Lesche (architecture)

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Lesche ( Greek  λέσχη , plural: λέσχαι leschai ) refers to a meeting room or a building in which one could sit together, negotiate and talk in antiquity .

function

With Homer and Hesiod , the Lesche was a warm, sheltered place, especially a blacksmith's shop, and a hostel or overnight stay for the destitute, and therefore sometimes somewhat disreputable as a gathering point for idlers and gossipers. They were often found near Greek marketplaces and sanctuaries.

Lesche could also mean the meeting place of a council or a corporation. In Sparta each phyle had its own lesche , apparently buildings of some importance. Pausanias mentions in particular the lesche krotanon ( λέσχη Κροτανῶν ) and the lesche poikile ( λέσχη ποικίλη ).

For Plutarch , the Lesche appears as a place of idleness and residence of the elders, where they spend most of the day:

In these they came together and talked comfortably with one another, without thinking of anything to do with money-making or market deals, but their pastime mainly consisted of praising good actions and censuring bad ones, with jokes and laughter, which goes unnoticed led to reprimand and correction.

In short: the pump room as a moral institution. Elsewhere Plutarch mentions the Spartan Lesche as the place of a gloomy decision. That is where the newborns would be brought by their fathers for the elders of the phyle to examine. The children were well-formed and free from malformation, they were allowed to live, otherwise they were into an abyss on Taygetos called Apothetai ( ἀποθεταί "File", "separation", of ἀπόθεσις "abandonment of children") thrown.

Read the Knidier

Furthermore, there were generally meeting and consultation places belonging to the temples of Apollo , which were dedicated to Apollo Leschenorios ( Λεσχηνόριος ).

The most famous such consecration is that of the Knidier in Delphi, a rectangular hall building with 8 interior columns. The interior was decorated with famous paintings by Polygnotus . The right wall showed the conquest of Troy and the departure of the Hellenes, the left the visit of Odysseus to the underworld. The paintings have not survived, but their structure can be reconstructed through the detailed description of Pausanias , a task that Goethe also dealt with.

etymology

A relationship between the Greek word lescha (Ionic: lesche ) and the Semitic lishkah (Hebrew: לשכה), which denotes an outbuilding of a temple for the common sacrificial meal, was suspected as early as the 19th century , for example several times in Jer 35  EU . The word sound suggests a borrowing of the Greek word from the Semitic one, and a corresponding thesis has been put forward. A study by Walter Burkert from 1990 comes to the conclusion that (if at all) the Hebrew word is a borrowing from Greek or another Indo-European language (possibly via the Philistines ). The Greek etymology from the root λεχ- (Gr. Λεχος bed; in addition German “lie”, English “lie”) speaks for such a direction of borrowing, while the word is not used in Semitic areas except in Tanach . Alternatively, a derivation of λέγω (speak, speak) is assumed.

literature

  • Walter Burkert: Lescha-liskah: Sacred hospitality between Palestine and Greece. In: B. Janowski et al. (Ed.): Relationships in the history of religion between Asia Minor, Northern Syria and the Old Testament. International Symposium Hamburg, 17. – 21. March 1990 (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 129). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-53764-6 , pp. 19-38
  • Walter Hatto Groß: Lesche (architecture). In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, Sp. 587-Lesche.
  • Robert B. Kebric: The paintings in the Cnidian Lesche at Delphi and their historical context. Brill, Leiden 1983, ISBN 90-04-07020-6 .
  • Michael Maass: Ancient Delphi. Oracles, treasures and monuments. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-10940-6 , pp. 178-180.
  • Philip Smith: Lesche. In: William Smith : A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. John Murray, London 1875, p. 681 (online at: penelope.uchicago.edu )
  • Klaus Stähler: The Lesche der Knidier - a Neoptolemosheroon? In: Boreas. Münster contributions to archeology. Vol. 12 (1989) pp. 15f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Homer Odyssey 18,329
  2. ↑ Hesiod Works and Days 493
  3. ↑ Pausania's description of Greece 3.14.2, 3.15.8
  4. ↑ Plutarch Lykurg 25.2
  5. ↑ Plutarch Lykurg 16
  6. ^ Plutarch On the E in Delphi 385B
  7. ↑ Pausania's description of Greece 10.25ff
  8. ^ William Robertson Smith : The Religion of the Semites. Original title: Lectures on the religion of the Semites. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1967. Reprint of the 1899 edition, p. 406.
  9. ↑ Original text: BHS
  10. ^ Otto Schrader: Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte Jena 1907. Reprint: Olms, 1980, p. 497.
  11. ^ Walter Burkert: Lescha-liskah. 1990. See literature.
  12. ↑ Christoph Höcker: Lesche. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 7, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01477-0 , column 87.