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Instructions for Paper 1 on
Discussion: In formal class meetings with the instructor in the X-Hour, principally on Tuesday, 16 January but also in the same time slot two weeks later (30 January) to check on problem areas. Informally and on a continuing basis, at the discussion forum for this assignment designed for student use only.
Due: on or before Monday, 5 February (Class #13).
Length: 5-8 pages of text (i.e. ca. 1250-2000 words), not including illustrations, bibliography, and footnotes.
The Nature of the Assignment
Present a synopsis of the physical appearance and the history during the Classical period of an Athenian public building or monument.
The Purpose of the Assignment
The goals of this assignment are to improve students' abilities to:
(a) think of ancient buildings in terms of all their component parts (from foundations to roof, both those visible when the building was in use and those which were only visible when the building was being constructed or while it was being excavated) and all their constituent materials (both those which have survived, in whole or in part, and those which have entirely decomposed);
(b) perceive that a building's history through time - the story of its construction, remodeling(s), and abandonment, demolition, or destruction - can be every bit as complex as was its actual physical appearance at any given moment;
(c) use words economically while at the same time employing illustrations effectively. [This paper assignment is a short one in terms of its text, but drawings can (and should!) be used to illustrate plans and elevations, and charts can be devised to present a building's history graphically.]
(d) read critically. [Archaeological reports, despite the masses of detail which they typically contain, often fail to include items of information critical for such tasks as the reconstruction in full of a building's history or of its complete appearance at any particular time. Be on the lookout for information which you want or need, and have a right to expect, but which isn't provided by your sources!]
Details of the Assignment
Choose an Athenian public building or monument located in or immediately around the Athenian Agora [other than the Hephaisteion or the Eponymous Heroes Monument, both covered in some detail by readings and lectures] which was in use for at least some time between the Persian sack of 480 B.C. and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. (For brief summaries of dozens of such structures accompanied by bibliographical references to their fuller descriptions in more specialized sources, see Thompson and Wycherley 1972 in the bibliography at the end of these instructions.)
For this building or monument, discuss in 5-8 pages an outline of:
(a) its phases of use [= building history];
(b) its plan(s);
(c) its elevation(s) from at least one side, preferably the front (also desirable in most cases would be one or more sections through the structure);
(d) the materials from which it was constructed.
Feel free either to suggest your own phasing for the building or to adopt one suggested by your sources. Whatever phases you decide upon, be sure to indicate what the principal dating evidence is for the beginning and end of each phase. Don't forget that you are responsible in this paper only for whatever Classical phases (480-323 B.C.) your structure may exhibit - earlier Archaic and later Hellenistic and Roman phases, if they exist, may be ignored. You may organize your paper in whatever way seems to you to make the most sense: by phase, by category of physical appearance (i.e. plan first, then elevation, with changes in materials or chronological changes noted under the appropriate heading), by spatial units (i.e. rooms) within the larger whole, etc.
Plans and elevations should in most instances take the form of photocopied or scanned reproductions of drawings located in your sources, numbered and labelled appropriately for citation in the text of your paper (i.e. do not simply retain the numbering and labelling of the source in which you found such drawings). Elevations (or sections) should be additionally labelled with the direction in which the viewer is facing; all plans should include a north arrow.
Building materials can be summarized either in the same chart(s) used for the phasing or in one or more separate charts which incorporate cross-references to the phases into which the building's Classical history has been subdivided.
Most of the actual information which you collect for this paper should appear in the chart(s) and drawings. The text should consist primarily of commentary on the problems you have encountered in preparing the charts (e.g. how and why you chose the phases you did, how good the dating evidence is for them, etc.) and of questions which you have been unable to answer due to the inadequacy of your source materials. Unanswered questions are normally far more common in archaeology than answered ones, and you should feel no embarrassment at all in having plenty of them. Some you may manage to answer by doing a little additional reading, by consulting the instructor, or by just thinking them through carefully on your own. But there will be plenty left which nothing but more excavation, or fuller publication of what has already been excavated, can solve ..... The instructor is a resource who is perfectly willing to be exploited ......provided he is consulted before the assigment is due and at some reasonable hour! For the quickest and most reliable method of consulting, or to arrange a face-to-face meeting at a particular time, use Blitzmail. Potentially more helpful resources, in that they may be more readily available on campus at times inconvenient for the instructor, are your fellow students: a special forum area has been set up for you to consult with your classmates on any and all aspects of this project.
The text of your paper should be presented in your best expository prose, carefully proofread for typographical errors, incomplete sentences, etc. The grade will be determined as follows:
Overall content (with emphasis on the quality of the unanswered questions) . . . . . 1/3
Range and quality of charts and drawings (and their labels!) . . . . .1/3
English of the text . . . . . 1/3
Bibliography [all on reserve for GRS 22 in Baker Library]
- A. L. Boegehold, The Athenian Agora XXVIII: The Lawcourts at Athens: Sites, Buildings, Equipment, Procedure, and Testimonia (Princeton 1995).
- J. S. Boersma, Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 B.C. (Groningen 1970).
- J. M. Camp and W. B. Dinsmoor, Jr., Ancient Athenian Building Methods (Princeton 1984).
- P. Connolly and H. Dodge, The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens and Rome (Oxford 1998).
- W. D. E. Coulson et al., The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy (Oxford 1994).
- J. J. Coulton, Ancient Greek Architects at Work (Ithaca 1977).
- J. J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford 1976).
- W. A. McDonald, The Political Meeting Places of the Greeks (Baltimore 1943).
- S. Miller, The Prytaneion: its Function and Architectural Form (Berkeley 1978).
- H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora XIV: The Agora of Athens: The History, Shape and Uses of an Ancient City Center (Princeton 1972).
- R. Tölle-Kastenbein, Das archaische Wasserleitungnetz für Athen und seine späteren Bauphasen (Mainz 1994).
- R. F. Townsend, The Athenian Agora XXVII: The East Side of the Agora: The Remains beneath the Stoa of Attalos (Princeton 1995).
- J. N. Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (New York 1971).
- N. A. Winter, Greek Architectural Terrac ottas: From the Prehistoric through to the Archaic Period (Oxford 1993).
- N. A. Winter, Proceedings of the International Conference on Greek Architectural Terracottas of the Classical and Hellenistic Periods [Hesperia Supplement 27] (Princeton 1991).
- R. E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora III: Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia (Princeton 1957).
- R. E. Wycherley, The Stones of Athens (Princeton 1978) 267-279 [with helpful bibliography on materials on pp.278-279].
For a helpful encyclopedia of Greek architectural terms, consult the text and associated images available through PERSEUS.
To consult with your classmates on any and all aspects of this project, enter the Discussion Forum.
For papers that the instructor found particularly praiseworthy, see the listings on Best Answers.
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Last updated 02 Jan 2001