The houses in ancient Greece had more or less the same problems as our houses today. Heat and cold is the biggest problem. Let us see what the ancient Greeks wisely did and we don't bother to copy...
The walls were usually made with mud and stones. Since cement was not available, they were using hair of goats and eggs mixed with the mud to improve its strength. The north side was thicker and with the least openings. The entrance was usually in the south side.
On the north side of the house they usually planted some evergreen trees like olive trees that would block the cold north wind blowing directly on the house. On the south side of the house they used some deciduous trees. This way in the summer time they had useful shade, and in the winter there were no leaves to block the wanted sun to warm the house.
But they didn't stop here! They used over the south doors and windows, an extension cover it with a carefully designed size. The size of this extension was arranged in a way so that in the summer the sun couldn't fall directly into the house. In the winter that the sun has a lower orbit, therefore this extension would not be a problem and the house was heated by the sun!
Another clever solution was the use of pergola with specially arranged length and height. This way they could achieve almost the same results, plus they had a lot of tasty grapes to enjoy! :-)
And of course as you can see even today, every Greek traditional house is painted white! This helps also to avoid too much heating from the sun. This simple and cheap technique helps every building to reduce the added heat from the sun but very few people seem to care... We prefer to spend money and energy for the modern air-conditioning systems. This helps our room for a while but every air conditioner makes our earth environment a little hotter. So this way the problem is moved a few meters away from us, but is not solved...
The first known circulation for water and drainage for an entire city is found at Knossos (Crete - Greece). The water was transferred in fictile pipes from far enough, from far distances, such as the areas of Kounavon and Arhanon to the water supply reservoir of the city. From there it was allocated to the houses. The houses were made of wood, stone and marble. Some of them were triplex buildings and a few even built in five levels!
At Knossos we also found the first use of the siphon for the waste drainage pipe. At this period of time Knossos was calculated to have almost 100.000 citizens. On a wall painting we can see a white authoritative with dark 'mercenaries', that seems to show the power of Knossos to the ancient world.
And now if we took a look at what the architecture could do for the many people, let's see what could be done for the few chosen!
If we go to Mycenae (south Greece) we can see the famous Atreas' treasure still standing there for almost 3500 years. It is a circular dome structure from a civilization that lasted since 1600 to 1200 B.C. This dome structure was used as a grave. It has a diameter of 14.6 meters and height of 13.4 meters. It was made from carefully cut stones and no other material was used to connect them. They kept their place because of gravity and the pressure of the soil of the hill above them. The difficulty of doing this made it very rare. At the entrance of the dome over the door there is a very big elaborated boulder that weighs 122.000 Kg. Over this stone there is a big triangle empty of material to prevent it from collapsing from the extra weight! The knowledge required for such design and building is not common even today. At least we have to respect the mind of the architects that design and made such a building 3500 years ago.
Sometimes we hear the wrong stance about the arch, the arcade, the span and the dome, that these are roman inventions. This can be considered almost right if we look only above the surface of the earth, and of the history! Greeks were using such structures without problems at least since the Mycenaean period, but ONLY for structures under the surface of the earth. These buildings were for graves or dedicated to death Gods etc.
The Romans used these plans on the surface and used them a lot. The dimensions of the Atreas treasure (from Mycenae) was
surpassed by a similar circular building at the famous Pantheon of Rome made by Apollodoros from Damaskus, 1350 years later...!
A Roman invention seems to be the elevator that helped empire Nero to go up and down to his 40 meters high palace!
At the period of its glory the Byzantine Empire was burning crude oil at public bathrooms for heating water. Septimius Sevirus made these public bathrooms and the crude oil was carried on animals from the coasts of Caspian Sea.
Maybe crude oil was a material from the famous 'liquid fire' that Byzantine army was using.
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