Architectural parallels

The apsidal house form is now quite well known from Iron Age contexts (as well as earlier Bronze Age ones)^[70], but debate still continues as to whether it had any specific function, or was simply the most convenient way of constructing a timber building with a large single main room. Some examples have been assumed, with some justification, to have a specifically religious character, such as the ʻBay Hutʼ at Eretria^[71] or the apsidal building at Perachora^[72] which match closely the temple models found at Perachora^[73]. The location of another apsidal building of ? early 7^th century date in the area of the Artemision at Thasos^[74] may indicate a cult use although there is no specifically votive deposit associated with it. At Poseidi near ancient Mende in Kassandra, Ioulia Vokotopoulou discovered an apsidal, unroofed enclosure containing votive deposits with pottery dating back to the Mycenaean period, which was succeeded by an apsidal temple^[75]. In contrast recent excavation at Thermon has shown that it is unlikely that the ʻapsidal peristyleʼ first detected by Sotiriades, formed part of an apsidal precursor to the Archaic temple, though its date probably falls within the later Iron Age^[76]. Examples of this form of building at Nichoria from the 10^th and 9^th centuries BC^[77] do not seem to be for cult use while that found at Antissa on Lesbos is equally unconvincing as a temple^[78]. The most discussed building of this form is the ʻHeroonʼ at Lefkandi where the picture is especially complicated because of the difficulty of relating the use of the building to the burials within it^[79]. At Assiros there is a fragment of another, smaller apsidal building from earlier in the Iron Age (Phase 3)^[80], in addition to those described above while at Toumba Thessalonikis the principal building in Phase 4 is apsidal in form^[81]. Recent finds of Late Geometric oval buildings at Skala Oropos associated with iron working and other manufacturing processes^[82] remind us how little we know of standard architectural forms during the ʻDark Agesʼ. They find parallels in Epirus at Vitsa^[83] and in Anatolia at Old Smyrna^[84].

The Assiros apsidal buildings (Fig. 11) are large (almost 15 m in length) and it is difficult to make any precise architectural comparisons. No certain trace was found (despite a careful search) of the internal or external posts observed at both Nichoria and Lefkandi. The internal cross walls of the northern building at Assiros are as natural a feature of the structure as they were in the Middle Helladic period.