1400 BCE centered on the island of Crete. It outlines a society dominated by rulers in independent palaces with a population skilled in pottery, metal working, weaving etc. and building in local stone. Sea trade being important suggests specialist production of wooden sailing ships, and on land partly paved roads. Only some palaces provide evidence of urban communities alongside them. More elaborate palaces from about 1700 BCE following destruction by earthquakes,had running water and flush drainage systems. There were some settlements now recognised as towns such as Palailcastro and Mallia. The Minoan civilisation declined from about 1400 BCE either from volcanic and earthquake activity or from invasion. 'In either event, the domination of the Aegean region passed from this time to mainland Greece, and to a Bronze Age civilization called Mycenaean'. (BK1,p52). The Mycenaean were of uncertain origin but assimilated Minoan habits of sea borne commerce and palace building. They constructed substantial roads around main settlements sometimes paved and kept passable in the rainy season by bridges and culverts. Their palaces have been discovered in a number of sites including Athens, Troy, Pylos, Tiryns and Mycenae, last two having stone defensive walls. Excavations of Mycenae indicate a settlement of urban complexity with a cistern fed by an aqueduct from a near-by mountain spring for the cities water supply. This boom of urbanisation was relatively brief ending in about 1200 BCE 'Whether this was because of earthquake, drought, invasion or the kind of inter-city warfare described in Homer's Iliad is another of the great unresolved issues of ancient history'. (Bk1,p53).
There is considerable conjecture as to any connection between these palace dominated urban forms and the cities of the Near East, but the Near East civilisations had at various times controlled Canaan which had also developed its own urban societies and was the site of the important trade centres and ports of Byblos and Ugarit. Some scholars believe that these directly influenced the form of Minoan settlements. Although the consensus is, that the Aegean building tradition was essentially indigenous emerging from the diffused technological and social conditions from which
the Mesopotamian and Egyptian urban civilisations had emerged.
From bronze to iron
This section initially informs of the migrations of the so called Indo-European peoples into the Mediterranean areas and the subsequent long-term effect of their languages across Europe. It also makes a distinction between the technologies of urban civilisations and those of Nomadic -people in the northeast up to the Steppes of Asia, and how their technology suited their life-styles. Leading towards a discussion on the emergence of iron which appears to have a contested history regarding its origins, the point is made that the Nomadic peoples being far more concerned with mobility,almost certainly domesticated the horse and introduced the bridle. It proposes that the emergence of the horse-drawn chariot brought together the horse skills of these Nomadic Civilisations and the woodworking skills from urban civilisations like Mesopotamia.
'Iron metallurgy was the final technology of the 'three-age system'
(stone,bronze and iron)proposed by the Danish museum director Christian Jurgensen Thompson in the early nineteenth century and still applied to Old World prehistory. [...]the US pioneer anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan[...] saw the history of human culture as a progression from savagery, through barbarism, to civilisation. He identified 'four events of pre-eminent importance'[...] the domestication of animals; the discovery of cereals; the use of stone in architecture; the invention of metallurgy, through which 'nine-tenths of the battle for civilisation was gained'.'(Bk1,p54) Explicit technological determinism!!
It also talks of the development of iron working. Iron ore was much more readily available in many areas, but took much greater effort and much higher temperatures to work than tin, copper and bronze alloy. Iron being much more resilient and tougher came to replace bronze and certainly aided the Northern civilisations such as the Hittites to take over in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Medes and the Persians moved into Iran and conquered Babylonia and the Greek civilisations moved into decline and entered a period sometimes known as a Greek Dark Age. The remaining Greek settlements however were influenced by the surrounding civilisations who introduced the idea of coinage, the use of currency having a direct bearing on the built environment as wealth, no longer needed to be stored as agricultural surplus or manufactured goods. The Greeks main experience of cities though was through the sea-borne trade of the Phoenicians who developed the port of Sydon and established trading colonies throughout the Mediterranean in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE in Sardinia, Western Sicily, Spain and North Africa where Cathage became a great commercial city. These cities were different to those of Mesopotamia and Egypt based on trade rather than Imperial power or the control of agriculture surplus. The cities of Greece were to follow in this tradition.
2.2 Greece
'The emergence of an ancient Greek urban culture was about 900BCE it's first distinctive feature was a geometric style of pottery decoration, the technological basis of which was an improved potters wheel' (bk1,p56). Pottery, wine and olive oil were the main trading commodities. Mediterranean trading and transport influenced the pattern of Greek urbanisation. Overland transport was not readily available and they followed the lead of the Phoenicians in ship building including ever larger oared warships.
The rise of the city state
This section looks at the fundamental political changes that led to the development of forms of government with citizens and elected leaders and the establishment of city states. The distinction between polis (the concept of a city state) and asto (the physical city) i.e. polis = Leics and asto =Leicester. Citizenship could equally apply to those living in the rural areas which form part of the city state. The city states established 'colonies' throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas. Although colonies such as Ephesus, Miletus, Smyrna became legally independent of their mother cities on the Greek mainland. It was the limited availability of agricultural land that sent many settlers to these colonies and thus established the whole trading area. This led to the demise of a powerful aristocracy and the rise of a hierarchy of a social class based on property rather than aristocratic descent. 'Another departure was that legislation through assemblies of citizens was clearly a human activity, rationalized through abstract concepts such as 'justice'. Although Greek civic life was conducted within a religious context, laws and political decisions were no longer presented as unchallengeable divine commands...'(Bk1,p58)
The Hellenistic City
The nub of this section recounts how the city states were eclipsed by the Macedonian invasion from the north in 338BCE led by Philip of Macedon and the empire that covered the Near East, Egypt, Persia and the Indus valley created by his son Alexander the Great. Alexander died in 323BCE and what emerged were three Hellenistic territorial empires; Macedonia under the Antigonids, Syria under Seleucids and Egypt under the Ptolemies. (Descendants of Alexander's generals who became ruling families). Ptolemy reputedly took Alexander's body from Babylon and entombed it in the new city of Alexandria, (Egypt) which had been planned by Alexander and completed by Ptolemy. It included a great palace and a renowned library and museum which attracted scholars from all over the Hellenistic world. It became an important trade and manufacture centre particularly of glassware and jewelry. It became the pre-eminent Hellenistic city. The city was laid out on a grid plan generally constructed of stone with vaulted roofing, and private houses had cisterns and sewerage arrangements. The administration of the cities public services offered Augustus the first Roman Emperor,a model for his own imperial capital. Here Ptolomy's son built the famous lighthouse on the island of Pharos. (One of the seven ancient wonders of the world).
'What were the implications for cities of the transition to imperial rule? The loss of independence meant that many former city states no longer supported their own military and naval establishments, nor did they invest in fortifications. There was also a trend, within the wider setting of imperial rule, from democracy to oligarchy in their internal politics. The eclipse of the city states has often been seen as a decline in Greek civilisation, but this does less than justice to the cultural, architectural and technological achievements of the Hellenistic age; at the very least, the great properity that resulted from the Hellenistic conquest of the Near East brought about a general rise in the material quality of urban life. Another consequence of imperial rule was greater uniformity in the urban built environment. The same Hellenistic styles, building methods and urban design spread throughout the Mediterranean and into the Near East. Each Hellenistic city was similar in its temples, assembly halls, stoas (colonnaded public buildings), market-places, roads, gates and public fountains'.(Bk1,p59)
Activity Study Book encapsulates section 2.1 and 2.2
1. How far can urbanisation in the Aegean region be seen as a process of diffusion from the Near East?
The diffusion of Neolithic technologies, and then the trading activity of the Near Eastern urban civilisations, seem to have been necessary for urban settlements to appear in the region. The cities of Canaan may also have exercised a direct influence on Aegean city-builders, though this is disputed. The new urbanizing cultures are no longer seen merely as passive recipients: archaeologists and ancient historians now see the spread of technologies and cultures as a more complex and piecemeal process that concepts such as 'diffusion' and 'migrations' of ethnic groups imply. Present-day scholars place more emphasis on indigenous contributions to both technology and trade.
2. How and why did the pattern of urbanisation in the Aegean differ from that in the Near East?
The pattern of urbanisation in the Aegean region was influenced by a geography that differed greatly from that of the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Mediterranean was an even more encouraging medium for trade, though the mainland topography was much less so - hence the pattern of settlements on the islands, and on the coasts of Greece, Anatolia, southern Italy and Sicily. The balance between the endowment of agricultural land and mineral resources was the opposite of that in Mesopotamia; as a result, Aegean settlements tended to be smaller, though they were built of more durable materials.
2.3 Greek urban planning and morphology
This chapter looks at the planning and construction of Greek cities during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. ' Defence was a prime consideration in the foundation of Greek cities: the earliest usually centred on a rocky hill or an acropolis'(Bk1,p60). There is a contrast between the early development of Greek cities from about 900BCE to the rebuilt cities and planned colony cities in the 5th Century and Hellenistic period. There emerged the gridiron or orthogonal layout of streets centering on an agora, an open space surrounded by the main public buildings. Examples are seen in Smyrna and Miletus (see Bk1,fig 2.8,p,61).
The grid device embodies notions of land use and occupational separation, central organisation and co-operation in the building of housing blocks with party walls and shared drainage; possibly a more democratic form of plan giving equal division of land when compared with early royal cities with poor dwellings on the periphery and higher class dwellings near the centre. The reason for this design may have been less political than military or that such uniformity made for speed of construction. It further allowed for gradual filling in and easy extension, there is some dispute over the origins of these cities between building for religious reasons as proposed by the French historian Francois de Polignac, and Ward-Perkins who states that archaeological records confirm the orientation of a new town was down to topographical and hygienic reasons not religious. The religious and practical considerations however went hand in hand with shrines incorporated into buildings that do appear to have been designed primarily for their secular functions, such as those surrounding the agora (see Bk1,fig2.9,p63) '...in this respect, the ancient Greek city differs from the Sumerian city, dominated by its ziggurat and shrine or the Egyptian city, dedicated to the divine Pharaoh's afterlife'. (Bk1,p63)
With the shift in focus from the acropolis to the agora the city flourished with developments such as theatres, gymnasia, stadia, public markets and enclosed shops etc. These physical structures came to be the defying features of Greek cities rather than the communities political constitution.
The design of Greek houses in which they turned in on their courtyards and away from the street reflected the importance of the private household (oikos) as the social and economic unit of Greek society. These interior courtyards were also practical providing cool, shade and light.
Finally, in this section, the importance of various Greek political and social structures to the phyical structure of a city is demonstrated by a consideration of Sparta, Athens great rival and a city considerably different in its design and fabric.
2.4 Greek technologies and city building
A short introduction focusing on Greek cities and their grid lay-out and its relationship to technologies.
Building construction
This section is a review of Greek building types mentioning stone-dry building techniques (laying masonary without mortar) or public buildings of the Classical and Hellenistic periods (Bk1,fig2.11,p66). This fig shows the typical Classical Greek building with a sectional view of the front of the Parthenon with columns, architrave, frieze, cornice, pediment. Ward-Perkins notes 'The 'Aeolic' capitals of the earliest Greek architecture in stone echoed a type that was widespread in Phoenicia and Palestine, while more generally the whole Greek architectural system of column, capital and entablature represents the impact of the masonary architecture of the ancient East, and in particular of Egypt, upon the primitive timber and mud-brick construction of Aegean Greece'. (Bk1,p67)Large assemblies tended to be held in the open-air and the Mediterranean climate allowed many Greek recreational buildings such as theatres to be uncovered. When covered spaces were required internal columns inevitably blocked the view of many in the audience (Bk1, fig 2.12, p67) shows a plan of the Therilion in Megalopolis from the 4th Century BCE with columns radiating out from the rostrum, allowing 6,000 people a view. Gymnasiums were cultural centres with included libraries and auditoria, and associated with the exercise area provided covered bathing. Hot bathing was available in the public baths warmed by a variety of methods from charcoal braziers to combination furnaces and boilers. Several technological systems were involved in the construction of a building such as a temple. Quarried stone was transplanted by means of heavy wagons drawn by teams of oxen, and column drums moved by ox-drawn cradles with large wooden wheels. Geometrical perfection was achieved with simple traditional instruments such as the cord, plumb-line, level and square. Bk1. fig 2.15,p69 shows a crane based on a description by Vitruvius.
The commitment to Hippodamean planning was retained even where some of the grid streets had actually become steep flights of stairs. Greek architects and builders became adept at constructing platforms, terracing, and landscaping to connect different levels. As maritime traders the Greeks became active and successful harbour builders. Examples of artifical harbour facilities could be found at the ports of Corinth, Athens and at Syracuse. The most ambitious undertaking was the construction of two harbours at Alexandria where a stone mole (causeway) about one and a half kilometres long connected the mainland to the island of Pharos. The famous multi-tiered lighthouse was on this island.
Water supply and sanitation
This section opens with some important points regarding water sources and their influence on the positioning and founding of Greek cities. It indicated that the Karst phenomena of permeable limestone experienced in Greece was looked for in other places when founding 'colony' cities. It records a number of technologies applied to secure water supplys over considerable distances including tunnels, aqueducts, piping and even an 'inverted siphon'. It notes that planned cities and street layouts such as in Rhodes founded in 408-407 BCE incorporated systems of underground drainage. Whereas unplanned cities such as fifth century Athens have virtually no sanitation, waste being discharged into open gutters. The Classical Greeks were among the first to be concerned about the effects on public health of urban conditions, passing laws on the dumping of waste and the digging of open drains and cesspools. Plato, Hippocrates, and Aristotle all wrote on these health related issues.
Urban industry
The Greeks were responsible for a number of craft innovations that affected the labour process and to a limited extent industrial premises of cities. Developments such as the kick wheel potters wheel, the lathe, chisels and punches made of iron and the shaft-furness all improved production and the development of smelted iron (although iron could not be cast). Changes in industrial premises would have been subtle involving some specialization of work spaces such as a fullery with its vats in which clothes were cleaned, using fullers earth and cloth was dyed. The section makes the point that within Greek society there was a general deregation of commerce, industry and manual labour by political elites, although this generalisation needs to be qualified. There is listed a number of theories and inventions by early Greek philosophers some working at the library and museum at Alexandria who invented machines based on mechanical principles such as the pulley, the screw, the lever etc. but for intellectual reasons rather than economic advantage. This rather selective attitude has been attributed to Archimedes although this may reflect more the attitudes of the writer Plutarch some three centuries later than Archimedes himself.
2.5 Athens
This section recounts specifically Athens, its history and its ascendancy particularly during the fifth-century BCE. With a huge population rising to about 330,000 additional food was a problem. The Greek fleet dominated the Straits between the Black Sea and the Aegeon and ensured that grain ships from the Black Sea region stopped at Athens first. It notes that another important source of economic strangth came from the control of the nearby silver mines, an operation of some technical note.
Athens was largely an unplanned city of organic growth around the Acropolis. The Acropolis became a separate realm of the gods conferring legitimacy on a college of magistrates who ruled following the weakening of the kingship. The Agora connected to the Acropolis by the Panathenaic Way became the centre of communal life, once the land was drained and water was supplied to a public fountain. There is a plan shown in Fig 2.22 p.76 of the city and various buildings. Alluded to is a complex relationship of the City States belonging to the Delian League. Delos being an oracle on an island, a relationship of wealth linked to religion. This financed major rebuilding in the second half of the fifth-century BCE including the temples, one of which was the Parthenon which dominated the city. There was also a redesign of Piraeus a peninsular with three harbours which became the main port of Athens. Long walls enclosed the expanding city and harbours. Water supply was also a pressing concern, and there are some notes on this and of the prevailing karst geology.
Greek vase showing women at a fountain house
Conclusion
This conclusion reviews how much Greek cities had in common with those of the Near East predecessors in their technologies, energy sources and the influence of the immediate natural environment. But, it also notes a difference in the way in which surplus resources were deployed to benefit more of the urban residents rather than chanelled into the power structures of divine monarchs.
Extract - Aristotle Politics
In this short extract Aristotle writes on the ideal geographical and geological conditions and position for a city. He notes specifically the conditions of air and supply of water. He writes at some length on the requirement for city walls and defences and how the planned layout of a city in his view, would be best partly grid (Hippodamus) and partly old style which would be organic and unplanned, suiting both aesthetic and military purposes.
Herodotus Book III Reader p22
Herodotus identifies three feats of engineering and construction by the Samians as three of the greatest works in all of Greece. A tunnel carrying water beneath a hill (details of dimensions given also see fig 2.20 p73. A mole in the sea enclosing a harbour (a jetty) and a large temple.
Reading 6 : Burns Ancient Greek water supply
This extract looks at the uniformity of techniques, materials and dimensions used across many Greek settlements and cities in bringing water to fountain houses by means of underground pipes, tunnels, resevoirs etc. It reinforces the view that a water supply from permeable limestone rock was a major consideration in the siting of any city. Such rock formations also generally provided an acropolis.
Questions
1. What were the main urban technologies deployed by the Greeks?
Building construction relied on local materials, and on animal power to bring them to the building sites; cranes were used to lift the heavier stones. Among the most impressive technological achievements of the Greeks were their water-supply and drainage systems, such as the tunnel driven through a mountain on Samos (the tunnel admired by Herodotus in Reading 3) and the Hellenistic aqueduct made to transverse two river vallays on its way to the Pergamon. Compared with the technological complexity of certain processes at the Laurion silver-mines outside Athens, urban crafts continued to be on a small scale - partly, perhaps, because they were disdained by the political elite.
2.How great was the influence of Greek technology on urban form and fabric?
Military technologies had an indirect bearing on the location of Greek cities, and perhaps on their morphology: there was some debate about the defensive merits of planned and unplanned settlements, as Extract 2.1 from Aristotle shows. The shape of cities was constrained by substantial fortifications. The harbours around which so many Greek cities were build indicate the importance of water transport in trade. There was an intimate connection between readily available materials and the trabeated (post-and-lintel) construction of the main buildings.
The greatest influence, however, has been assigned to the technology of water supply, and the geology underlying it. According to Dora Crouch, as quoted in Chapter 2, and Alfred Burns in Reading 6, the physical and even social character of Greek cities depended upon the means of obtaining fresh water, which in turn was shaped by the karst geology of Greece, with its strata of permeable limestone overlying impermeable rock. Once more, this explanation of the morphology of settlements looks monocausal, and before accepting the argument, careful thought should be given about the other possible causes discussed. For instance whether Greece's hydrogeography throws any light on the contrasting layouts of planned and unplanned settlements.
Reader: Burford Heavy transport in Classical Antiquity
A protracted extract which focuses on a dispute between historians over evidence for the use or otherwise of teams of oxen in the moving of heavy loads.
Reader: Coulton Lifting in early Greek architecture
This extract considers the lifting of heavy weights in architecture and the methods used at different times by the Greek civilisation.
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