From Rulers’ Dwellings to Temples, Thirty Years On

PITHOS (Princeton-Ioannina-Thessaly On-Site Seminars) Graduate Exchange Program Lecture

In my lecture, I will return to an earlier thesis of mine in order to reassess its validity. The main idea posited that in the Early Iron Age, at least until the mid 8th century B.C., certain functions later associated with urban temples were originally fulfilled by the dwellings of the “rulers” or, more generally, by the residences of local elites. The primary role of these edifices was to host large-scale feasts, some of which likely had a ritual character. This situation gradually changed as socio-political conditions transformed, eventually leading to the emergence of the polis and the subsequent isonomia among citizens. The review of the evidence, derived from excavations conducted over the past decades as well as new evaluations of older data, does not appear to contradict this premise.