Le bois dans l’architecture domestique de l’âge du Bronze à Malia (Crète) : les exemples des quartiers Delta et Pi

Abstract

Several scholars have established that the use of wood as structural element in Minoan palatial architecture increased during the Neopalatial period. The voids corresponding to timber elements, intertwined with the role of wood in the “Minoan halls” of monumental buildings are now better understood. We investigated the traces of wood in the architecture of two buildings in the Minoan town of Malia in order to assess the widespread use of a timber frame in the masonry. Our study in two different types of houses shows that the reinforcement of walls by a timber system was limited to occasional needs, while the autonomous wooden supports are more frequent even in the more modest building. It is an indication that the Maliote builders didn’t develop systematic anti-seismic construction techniques based on wood. The uses of wood seem to concern predominantly the elite buildings, reflecting the importance of this material in the new architectural vocabulary which may have been driven from Knossos from the Middle Minoan III.

Keywords

• Minoan Crete
• Malia
• domestic architecture
• wood
• building techniques