On the Typology of Early Dwelling Houses in Berezan
Kryzhitsky Sergei D.
Explorations conducted for many years in Berezan settlement have unearthed remains of more than a dozen of houses of the last quarter of the 6th-5th ее. ВС. However, the reconstructions of their layouts and the typology suggested by the explorers who conducted the excavation are not always convincing. In particular, the author disagrees with the idea that houses of the megaron type existed on the Berezan Peninsula. Analysing the published data and some archive materials, the author concludes that on the whole those buildings belong to the Greek tradition of constructing dwelling houses with several rooms and an inner courtyard, but without the use of orders. They were usually roughly rectangular in layout, although with many variations due to the general lack of a distinct plan of the settlement and a vagueness of the borders of the houses. However, at the moment it is impossible to establish their typology. One can be sure only of the fact that there were no buildings of the megaron type among the houses unearthed so far. This means that the basic principle of planning was the parallel one, typical of Greek house-building in the North Pontic Area. Of special interest is a house with an exedra (?) separated from the courtyard with a portico, obviously, in the form of a simple pole-and-beam construction. The houses had some separate cellars. Some of the houses could be of semi-basement type. A characteristic peculiarity of Berezan construction is the technique of «parallel walls» used for dividing separate rooms.