Tholos

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tholos of a nuraghi seen from below (inside)

The Tholos ( ancient Greek ἡ θόλος thólos , therefore technically feminine , in general also masculine ; plural tholoi ) was originally a sacred rotunda with or without a colonnade in Greco-Roman antiquity . The term was later extended to every rotunda and especially the round roof. Therefore, round secular buildings could also be called tholos . In Roman times, Tholos ( Latin tholus ) could also refer to the round grave building.

The word appears first in Homer ( Odyssey 22, 442 ff.). Therefore, Bronze Age circular buildings, especially so-called dome tombs of the Mediterranean region and circular buildings with cantilever vaults , are referred to as tholos in research.

prehistory

Because of the use of the term by Homer, it was initially used for Mycenaean rotunda. Based on this, the term was then transferred to round buildings from other prehistoric cultures.

Distribution of prehistoric tholoi

Lion holos in Mycenae

As the oldest tholoi or tholos-like buildings, the Cypriot complexes of Chirokitia are addressed, which in turn seem to have Levantine forerunners ( Jerf el Ahmar ). They are beehive-like buildings ( beehive tombs, or Beehive-huts in Ireland ), the dome of which consists of cantilever vaults made using drywall technology. Tholos-like structures occur in almost all Mediterranean cultures of the Metal Age, from the Levant to Provence ( Tholos de la Lauve ) to the Iberian Peninsula and northward near the Atlantic to the British Isles .

The Iberian domed tomb from the Copper Age is a round building with a more or less long corridor called a dromos . The dome is a fake dome . The domes can extend from the ground, as in the Tholos do Barro and the dome tomb of Monge, or, as in Alcalar 3 and Huerta Montero, they start from a base made of stone slabs, which lines the lower wall sunk into the ground.

The dead of the Iberian Copper Age were also buried in natural or artificial caves . An artificial cave was usually carved out of the limestone rock in the form of an igloo with a passage . Georg and Vera Leisner referred to this type of facility as a rock dome grave. The first rock-domed graves were examined by C. Ribeiro near Palmela between 1868 and 1878 ( Quinta do Anjo , Casal do Pardo).

Tholos tombs dating from the early Bronze Age have been found on Crete . Most of these are located in the south of the island; large finds have been made especially in the Messara plateau and its surroundings. 75 Tholos tombs (94 across the island) were discovered there. 25 of the tholos tombs found in southern Crete (about 50 datable tholoi were found there) were dated to the Early Minoan I period. These are relatively small domed tombs that are about 5.5 meters in diameter.

A larger Mycenaean example in advanced stone and vault technology is the treasure house of Atreus . It is the oldest example of a ceiling extension using only (medium-sized) stones. Similar monumental grave tholoi were z. Discovered, for example, in Orchomenos and in the 1990s near Tzanata on Kefalonia .

Antiquity

The ancient Tholos usually has a circular cella and a colonnade surrounding the cella concentrically . One then speaks of peripteral tholos. In the interior it can comprise a further column ring or a half-column structure of the inner wall. But there are also simple solutions without a colonnade, such as the tholos on the Agora of Athens , which ancient lexigraphers mostly used as a reference for their definition of the term tholos.

Tholos in Delphi

The design of the peripteral tholos was particularly in the 4th century BC. Popular. The Tholos of Marmaria in the Athena sanctuary in Delphi is considered a particularly beautiful example of Greek classical music . It is also one of the best known. Also famous is the Tholos of Epidauros , which also has a columnar ring inside the cella. Numerous inscriptions with construction accounts have survived from this building of unknown function, which is called Thymele . Other well-known Tholoi were the Arsinoeion in Samothrace and the round temple for Philip II of Macedonia and his family, the so-called Philippeion in Olympia .

One of the best-preserved examples is the round temple on the Tiber on the Forum Boarium , the so-called Vesta temple, in Rome, which can also be referred to as the peripteral Tholos. The same applies to Temple B (Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei ) in the Sacra di Largo Argentina area in Rome.

A structure that resembles the peripteral tholos superficially is the Monopteros , but it lacks the decisive circular space, the cella. In ancient literature, the term Monopteros could still be used synonymously with Tholos.

present

In the country, field stables, huts or shelters with cantilever vaults have been and are almost congruent with the distribution area of ​​the tholoi up to the present day . An example from the 19th century in Europe is the Jussow Temple (called Apollon Temple) in the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel.

More pictures

See also

literature

  • Joachim Losehand: Houses for the rulers of Rome and Athens? Reflections on the function and significance of building F on the Athens Agora and the Regia on the Roman Forum (= Antiquitates series. 42). Kovač, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-3397-4 .
  • Stephen G. Miller: Circular Roofing Systems and the Athenian Tholos. In: Πρακτικά του ΧΙΙ Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου Κλασικής Αρχαιολογίας, Αθήνα, 4-10 Σεπτεμβρίου 1983. band D. Ταμείο Αρχαιολογικών Πόρων και Απαλλοτριώσεων, Αθήνα 1988, pp 134-139, (files of the International Congress of Classical Archeology in Athens 4-10 September 1983).
  • Florian Seiler : The Greek Tholos. Investigations into the development, typology and function of artistic round buildings. von Zabern, Mainz 1986, ISBN 3-8053-0918-X .

Web links

Commons : Tholos  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Duden online: Tholos
  2. ^ J. Lesley Fitton: The Minoans . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1862-5 .