Angie Bonk: Prehistoric Greece

Greece is a mountainous country that is surrounded by three seas, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Ionian. Greece has competition among its different communities. Within each community there is an individual government. The climate is hot during the summer and bitter during the winter. The country is known for a heavy use of marble. They were the first ancient country to begin to use this material. Greece also produces grain, grapes, olives and salt. A very popular piece of architecture from the Golden Age was the Parthenon. It is an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. It is also the most important building of Classical Greece. This building also developed the Doric order. Homes during this time were build of mud-brick on a stone foundation. This made domestic buildings far less impressive than public buildings, like the Parthenon. In homes, they also used wooden framework and terracotta roof tiles. Rooms were given specific purposes in the modern houses and some of these rooms might have been reserved for use of different sexes. The design also had spacial characteristics. One characteristic is a compluvium, which is an opening in the roof to be able to catch rainfall in a cistern or a impluvium right below it. Floors where plastered and painted for the wealthy and included mosaics of pebbles, glass and stone. Their paint applications on the walls were painted in divisions of a dado (lower part of the wall), main field (middle part of the wall), and a cornice (the upper part of the wall). Windows were placed high on the wall, doors had wood, stone and marble frames, and they were big on coffered ceilings. Their furniture materials were mainly leather ans cords with an inlay of gold ivory and gems. Some of Classical Greece's seats were thronos, klismos, kline, and diphros.

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