by Brooke Wolfe

Created on: April 09, 2009

Archaeology of Anatolia December 9th, 2003 3: Megarons in Ancient Anatolia (Modern day Turkey) The megaron is an architectural form surprisingly found to last throughout most of the historical ages in Anatolia. The fist evidence of it is in Chalcolithic Beycesultan (5500-3000) and the most recent findings of megaron in Anatolia have been from the Lydian period (687-547). That is an immense span of time covering over 1800 years. This originally simple structure took many different forms and even developed into completely new structures like the Neo Hittite Bit Hilani and Hellenistic temples with columns. Megarons are not seen at all prior to the Chalcolithic. In the Paleolithic and Mesolithic, people mostly lived in caves. In the Neolithic (10000-5500) the only evidence for architecture seen is the use of mud brick in agglutinative (beehive pattern, no streets, no plan) patterns. Initially in the Chalcolithic Period, megara are made from handmade unbaked, sun-dried, cigar-shaped bricks called mud brick. Its plan followed the one story rectangular hall-and-porch design. It consisted of a long hall, and a storage room, and occasionally they were found with columnar porches, vestibules, or main rooms with a hearth in the center. In the early chalcolithic they are basically just domestic units which make some use of timber. In the late chalcolithic they more commonly have two rooms instead of just one, are symmetrically planned, and are found accompanying large tripartite structures.

In the Early Bronze Age (3000-1900) megaron units were found at Beycesultan again as well as Troy, Mersin, Aphrodisias, Tarsus, and Karatas-Semayuk. Overall the megaron of this period had extended walls and a double gateway on the outer wall was added. They were more defense-oriented as these peoples must have had greater threat of invasion. At Troy, megara were not just found standing alone, but in a series with stone ramps leading up to them. They are commonly entered through a propylon, which is an outer monumental gateway also seen in Hellenistic temples. Foundations are still made of stone, but the Bronze Age people made more use of timber. More advancements include the fact that these people seemed to have made more use of the circular hearth in the center and there is evidence for multiple rooms, not just one main room. In the Bronze Age Beycesultan, foundations become deeper than they were in the chalcolithic. Use of timber is more prominent and there is even evidence for possible

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>