Parthenon

Comitium

In Roman architecture, a building near the forum used for voting and other political matters.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Comitium

Cubiculum

In Roman architecture, the bedchamber of a house. The term also refers to a chamber in a catacomb used for rites of the dead.

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Cubiculum

Imhotep

Vizier, sage, astrologer, and architect of the first pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Djoser (2630-2611 BC), the second king of Egypt's 3rd Dynasty. He was chief minister to Djoser and was later worshipped as the god of medicine in Egypt and Greece (Asclepius). Manetho credits him with the invention ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Imhotep

Nymphaeum

An ancient Greek and Roman sanctuary consecrated to water nymphs. It was an elaborately decorated public drinking fountain - a semicircular monumental Classical fountain house. It often had niches filled with sculpture. The nymphs were associated with a range of natural features such as water, mo...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Nymphaeum

Aeolic Order

An architectural order of northwestern Turkey and the island of Lesbos, with an ornate capital formed by two volutes separated by a spreading palmette. The echinus is below the volutes and is often formed by water lily leaves.

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Aeolic Order

Great Wall Of China

A monumental building project which created a wall running (with all its branches) about 4,000 miles (6,400 km) west to east from Bohai Bay to a point deep in central Asia, the Tarim Basin. Parts of the vast fortification date from the 4th century BC. In 214 BC, the first emperor of a united Chin...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural, Place Names

Great Wall Of China

Column

In architecture, a cylindrical or slightly tapering support or pillar for some part of a building, usually made of stone or wood. There were classic orders of columns which had specific shapes for the base shaft and capital which supported the entablature. In Gothic and Norman architecture the co...

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Column

Abu Simbel

The site of two rock-cut temples of the Egyptian king Rameses II (1279-1213 BC), located southeast of Aswan, formerly Nubia. The facade of the largest temple is dominated by four 20-meter-high (67 feet) seated figures of Rameses and the main part of the temple is cut into the solid rock of the hi...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural, Tombs, Place Names

Abu Simbel

Processional Way

A route, often stone- or brick-paved, along which the statues of the gods were carried at festivals. The term is used particularly for the road leading from the Temple of Marduk to the Ishtar Gate and Akitu House temple in Babylon. About 615 BC, the Chaldeans connected the city's temples to the r...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Processional Way

Cartouche

The name given to the oval or oblong figures in Egyptian hieroglyphics which enclosed characters representing royal or divine names or titles. The term is also used for the amulet of similar design worn in ancient Egypt as a protection against the loss of one's name (i.e., one's identity). In arc...

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Cartouche

Gypsum

A soft white stone, hydrated calcium sulfate mineral, which was a primary or secondary mineral of limestone, shale, marl, and clay. Combined with sand, water, and organic materials, it was used to make plasterlike materials used in cements, coatings, casts, molds, and sculptures. The dense, fine-...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Gypsum

Tufa

A compact, light-colored limestone (calcite) deposition formed by limestone in solution. It has been much-used in architecture. Stalactites and stalagmites in caves are formed from travertine. Fossils and other remains may be found in travertine deposits and dense travertine may sometimes be date...

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Tufa

Opus Mixtum

A Roman construction technique using mixed brick and stone facing popular under the later Roman empire and especially under Diocletian (AD 284-305).

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Opus Mixtum

Travertine

A compact, light-colored limestone (calcite) deposition formed by limestone in solution. It has been much-used in architecture. Stalactites and stalagmites in caves are formed from travertine. Fossils and other remains may be found in travertine deposits and dense travertine may sometimes be date...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Travertine

Ziggurat

A rectangular stepped temple tower in which each story is smaller than the one below, leaving a terrace around each floor - characteristic of Sumerian, Assyrian, Elamite, and Babylonian architecture. It is thought to symbolize a mountain; the tower was the high place of the god, the link between ...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Ziggurat

Romanesque

A style of architecture which emerged about 1000 and lasted until about 1150, by which time it had evolved into Gothic. It was hybrid style of architecture and ornament, transitional from the classical Roman to the introduction of the Gothic. It was a combination of horizontal and arched construc...

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Romanesque

Bothros

In Greek archaeology, a pit used for storage or rubbish disposal.

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Bothros

Ionic Order

In architecture, one of the orders of ancient Greece and also found in cities of western Turkey and the islands of the eastern Aegean. The elegantly designed column has a capital formed by two sets of volutes, which looked like a pair of formalized ram's horns. In between the volutes is an echinu...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Ionic Order

Beehive Tomb

An architectural structure of the Mycenaean civilization, a pointed dome built up of overhanging (corbeled) blocks of conglomerate masonry cut and polished, often with an alley or approach and a great door. The rich or noble of the Bronze Age were buried in these sometimes enormous, perfectly pro...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural, Tombs

Beehive Tomb

Cornice

The uppermost projecting element of the entablature a Classical building, immediately below the roof line. It is located above the triglyphs and metopes in the Doric order, or above the frieze in the Ionic order.

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Cornice

Pompeii

A Roman town lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius in Campania, Italy, which was covered with volcanic ash in an eruption in 79 AD. Much of the town has been uncovered since excavations began in the mid-18th century. The uncovering of the city offers much evidence for prosperous provincial urban li...

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Pompeii

Sima

The roof gutter of a Classical roof; a row of vertical tiles placed at the edge of the roof above the cornice. It was usually clay and water was thrown clear of the building by elaborate spouts often shaped like lions' heads.

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Sima

Mound Architecture

The use of elevated mounds of earth or stone as the foundation for buildings, platforms, temples, and pyramids, which were often made of adobe (mudbrick).

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Mound Architecture

Architrave

In Greek and Roman architecture, that part of an entablature which rests immediately upon the abacus on the capital of a column or pilaster. It is also the term used for the horizontal beam between columns, or between a column and a wall, which supports a ceiling. A third definition is a collecti...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Architrave

Hypaethral

In architecture, designating a building that is open to the sky and has no roof, as the Kiosk of Trajan at Philae, Egypt. It especially referred to temples, the cella of which had no roof or a partial roof. On the roofs of Egyptian temples, hypaethral temples are arranged with regard to astronomi...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural