The Areopagus Oval Building Reconsidered

Abstract

The Areopagus Oval Building (AOB) provides a rare insight into Athenian architecture during the Geometric period, a time in which the archaeological record is mostly confined to graves. Dorothy Burr’s original 1933 publication of the building remains an exemplary and exhaustive presentation of the archaeological evidence (Burr, 1933). Even so, both the date and the function of the building have been matters of debate for decades. Burr herself identified the structure as a house (e.g., Burr 1933, 637). In 1968, however, Homer Thompson suggested that the structure served as a cult of the dead rather than a domestic house (Thompson, 1968, 58-60; Thompson, 1978). He based his theory on the seemingly isolated position of the building, its superposition directly over an Early Geometric I child’s burial, and its proximity to the so-called Areopagus Geometric Burial Lotnearby burials (fig. 1). Thompson also suggested that “a thin, low stone socle for the bounding wall, a clay floor cobbled in part, and traces of burning on the floor, would be equally and perhaps more appropriate to a temenos open to the sky” (Thompson, 1968, 60). A large Protoattic votive deposit covered much of the building’s collapsed remains. This deposit included fine pottery, figurines of horses and chariots, rectangular pinakes, and miniature shields of terracotta. (fig. x). Burr suggested that the deposit was not associated with the AOB, but rather ; it was refuse from a nearby sanctuary (Burr 1933, 636-640). For Thompson, the deposit secured the AOB’s identity as a shrine, for he considered the votive assemblage was considered “closely matched in the votive deposit found in the dromos of the Mycenaean tholos tomb at Menidhi,” and therefore suitable for a “cult of the dead” (Thompson, 1968, 60). Until recently, most scholars have accepted Thompson’s interpretation (e.g. Wycherley 1978, 193; Snodgrass 1982, 678; Whitley 1994, 225; Antonaccio 1995; Parker 1996, 34, n. 20 (no.3); Coldstream 2003, 30; Papadopoulos 2003, 275). In the past decade or so, however, this standard orthodoxy has come to be questioned (Alexandridou (forthcoming); Mazarakis Ainian 1999, 21; Boehringer 2001, 69; van den Eijnde 2010, 114-16; Laughy 2010, 257-294). These recent works have raised four main issues with Thompson’s theory: 1) The surviving architectural features do not accord with an open-air shrine; 2) The chronological relationship between the building and the child grave has never been fully understood; furthermore, a child’s burial as the impetus for a full-fledged ancestor cult would be unique to the Greek world; 3) There is no reason to connect the function(s) of the AOB with the Protoattic votive deposit on top ofthat covered it; and finally 4) There is evidence of domestic use associated with the AOB. All of these considerations underscore the need for a fresh analysis of the AOB’s material remains. Based in part on a reexamination of the pottery lots, the excavation notebooks, and excavation summary reports, we offer here some preliminary conclusions. We have two main objectives. The first is to offer a fruitful contribution to the debate over the chronology and architecture of the AOB. To this end, we incorporate into our discussion of the AOB an analysis of nearby graves, wells, and other architecture, which we feel provides crucial clues insight into the building’s history and the people who used it. Our second objective is to place the building in the context of similar contemporary buildings throughout Attica. Doing so reinforces the notion that a black and white distinction between ritual and domestic use of many of these buildings is unwarranted; the two functions were, in fact, closely related.