The Pnyx, Athens, Greece
The Pnyx wall
Great wall, later 4th century BCE (Pottery in the fill. The first full publication read the wall as Roman.)
The Athenian assembly sat on this hill. The wall that holds the last terrace is built of limestone blocks about 2.40 metres long, quarried a short roll up the slope. The first full dig called the wall Roman, and the pottery restudy places it in the later 4th century BCE.
Why this is extraordinary
On the Pnyx, the hill where the Athenian assembly met, a curved retaining wall is built of limestone blocks among the largest quarried in Greece. The published measure is a length of over 100 metres, up to three courses, and a height of 5.35 metres above the bedrock it stands on. The blocks average 2.40 metres long and 1.90 metres high. The few whose thickness can be measured are about 1.50 metres. They were cut from the ridge immediately above and moved no more than about 50 metres. The joints are fitted. Tops and bottoms of blocks are roughly parallel, the sides often are not, and notches let the course heights change. That is trapezoidal masonry with offsets. Visitors often file it with polygonal walls, because the joints are irregular and tight. The excavation report says ordinary polygonal retaining walls were common in Attica, and that this face is the outlier for its size.
The assembly place has three phases. The first, in the first half of the 5th century BCE, used the natural slope. The second, near the end of that century, reversed the orientation. The great wall belongs to the third. The 1932 publication dated that phase to the Roman period, in the reign of Hadrian, because Roman pottery lay in part of the fill and the masonry looked unmatched. A later reading of the same pottery treated the Roman sherds as intrusion. The catch is that they cluster near the wall, and some are as late as the middle of the 3rd century CE, which is too late to be the construction fill of an early-2nd-century building. The Greek pottery in the fill, including amphora stamps placed around 340 BCE and coins of the 330s, is what now dates the wall to the third quarter of the 4th century BCE. A 1996 restudy says that date seems fixed. How often the assembly then used the enlarged auditorium, and whether the plan was finished, does not.
Plato's dialogue names this hill. The earlier Athens in that speech had an Acropolis that reached the Pnyx, and the number given is nine thousand years before Solon. The speech is tied to a war with Atlantis, and it does not describe this retaining wall. A reading that the blocks are older than Classical Athens, because they look too large or because the dialogue names the hill, is a further step. The quarry scars and the fills are the step the ground actually records.
Which of those readings the masonry can bear is what changes. If the 4th-century fill dates the wall, Athens built a megalithic terrace for its assembly with a nearby quarry, and the look of the joints is not a date. If the wall is older than that fill, the three-phase sequence has to be reread. If the dialogue is a memory of a real earlier city, and this wall is a piece of it, the nine thousand years would be a date for masonry the pottery does not support.
Why it matters
It matters that a wall this large invites an older date from its look alone. The fill, the quarry, and a dialogue that names the hill are three different kinds of evidence. They do not have to say the same century.
The pin is the Pnyx, west of the Acropolis, and the great wall is the third phase of the assembly place. Fitted irregular masonry elsewhere in the museum is a different century and a different country: Sacsayhuamán, the Cusco stones, Ollantaytambo, and Vinapu. The same look is not the same date. Mycenae and Tiryns are the other great Greek walls in this wing, Cyclopean and Bronze Age, not this terrace.
Photo tour
7 photographs, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
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What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- The Pnyx, Athens, the assembly hill west of the Acropolis. The great wall retains the north side of the later auditorium. The speaker's platform is cut in the rock scarp on the other side of the floor.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision Current consensus — open to revision on how the third phase was used, not on the century of the wall. Period I, first half of the 5th century BCE. Period II, end of the 5th century. The great wall, third quarter of the 4th century BCE. The 1932 Hadrianic date is the reading the pottery restudy set aside.
- How this dating was done
- Stratigraphy of three building phases, the order of layers, which says what came before what, and the pottery and coins in the fill of the third. Typology of those pots and of the amphora stamps, dating by comparing shapes with objects that already have a proposed date. The Roman date was also a pottery reading, of sherds the restudy treats as later intrusion. No radiocarbon date of the wall is used here. Radiocarbon is a clock in the carbon of once-living things.
- What could change it
- A sealed deposit under the lowest course, older than the 4th-century fill and not cut by the quarry, would reopen the century. A finished plan of the third auditorium would settle use, which the date does not.
What is actually there
- The great wall is over 100 metres long and up to 5.35 metres above bedrock.
- Blocks average 2.40 metres long and 1.90 metres high.
- The quarry is on the ridge above, no more than about 50 metres away.
- Three phases. The wall is the third.
- The 1932 report dated that phase to Hadrian. The restudy dates it to the third quarter of the 4th century BCE.
- Plato names the Pnyx in the account of an earlier Athens. He does not describe this wall.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Did the assembly actually sit in the enlarged third auditorium, or was the plan left unfinished? | Open. The date of the wall is not the same question |
| Is there any deposit under the lowest course older than the 4th-century fill? | Not in the trenches the restudy re-read |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
A Classical terrace for the assembly
The great wall is the retaining wall of the third phase of the Pnyx, built in the third quarter of the 4th century BCE. The blocks are large because the quarry was a short distance uphill. The fitted joints are Greek terrace masonry, trapezoidal with offsets, and not a sign of another age.
What supports this
- Greek pottery and coins of the later 4th century BCE in the fill the wall holds.
- Quarry traces on the ridge above, within about 50 metres.
- Two earlier phases of the same assembly place, dated by inscriptions and by pottery.
- Unfinished stoas on the upper terrace already placed in the same 4th-century project.
What pushes back
- The 1932 report dated the wall to Hadrian, and the masonry was described as hard to parallel.
- Roman pottery really was found deep near the wall, so the intrusion reading has to explain those sherds, not ignore them.
- How the third auditorium was used is still open, so a finished Classical monument is a stronger claim than the trenches make.
What would settle it
This is the best reading of the wall's century. The look of the joints does not outvote the fill. Use of the third phase stays open.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
The wall is a Roman rebuild
The first full publication concluded that the great wall is Hadrianic, from Roman pottery in the fill and from the unusual masonry.
What supports this
- Roman sherds and lamps were found in the fill, including deep near the wall and on bedrock.
- The excavators compared the masonry with Roman work in Athens because they did not see a Classical parallel.
What pushes back
- The Roman material is concentrated, not spread through the fill, and some of it dates as late as the middle of the 3rd century CE.
- The bulk of the fill is Greek and 4th century, with amphora stamps around 340 BCE.
- A building of the early 2nd century CE would not contain pottery of the mid-3rd century as its original fill.
What would settle it
This is the reading the restudy was written to test. It is the weaker reading of the same baskets. It stays on the record because it was the first published date.
An emerging narrative
The wall belongs to the earlier Athens of the dialogue
On this reading the blocks are older than Classical Athens. Plato's account of an earlier city, whose Acropolis reached the Pnyx nine thousand years before Solon, is the memory, and the war with Atlantis is part of that memory.
What supports this
- The dialogue names this hill in the description of that earlier city.
- The blocks are unusually large, which is why the wall looks older than a civic terrace to many visitors.
- Ancient testimony is not set aside by calling the dialogue a story. The speech is evidence of what was told.
What pushes back
- The speech does not describe this wall, this quarry, or these courses.
- The fills, the quarry scars, and the three phases place the wall in the 4th century BCE.
- Nine thousand years before Solon is a number inside the dialogue. It is not a layer under the lowest course.
- Fitted trapezoidal terraces are a known Greek way of holding a slope. Size here follows from a quarry uphill.
What would settle it
The reading is speculative. The hill is in the dialogue. The wall's date is in the fill. Joining them is a further claim, and it is not the best reading.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Consensus holds well
The century of the great wall was revised in print, from Hadrian to the later 4th century BCE, and the restudy of the same pottery is what holds it there. An older city in Plato's dialogue is testimony about the hill, not a date for these courses. What stays open is whether the third auditorium was finished and used as planned.
What drives this
- Three published phases
- Greek pottery and coins in the third fill
- Roman sherds re-read as intrusion
- Quarry within about 50 metres
- The dialogue names the hill and not the wall
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
Weigh it yourself
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If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
The wall is older than the 4th-century fill
The three-phase sequence would be a later terrace against an older face, and Classical Athens would be finishing a wall it did not begin.
Why it is still worth a test
A deposit under the lowest course, sealed, and older than the amphora stamps, that the quarry does not cut.
The dialogue's earlier Athens includes this masonry
The nine thousand years would be a claim about a real city, and this wall would be a surviving piece of it. Atlantis would still be a separate story inside the same speech.
Why it is still worth a test
The same sealed deposit. Without it, the dialogue remains testimony and the wall remains 4th century.
Sources
- The Date of the Third Period of the Pnyx Hesperia, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1996
- The Pnyx in Athens Hesperia, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1932
- Critias 112a Plato, Perseus Digital Library. The earlier Acropolis is said to reach the Pnyx.
Image credits
- The retaining wall of the third phase, from the northeast. Large limestone blocks in a few courses, bedrock and cut steps in front, trees along the skyline. . Mark Landon, CC BY 4.0. Shown unedited.
- Joints in the great wall. The faces are rough, the beds are not one straight line, and a thin red line hangs at the left edge of the frame. The blocks are fitted, and they are enormous for a terrace.. Mark Landon, CC BY 4.0. Shown unedited.
- Steps cut into the rock scarp, and a small sign on the flight. This is the speaker's platform, not the retaining wall.. Mirjanamimi, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.
- The assembly floor, the cut steps, and the Acropolis beyond the trees. A stone face closes the right edge. The wall is a terrace for this floor, within sight of the Acropolis.. GeorgeKokkos, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.
- From the Acropolis, a pale curved wall shows through the trees on the Pnyx. The city fills the plain beyond.. Peulle, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.
- An early photograph of the same steps. A person on the upper flight is the scale. The great wall is not in this frame.. Cornell University Library, CC BY 2.0. Shown unedited.
- Low footings and a paved strip on the upper hill. The excavation reads unfinished stoas here as part of the same late project as the wall. This frame is the footings, not a standing hall.. George E. Koronaios, CC BY-SA 2.0. Shown unedited.
- The three phases, the move from a Roman date to a 4th-century one, and the wall's published size. Not a drawing of a crew.. Diagram: Our Deep History.