Socrates claimed Daedalus, the mythical first architect, as his ancestor. Taking this as a point of departure, the thesis explores the relationship between architecture and speculative thought, and shows how the latter is grounded in the former. A detailed examination of the Anaximander fragment, the earliest surviving record in Western philosophy, is considered in relation to Anaximander's built work. This three-part cosmic model which included a celestial sphere, the first map of the world, and a sun clock (the gnomon), reveals the fragment to be a theory of the work in that the cosmic order Anaximander was the first to articulate was discovered through the building of the model. The model is seen as comparable to a daidalon, a creation of Daedalus, whose legend reflects the importance of craft in the self-consciousness of archaic Greece where the kosmos (order) of civilization were seen as having emerged with the kosmos allowed to appear through the making of the artifact. Archaic self-consciousness is further examined through the emergence of the Greek city-state (the polis) and in the building of the first peripteral temples, both of which are revealed as necessary antecedents to birth of theory, understood as the wondering admiration of the well-made thing.

No description available.

Disseratation--Hamburg.

No description available.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1959 F38

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of European Studies, 2000. / "Thesis presented June 1998, amended February 2000." Includes bibliography.

The objective of this thesis is to identify, isolate, and expound the concepts of sacred space and its ancillary doctrines and to show how they were expressed in ancient temple architecture and ritual. The fundamental concept of sacred space defined the nature of the holiness that pervaded the temple. The idea of sacred space included the ancient view of the temple as a mountain. Other subsets of the basic notion of sacred space include the role of the creation story in temple ritual, its status as an image of a heavenly temple and its location on the axis mundi, the temple as the site of the hieros gamos, the substantial role of the temple regarding kingship and coronation rites, the temple as a symbol of the Tree of Life, and the role played by water as a symbol of physical and spiritual blessings streaming forth from the temple. Temple ritual, architecture, and construction techniques expressed these concepts in various ways. These expressions, identified in the literary and archaeological records, were surprisingly consistent throughout the ancient Near East across large expanses of space and time. Under the general heading of Techniques of Construction and Decoration, this thesis examines the concept of the primordial mound and its application in temple architecture, the practice of foundation deposits, the purposes and functions of enclosure walls, principles of orientation, alignment, and measurement, and interior decorations. Under the rubric of General Temple Arrangement are explored the issues of the tripartite and other temple floor plans, the curious institution of the ziggurat, the meaning of temple pillars, the presence of sacred groves and the idea of the Tree of Life, and temple/palace symbiosis. The category Arrangement of Cultic Areas and Ritual Paraphernalia deals with areas such as elevated statues of the deity in the innermost sanctuary, sources of water for ablutions, the temple as a site for a cult of the dead, and altars and animal sacrifice. The concept of sacred space and its ancillary ideologies provided underlying justification and support for all the peculiar distinctions that characterised temple architecture in the ancient Near East. / Old Testament & Ancient Near Eastern Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ancient Near Eastern Studies)

No description available.

"Thesis presented June 1998, amended February 2000." / Includes bibliography. / 3 v. : ill., plans ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This thesis demonstrates the falsity of the assumptions that ancient architects followed innate spatial cues or responses in their designs, that ancient people experienced the resulting buildings through the same responses, and that modern scholars can thus reconstruct both the intentions of the ancient architects and the architectural effects experienced by ancient visitors to ancient buildings throught the medium of their own spatial reactions. This underlying belief is contestable given its basis in unproven and untested late nineteenth century theories of perception. The thesis also demonstrates that the assumption made by modern scholars that the architects of the Forum of Pompeii were primarily concerned with uniformly enclosed space, axial symmetry, and orthogonality, is wrong, and is contradicted by the actual form of the buildings around the Forum. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of European Studies, 2000

The objective of this thesis is to identify, isolate, and expound the concepts of sacred space and its ancillary doctrines and to show how they were expressed in ancient temple architecture and ritual. The fundamental concept of sacred space defined the nature of the holiness that pervaded the temple. The idea of sacred space included the ancient view of the temple as a mountain. Other subsets of the basic notion of sacred space include the role of the creation story in temple ritual, its status as an image of a heavenly temple and its location on the axis mundi, the temple as the site of the hieros gamos, the substantial role of the temple regarding kingship and coronation rites, the temple as a symbol of the Tree of Life, and the role played by water as a symbol of physical and spiritual blessings streaming forth from the temple. Temple ritual, architecture, and construction techniques expressed these concepts in various ways. These expressions, identified in the literary and archaeological records, were surprisingly consistent throughout the ancient Near East across large expanses of space and time. Under the general heading of Techniques of Construction and Decoration, this thesis examines the concept of the primordial mound and its application in temple architecture, the practice of foundation deposits, the purposes and functions of enclosure walls, principles of orientation, alignment, and measurement, and interior decorations. Under the rubric of General Temple Arrangement are explored the issues of the tripartite and other temple floor plans, the curious institution of the ziggurat, the meaning of temple pillars, the presence of sacred groves and the idea of the Tree of Life, and temple/palace symbiosis. The category Arrangement of Cultic Areas and Ritual Paraphernalia deals with areas such as elevated statues of the deity in the innermost sanctuary, sources of water for ablutions, the temple as a site for a cult of the dead, and altars and animal sacrifice. The concept of sacred space and its ancillary ideologies provided underlying justification and support for all the peculiar distinctions that characterised temple architecture in the ancient Near East. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ancient Near Eastern Studies)