Minimum groove depthsFootnote ¹⁶

Because of their rough manufacture, the grooves vary in depth along their length. To record the minimum values, whenever possible, I took measurements by sliding a ruler along the bottom of each groove and using a board laid against the surface, across the groove, as a reference. Grooves on the same face of a block usually run at about the same depth, while those on the same block but on different surfaces (horizontal v. vertical) sometimes differ in depth. My measurements aimed at recording the minimum depth value for each block, though this operation is complicated by the fact that the grooved surfaces usually have edge anathyrosis. Consequently, in order to estimate the total width of the gap that would have been left for a rope to be pulled out, a block fragment has to be large enough to preserve both a groove and its adjoining contact surfaces.

At Corinth, of the 417 fragments mentioned in Robinson's report (Reference Robinson1976a, 224), about 100 are large enough to supply useful information.Footnote ¹⁷ It is possible to measure minimum groove depths with sufficient accuracy on 54 of these. I did not observe a depth less than 0.01 m (Rhodes reported a minimum depth of 0.007 m), a figure that occurs only in one vertical incomplete groove on block 165.Footnote ¹⁸ Apart from this exceptional example, the minimum figure is 0.012 m, which occurs in blocks 304 (depth 0.012 m, width 0.030 m) and 208 (depth 0.012, width 0.027 m).Footnote ¹⁹ Minimum depth values can be described as follows, by adopting ranges of depth variation of 0.005 m:

• Class 1, depth smaller than 0.012 m, consisting of 1 element

• Class 2, depth 0.012–0.017 m, consisting of 12 elementsFootnote ²⁰

• Class 3, depth 0.018–0.023 m, consisting of 27 elementsFootnote ²¹

• Class 4, depth 0.024–0.029 m, consisting of 9 elementsFootnote ²²

• Class 5, depth larger than 0.029 m (maximum depth 0.037 m), consisting of 5 elements.Footnote ²³

At Isthmia, Broneer used most of the best preserved stone materials from the temple to reconstruct a portion of the cella wall. It is possible to access the grooves on only some of these, and only at some points along their length. I was therefore able to take measurements in the way described above with only about 10 per cent of the blocks.Footnote ²⁴ As a result, my data from Isthmia are less exhaustive than those from Corinth, and I will confine myself to reporting the minimum value and the interval of maximum frequency. Beginning with the latter, my survey confirms that most grooves have depths between 0.02 and 0.03 m, as previously reported by Hemans (Reference Hemans, Gebhard and Gregory2015, 45). The minimum value, however, is 0.011 m. Interestingly, the corresponding groove is not on a bottom or side face but on the exposed overhanging soffit of one of the geison blocks (Ar 70, Fig. 4), where extracting the ropes would not have posed problems. Furthermore, the smooth surface around the groove might suggest that, in this case, the groove was initially deeper but was reduced when the surface was finished, after the block was set in place.

Fig. 4.

Block Ar 70 from Isthmia (the block is upside down, so the groove faces upwards). Photo by the author.

Maximum weight of the blocks

The average weights of the ordinary cella blocks from Corinth and Isthmia are 185–211 kg and 224–256 kg, respectively, but some blocks from Isthmia are much heavier than this.Footnote ²⁵ To estimate their maximum weight, I have considered the geison blocks from Isthmia (Fig. 5),Footnote ²⁶ whose average size is about 0.27 × 0.90 × 0.80 m = 0.1944 m³. Because the volume of these blocks is reduced by their peculiar cut on the underside, this figure should be rounded down to about 0.180 m³. Assuming a density value for Corinthian oolitic limestone of 1.75–2.00 tons/m³,Footnote ²⁷ the corresponding weight must lie within the range of 317–362 kg.

Fig. 5.

Geison blocks (group 10) from Isthmia, piled at the west end of Broneer's reconstructed wall. Photo by the author.

Ancient ropes: plant fibres and rope strength

Ancient Greek and Latin literary sources mention seven plants in connection with ropemaking: papyrus, from Egypt; flax, cultivated in Egypt and in other regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece; hemp, grown in Italy and in the Rhone valley; esparto, from the Iberian Peninsula; date palm, widespread in Egypt and in general in the south-south-east of the Mediterranean; broom, endemic in most of the Mediterranean coastal areas; and rush, present in Greece (Casson Reference Casson1971, 231; Charlton Reference Charlton1996, 16–36, 115–16).

Field research has provided physical evidence for five of these fibres: ropes of esparto, hemp, palm and rush have been found in shipwrecks,Footnote ²⁸ while papyrus is associated with contexts in the Egyptian mainland.Footnote ²⁹ In addition to the plant fibres known from literary sources, there is physical evidence of ropes made from halfa grassFootnote ³⁰ (a poaceous plant widespread in Africa and the Middle East), doum palm and common reed.Footnote ³¹

Pliny the Elder (19.8.29) singles out ropes of esparto (Stipa tenacissima) for being among the strongest ones suitable for nautical and construction use.Footnote ³² Esparto was certainly used in Greece, but only after 237, when the Carthaginians invaded Spain, its area of production, after which esparto was exported throughout the Mediterranean.Footnote ³³ One of the ancient Latin names for esparto, spartum, could also refer to a native Greek plant that had been used to make rope from Homeric times; thus in the Iliad (2.135), spartos can mean either the plant itself, or ‘rope’. This plant is broom (Spartium junceum), endemic to the region of Thebes in Boeotia.Footnote ³⁴

From very early times, flax (Linum usitatissimum) had also been used to make cordage in Greece. In antiquity, flax ropes were well-known for their extraordinary strength, mentioned by Pliny (37.77.202–3), along with esparto, as some of the most valuable commodities of his time. Herodotus (7.25.1, 34.1, 36.3) recounts that Xerxes, during his military campaign against Greece in 480, commissioned ropes of white flax from the Phoenicians, and ropes of papyrus from the Egyptians, to build bridges across the Hellespont. A line from Euripides confirms the use of flax in Greek rope manufacture during the Classical period (Casson Reference Casson1971, 231 n. 27; Charlton Reference Charlton1996, 20–1). Its use for the same purpose presumably dates as far back as the Mycenaean period, as suggested by Linear B sources which state that the city of Pylos was renowned both for the cultivation of flax and the manufacture of ropes.Footnote ³⁵

In summary, the earliest Greek literary references to ropes suggest that flax and broom were used in Greece for rope making from pre-Archaic times. Use of flax ropes, in particular, is also attested in Greece in the Classical period and later. While there is no direct evidence for flax ropes from early-seventh-century Corinthia, it is nonetheless plausible that in this period, too, the Corinthians, with their advanced nautical industry, would have had access to ropes of this material or of other fibres of comparable quality, as strong ropes are essential in nautical technology.Footnote ³⁶

Vegetable fibre ropes have high tensile strength, and the analysis of archaeological samples shows that the quality of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman cordage was as high as that of similar modern products.Footnote ³⁷ The breaking load of traditional flax rope 0.01 m in diameter exceeds 750 kg, and that of a rope 0.008 m in diameter is almost 500 kg, more than enough to lift the heaviest of the Early Archaic blocks from Isthmia and Corinth.Footnote ³⁸

The question of whether ropes of small diameter were common in antiquity finds a partial answer in nautical archaeology. Although the evidence provided by wrecks and other findings of nautical cordage is patchy, ropes about 0.01 m thick, or less, are documented from Eastern Mediterranean contexts dating from the Bronze Age and from the Late Classical and Early Hellenistic periods (Charlton Reference Charlton1996, 55–71). Ultimately, the data examined thus far support the thesis that the blocks were lifted by ropes. Indeed, the grooves are carved to a depth that will admit ropes thick and strong enough to sustain even the heaviest load.

Friction marks

Rhodes's next argument against the lifting theory rests on the hypothesis that lifting by ropes would have produced friction marks on the blocks, whereas no such marks are visible on the extant blocks. He bases his argument on an experiment conducted at Nemea during the first phase of the Temple of Zeus Reconstruction Project (1980–3), where the original blocks from the Archaic temple were lifted by means of nautical ropes measuring less than 0.01 m in diameter, producing relatively deep marks on the surface of the stone.Footnote ³⁹ Rhodes provides no detailed description of this experiment; hence my own considerations must rely to some extent on hypothesis. Theoretically, the act of lifting should not necessarily induce ropes to slip along the stone surface. Yet we can imagine that tension in the ropes, possibly associated with slight oscillations of the hanging block, might have turned the sharp upper edge of the non-grooved side face into a sensitive point, especially considering the softness of the freshly cut oolitic limestone. As a result, we might surmise that slight abrasions could have been produced on this edge and therefore appear on the original blocks. However, one additional consideration points to a different conclusion.

According to a Greek building practice common from the Archaic period onwards, blocks were quarried at a slightly larger scale than their anticipated final dimensions and were transported to the construction site with this extra layer of stone (àpergon; Martin Reference Martin1965, 199) still in place. Their extra height accommodated any irregular fracturing that might occur when the block was separated from bedrock.Footnote ⁴⁰ Moreover, the excess layer of stone around a block would have protected it from accidental damage during transportation. Lastly, it would have allowed masons to achieve uniformly level surfaces by giving walls and other architectural elements their final finish only after all the blocks had been set in their final position. The use of this method in pre-Archaic construction is suggested by the remains of a layer of stone projecting c. 0.02 m above the finished surface of a faceted drum from the Geometric period recovered from well 72–2 at Corinth (Rhodes Reference Rhodes1987b, 230; Brookes Reference Brookes1981, 288). The excavations at Isthmia likewise provide evidence that this practice was observed in the construction of the early temple.Footnote ⁴¹ Indeed, on the exposed surface of three blocks,Footnote ⁴² the protective excess layer of stone was only partially removed, beginning, as usual, from the edges (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6.

Block Ar 9 from Isthmia, with upper surface left unfinished. Photos by the author.

Following this practice, a block arriving at the construction site ready for use would have had only two of its faces finished before it was lifted into place. These finished faces would have been the bottom and the end intended to make contact with the neighbouring block already in place – in this case, the grooved end. The top and the opposite end of the block would still be covered in their protective stone skin during lifting. Consequently, if the ropes had produced friction marks on the top edge of this end, these marks would likely have been effaced when the protective skin was removed, after setting the block in place.

Extracting the ropes

Once it has been established that the grooves are compatible with ropes strong enough to support an individual block, and that the absence of friction marks does not necessarily undermine the lifting theory, it remains to show that the ropes used in lifting could be pulled from their grooves easily, without damage either to the rope itself or to the block. Traditional ropes made from plant fibres are coarse and less flexible than modern synthetic products, suggesting that the grooves' rough manufacture and their 90-degree turn at the end of each block may have presented problems, especially given the high friction coefficient of oolitic limestone.

I therefore carried out experimental tests on a replica block made from oolitic limestone of the same quality as that of the original blocks (Fig. 7a), squared by adze and finished by chisel.Footnote ⁴³ I based its final dimensions (0.27 × 0.55 × 0.80 m) on the average measure of the blocks from Isthmia. Three grooves of different depths were carved on the underside and on one end of the block. Tool marks in the grooves were not smoothed, but left as rough as they appear on most original blocks. For the extraction test I used single lines of traditional broom and flax ropes without knots (Fig. 7b).Footnote ⁴⁴ In deciding on rope thickness and groove depth, I examined the worst case scenario presented by the data discussed in the previous sections of this article, and managed to slip a rope 0.008 m thick out of a groove 0.01 m deep and 0.015 m wide. While the 90-degree angle slowed down the process to some degree,Footnote ⁴⁵ the operation, which was repeated 10 times, proved to be relatively effortless and neither damaged the rope nor produced visible marks on the stone.Footnote ⁴⁶ The experiment yielded similar results when repeated with the other two grooves, with depths of 0.012 and 0.015 m (groove width being approximately twice as large), and ropes with diameters of 0.010 and 0.012 m, respectively. In the replica, as well as in all of the well-preserved blocks observable, the hollowing of the two grooved faces (which is maximum at the face's centre) is imperceptible or very small at each groove's sides. Consequently, the ropes could not deviate sideways from their trajectory and never got jammed while being pulled out.

Fig. 7.

(a) Replica block with a groove 0.012 m deep accommodating a 0.010 m thick rope. (b) Broom (top) and flax (bottom) traditional ropes 0.008 m thick. Photos by the author.

Low-technology alternatives to the crane and the evidence in situ at Isthmia

The earliest method used by all ancient civilisations for lifting heavy objects was pulling them by ropes up ramps made of earth or mud brick.Footnote ⁵⁶ From a mechanical viewpoint, the ramp is an advantageous machine: lifting an object on an inclined plane requires less force than lifting it vertically, at a cost of an increase in the distance the object must be moved. Therefore, the longer the ramp (and the lower its pitch), the greater the advantage in using it. On the one hand, the ramp allows the lifting of loads of virtually unlimited size without conceptual or practical complications, so long as the ramp itself is large and solid enough to support the load. On the other hand, ramps of soil or mud brick require a considerable expenditure of effort for construction and removal, regardless of the size of the blocks being lifted. Therefore, we would generally tend to associate them with sizable loads. As a matter of fact, earthen ramps and scaffolds were the main means of lifting stones and carrying them to their final place in the masonry in Pharaonic EgyptFootnote ⁵⁷ and Assyria.Footnote ⁵⁸ In these regions, the use of blocks weighing several tons was common in monumental construction, and a plentiful supply of labour was available for building and removing massive earth structures.

The same method is believed to have been the norm in the Greek world throughout the Archaic period, so a reasonable conjecture would be that the Early Archaic blocks from Corinth and Isthmia were lifted in this way.Footnote ⁵⁹ As documented outside Greece, a common system to reduce friction while moving blocks along a track was to arrange them on wooden sleds.Footnote ⁶⁰ Yet this method would fail to explain the presence of grooves on our blocks, because the ropes would be fastened to the sled, not to the blocks.

Alternatively, we can imagine that, accommodated by the grooves, the ropes could have served to suspend the blocks from a sling carried by hand up a ramp and along an earthen scaffold. However, two considerations cast doubt on this hypothesis. The first is purely practical: the blocks from the two early temples are of modest size compared with the average loads lifted by ramps in Egypt and Assyria, or with the Greek blocks presumably lifted the same way in the following decades of the Archaic period.Footnote ⁶¹ Consequently, the idea of going to the trouble of building and dismantling earthen structures might not have appeared very practical, and might have encouraged the use of alternative methods, if available.

The next consideration concerns the five rows of circular holes Broneer found below the floor level of the early temple at Isthmia (Fig. 11). These holes reach diameters up to 0.46 m and depths of up to 1 m below the original floor level, and their spacing changes from row to row, with 5 m being the most common.Footnote ⁶² The location of the rows, which are set on either side of the presumed position of the cella walls and along the centre axis of the building, suggests that the holes accommodated wooden structures somehow related to the construction of the early temple.Footnote ⁶³ If so, then these structures were set where we would have expected earth scaffolds, suggesting that the latter were not used.Footnote ⁶⁴

Fig. 11.

Conjectural reconstruction of the plan of the early temple at Isthmia, showing the circular holes (in black) presumably associated with the construction of the building. Drawing by the author, after Hemans Reference Hemans, Gebhard and Gregory2015, 42 fig. 3.2.

An alternative low-technology hypothesis based on the relatively moderate weight of the two temples' blocks is that they could have been ‘passed from one pair of men to the next up a stepped wooden scaffold’ (Rhodes Reference Rhodes1987c, 551 n. 41).Footnote ⁶⁵ While this idea is consistent with Broneer's initial association of the holes with scaffolding (Broneer Reference Broneer1971, 11), I believe it unlikely that the geison blocks from this site, weighing up to about 360 kg, could have been lifted this way. Even with teams of four porters,Footnote ⁶⁶ passing a block from step to step multiple times would have been time-consuming and hardly practical.

Finally, in his most recent contribution to the debate, Hemans (Reference Hemans, Gebhard and Gregory2015) did not deal with the hypothesis of low-technology lifting methods, but rather reinterpreted the two exterior rows of holes at Isthmia as marking the position of cranes. This thesis is based on the holes' ‘relation to the position of the cella walls, their wide spacing, and the substantial posts they held’ (Hemans Reference Hemans, Gebhard and Gregory2015, 49). Unfortunately, Hemans died before he could publish an extensive explanation of this view, and his thesis was left unsubstantiated: the holes alone do not necessarily imply the use of cranes. The Oikos of the Naxians on Delos provides a suggestive parallel. In the bedrock underneath the floor of the early-sixth-century building, two longitudinal rows of eight holes were found. Most of these holes have a diameter greater than 0.50 m, and, while they are irregular in shape and depth, they are aligned crosswise in pairs, with spacing consistent along the length (c. 2 m). Kalpaxis (Reference Kalpaxis, Krinzinger, Otto and Walde-Psenner1980; Reference Kalpaxis1990) interpreted the holes as marking the position of two-legged cranes used to lift the axial columns of the building. However, these columns were most likely wooden, and erecting them without machines would not only have been possible but also easier and faster than digging large holes and building cranes.Footnote ⁶⁷

In summary, the holes in the bedrock at Isthmia hardly seem compatible with the use of earthen structures along the cella walls. Though these holes should not be regarded as conclusive evidence for cranes, no evidence associates sockets so large and widely spaced with wooden scaffolding either.Footnote ⁶⁸ Furthermore, for the reasons discussed above, neither building an earthen ramp nor manually carrying the blocks up a scaffold would have been practical enough, provided that there were alternative methods for lifting the blocks. But what other methods were available to the Greeks in the Early Archaic period? To answer this question, we must now examine certain Early Archaic Greek blocks with peculiar cuttings that some scholars have tentatively associated with lifting. Once again, the earliest of these are found at Isthmia.

U-shaped channels and other cuttings suggesting early cranes

The U-shaped channels found on some blocks from the early temple at Isthmia are the earliest but not the only examples of such cuttings that would seem to contradict the idea that the crane spread only from the late sixth century onwards in the Greek world. Other U-shaped channels have been documented on blocks from buildings dating between the seventh and the mid-sixth centuries. Moreover, in the same period cuttings of two more kinds might have been used to suspend blocks from lifting machines: V-shaped holes appearing on the top surface of Archaic blocks and presumably associated with suspension from a rope, and varieties of cuttings that suggest potential prototypes of the lewis.

U-shaped rope channels (Fig. 12a) appearing on both side contact-faces of blocks are widely believed to indicate the use of a crane (Coulton Reference Coulton1974, 7). Those documented at Isthmia (Fig. 13) appear on the underside of several blocks from the early temple.Footnote ⁶⁹ The fact that the channels are not on the sides but on the underside does not rule out the fact that they could have served for lifting, provided that they occurred at both ends. In fact, all but one of these blocks have only one end preserved, and the single complete block (Ar 41) has a U-shaped channel only at one end. However, this feature might reflect the peculiar position of this block, which comes from a corner of the cella wall,Footnote ⁷⁰ where a lifting boss might have been preferable to cuttings on an exposed face.Footnote ⁷¹ At any rate, the U-shaped grooves on the Isthmian blocks do not constitute conclusive evidence for lifting machines because, without a block with U-shaped channels on both ends, we cannot rule out the possibility that a single such channel could have served a purpose other than lifting.Footnote ⁷²

Fig. 12.

U-shaped channels (a) and V-shaped holes (b) on Archaic blocks. Drawing by the author, after Coulton Reference Coulton1974, 1 fig. 1.

Fig. 13.

Blocks from Isthmia with a loop channel on the underside. (a) Block Ar 79. Photo by the author. (b) Block Ar 80. Drawing by the author, after Broneer Reference Broneer1971, 24 fig. 48.

A limestone block associated with the early Temple of Hera at Argos presents a similar situation. This temple, too, is dated within the seventh century, although its chronology is contentious.Footnote ⁷³ The block at issue is a half-drum measuring about 0.80 m in diameter and 0.25 m thick. The vertical face cut along the diameter has a single U-shaped channel. Suspending this block from a rope would have been possible if a corresponding boss had originally existed on the opposite curved surface. However, because the block was presumably a base (Hellner Reference Hellner2004), it would not have needed lifting, so it seems likely that this U-shaped channel had a different purpose.

Two Greek contexts, neither of which are from the mainland, document early U-shaped channels on both ends of blocks: the early Temple of Hera at Paestum (so-called Basilica), dating from the mid-sixth century, and the Temple of Athena at Assos, for which Wescoat (Reference Wescoat2012, 239) has recently proposed a date around 540. However, Coulton (Reference Coulton1974, 9) observed that in both temples the blocks provided with U-shaped channels belong to the upper courses of the masonry and could have been set in place long after construction began, if building continued for an extended period of time.

V-shaped rope holes (Fig. 12b) appeared on the top of Archaic blocks from the second half of the seventh century and were in use, although sporadically, until the late sixth or beginning of the fifth century. Such cuttings may be associated with suspension from a rope when one appears over a block's centre of gravity, or when two appear symmetrically on either side of it. The earliest examples are found at Delphi. Here, a pair of V-shaped holes occurs on the top of a column drum that has tentatively been attributed to the treasury of the Corinthians, which would suggest a date within the second half of the seventh century (Østby Reference Østby and Jacquemin2000, 242; Bommelaer Reference Bommelaer1991, 154). Similar cuttings have been observed on column drums and capitals from the early Temple of Athena Pronaia (weighing about 300 kg) and on drums from the early Temple of Apollo (weighing up to about 900 kg), both dated to the first half of the sixth century. In all three Delphian cases, the cuttings could have served for suspending the blocks either from a machine or a pole carried up a ramp by porters (Coulton Reference Coulton1974, 3). However, the shift from monolithic columns to drum-built shafts has convincingly been associated with the aim of reducing the weight of the lifted blocks, presumably to keep it under the crane's maximum lifting load (Coulton Reference Coulton1974, 14–16).Footnote ⁷⁴ That the Delphian columns were made of drums may speak in favour of the use of lifting machines.

Slightly later evidence is found at Corinth, on a fallen capital of the mid-sixth-century Temple of Apollo on Temple Hill, which was the successor of the early temple. This capital preserves only one V-shaped hole not found above its centre of gravity. Yet if this was originally one of a pair, the two holes could have served to lift the capital together. Considering its remarkable weight (about 5 tons),Footnote ⁷⁵ it has been observed that this block could hardly have been lifted without a crane (Pfaff Reference Pfaff, Williams and Bookidis2003, 107 n. 88). However, the temple's column shafts are monolithic. This raises the question of why, if the capitals were lifted by crane, the shafts were not made from drums, which would have allowed them to be lifted by the same means.

Cuttings in the third category consist of a rectangular slot cut from the top through the bottom of a block. A peg attached to a rope was presumably let down through this vertical slot. The bottom section of the slot was shaped for allowing the peg to be secured to the block. Then, after the block had been laid in place, the peg could be pulled out from above, as would later be done with the lewis. Cuttings of this kind are found at Aegina and Olympia on blocks from c. 600 or slightly later. Those at Aegina are found on drums from two votive columns, weighing between 1 and 1.3 tons each. The vertical slot of one drum, found at the sanctuary of Apollo at Kolonna, features a notch towards the bottom that would have made contact with the outer leg of a device similar to a three-legged lewis.Footnote ⁷⁶ The slot of the other drum, from the sanctuary of Aphaia, features another, smaller slot at 90° relative to the first and forming a cross-shaped hole at the bottom.Footnote ⁷⁷ The peg inserted into the main slot would have been secured to the drum by rotating into the crossing slot beneath.

The same cross-shaped cuttings seen at the sanctuary of Aphaia also appear at Olympia. Such cuttings occur on drums and capitals from the Temple of Hera, and probably date from the first construction phase of the building. The drums belong to the column at the south west corner of the peristyle and weigh up to 1.5 tons each.Footnote ⁷⁸ Because the column is made from drums, and because the drums have cuttings to allow suspension from ropes, the use of a lifting machine seems out of the question. The fact that identical cuttings are found on the three extant capitals from the cella's interior colonnades suggests that these, too, were lifted in the same manner. These capitals have long been presumed to have originally been placed on wooden shafts, but it has recently been suggested that the shafts were monolithic from the outset.Footnote ⁷⁹ In either case, this example shows that a capital might have been lifted by machine regardless of whether the column shaft underneath was made from drums.

This conclusion also applies to the capital with V-shaped cuttings from the Archaic Temple of Apollo at Corinth, one that had also rested on a monolithic shaft. Moreover, it suggests the hypothesis that lifting capitals might have been among the first architectural applications of early lifting machines. With experience, the builders might have realised that dividing the shafts into drums of a weight comparable to that of the capitals would have enabled them to use the same lifting method for the whole column, not to mention the considerable advantages that drums offered for transportation to the building site.

The shift from monolithic columns to construction with drums and the concurrent development of lifting machines would have taken place at different times in different areas. Based on the known evidence, it seems to have started at Delphi with small columns as early as the second half of the seventh century and to have continued in the same area, as well as at Olympia and Aegina, around 600, with blocks weighing about 1 ton. At Corinth, about half a century later, similar experiments seem to have been repeated with much larger blocks, although they were not yet applied to column shafts.

In summary, while the early evidence of U-shaped channels from Isthmia and other sites proves inconclusive, the other cuttings discussed do suggest that lifting machines were put into experimental use a full century before the adoption of the crane became common practice in Greek construction in the late sixth century. However, this evidence comes later than the early temples of the Corinthia, and may not apply to previous Greek technology. We must turn instead to a broader category of artefacts, and to an area wider than Greece, in order to find clues about earlier experiments with lifting devices.

Further aspects of the evidence from Isthmia

Two aspects of the evidence from Isthmia that have been overlooked in previous scholarship suggest that the grooves on the temple's ashlar blocks would not only have served for lifting. First, all of the broad blocks Broneer assigned to the single-step stylobateFootnote ⁹⁰ of the early temple (Fig. 17) consistently exhibit parallel grooves, although these blocks were laid in a shallow trench in the ground and therefore would not have required lifting. Second, the only non-grooved stones of this temple belong to the single-course foundation below the stylobate (Fig. 18).Footnote ⁹¹ Interestingly, these foundation stones are also the only ones that were not set against their neighbours with tight joints, as their shape is not perfectly regular and the gaps between them were filled with earth. Only three of these stones are preserved in situ, therefore they do not provide information as reliable as that of the other blocks.Footnote ⁹² This is no reason, however, to neglect them entirely.

Fig. 17.

Group 1 blocks from Isthmia. (a) Blocks Ar 1 and Ar 2. Drawing by the author, after Broneer Reference Broneer1971, 17 figs 1–2. (b) The group 1 blocks preserved near the north-west corner of the temple area. Photo by the author.

Fig. 18.

Foundation stones of the early Temple of Poseidon at Isthmia, found in situ at the eastern end of the north stylobate trench. Photos by the author.

To account for the grooves on the stylobate blocks, one could assume that they might have been used to secure a sling attached to a hand barrow, which would have been a practical way to move these stones horizontally and lay them down. This hypothesis does not exclude lifting machines, which would have been used to lift and place the blocks of the masonry's higher courses. Yet we might wonder why the same method used with stylobate blocks would not be adopted with the foundation stones, some of which are as sizable as the standard blocks of the superstructure.Footnote ⁹³

The reason becomes apparent if we consider the necessary step that followed lifting in the construction process, which was manoeuvring each block into position tightly up against the stones already in place. This was a necessary operation for which these blocks apparently offer no clear evidence. In later periods, this delicate step required special cuttings in the stones, so we would expect the parallel grooves to have served this purpose in addition to lifting. Indeed, at Isthmia, all of the blocks that had to be brought tightly up against adjoining stones have grooves, regardless of whether they needed lifting. Conversely, foundation stones do not have grooves. In addition to the fact that they did not require lifting, this is because their loose joints did not imply close contact. After all, as the next section will show, the occurrence of straight grooves on blocks dating from Pharaonic Egypt to Archaic Greece seems to have been closely related to setting blocks next to their neighbours by ropes, although it was apparently confined to particular kinds of blocks, or blocks in special positions.

Straight rope grooves and setting methods

The earliest parallels that come to mind are from Egypt. While no Egyptian blocks are known to have parallel grooves in the same arrangement as those from the two early temples of the Corinthia, the Egyptians did cut rope grooves on particular kinds of blocks (Fig. 14a). These blocks were set in tight contact with adjoining ones, and the grooves allowed for laying them down with ropes, as well as for the ropes' removal, which would have been impossible otherwise. Examples include sarcophagus lids, closing stones of crypts, portcullises, keystones, pavement slabs and repair stones (Arnold Reference Arnold1991, 118, 219–20, 223, figs 4.13–14, 4.66, 5.9).

The blocks that most closely resemble those from the early temples of Corinth and Isthmia are from Greece. They were found at Phlius, in ancient Argolid, built into walls and graves during the Roman period, but they originally belonged to a building of which nothing is known.Footnote ⁹⁴ Only four blocks are preserved today at the museum in Nemea (Fig. 19), all with inscriptions on the exposed side, which suggests that they might be from a sacred building. The characters in the earliest of these inscriptions also suggest a terminus ante quem for the building within the first half of the sixth century. Like the early Corinthian blocks, those from Phlius have parallel grooves on the bottom and on one side, and they also resemble early Corinthian blocks in material and dimensions. The only remarkable difference is that, in addition to the parallel grooves, the blocks from Phlius feature a semi-cylindrical cutting in the middle of the grooved side. Because their paucity and lack of original context makes the blocks difficult to interpret, we cannot determine whether the semi-circular cutting was an original feature or resulted from a later use. All we can gather is that the experimental building method at Isthmia and Corinth had followers in the subsequent century within a radius of about 30 km from the area of its early development.

Fig. 19.

One of the four Archaic blocks with grooves found at Phlius, presently housed at the museum in Nemea. Photos by the author.

Other significant parallels from the Greek world are found at Perachora, in the Corinthia, and at Selinus and Akragas, in Sicily. At Perachora, the blocks of the north interior stylobate of the Temple of Hera Akraia (last quarter of the sixth century) feature a groove extending from side to side across the bottom (Fig. 20), near the end that would have abutted the block already in place during setting manoeuvres. Indeed, this groove would have allowed the corresponding end of the block to be lifted and lowered while the block was being set against its neighbour (Menadier Reference Menadier1995, 16–17 fig. 9).

Fig. 20.

Blocks of the north interior stylobate of the late 6th-century Temple of Hera Akraia at Perachora, each with a groove extending from side to side across the bottom. Photo by the author.

At Selinus, some geison blocks from Temple C (mid to late sixth century) have a couple of longitudinal grooves on the underside that turn up on both ends. Such cuttings occur on only a few blocks, while the rest of the cornice blocks have none. This might suggest that the grooves were used for laying blocks down in particular positions, perhaps by manoeuvring a loop of rope with levers.Footnote ⁹⁵ According to Koldewey and Puchstein (Reference Koldewey and Puchstein1899, 225), the geison blocks from Temple C that are provided with grooves were the last ones laid on their course,Footnote ⁹⁶ as later proposed by Broneer for Ar 40, the block from Isthmia featuring grooves on both ends.Footnote ⁹⁷

At Akragas, in the Olympieion (begun in the early fifth century), sets of two grooves running parallel to the architrave are found along the resting surface of the engaged columns' lower capital-blocks, as well as along their vertical joints (Koldewey and Puchstein Reference Koldewey and Puchstein1899, figs 140, 143; Durm Reference Durm1910, fig. 72; Stuart and Revett Reference Stuart and Revett1830, pl. VIII fig. 13); they are interpreted by Koldewey and Puchstein (Reference Koldewey and Puchstein1899, 162) as rope-grooves. The only ends of them remaining visible inside the neck-flutes were easily sealed with properly fashioned stone patches. Each of these blocks comprises a half echinus and, below it, the corresponding top end of the fluted semi-column. Apparently, only the right-hand block of each echinus has grooves on the vertical joint passing through the capital's centre. These would have been needed for removing the ropes if the left side was already in place.Footnote ⁹⁸

In brief, in Greece and in Egypt straight rope grooves seem to have been used in the final setting of stone blocks. At any rate, the generalised use of grooves on all of a building's blocks, as in the early temples at Corinth and Isthmia, seems to be an isolated case, unless the grooved blocks from the Temple of Hera Akraia at Perachora are remnants of a seventh-century predecessor, all of whose blocks might have had the same kind of groove.Footnote ⁹⁹

Reconstructing the setting method

Once a connection is established between the grooves and the final setting of the blocks, the question now becomes how this operation was performed and how it related to lifting. According to Hemans (Reference Hemans, Gebhard and Gregory2015, 46), lifting and setting a block into position were performed in a single step, assuming that a lifting machine could deliver the block precisely to the final position so that no further adjustment would be needed. This is highly improbable, as testified by the complex manoeuvres this operation would require in later periods, when the blocks were lifted to their course by a crane placed against the wall's midpoint, laid down on rollers, and moved horizontally to their final place, where they were lowered with crowbars.

Hero (Mechanica 3.2) and Vitruvius (10.2.8–10) describe a single-arm crane offering ample mobility (Fig. 21). However, in spite of the wide horizontal reach of this device, we know from Hero's account that, even with this machine, a block was likely laid down near its final position and then pushed the last few centimetres to its home against its neighbour in the usual way, on rollers. Moreover, while he praises the ingenuity of this machine, Vitruvius adds that it was only for experts. These accounts reflect the knowledge of the Hellenistic period, when considerable experience had been gained in lifting and other technological realms. That a machine in the seventh century could outperform a Hellenistic one is hard to believe, given that lifting technology was presumably in its early stages.

Fig. 21.

Single-arm lifting machine described by Vitruvius (10.2.8–10), with a compound pulley system (polyspastos) but no winch. Galiani Reference Galiani1758, pl. XXV.

Therefore, manoeuvring was most likely performed after and independent of lifting. In the Classical and Hellenistic periods, this operation usually involved the following steps. First, once a block was brought against its neighbour, the rollers were removed. This was done with crowbars, which lifted the block from two points, the bottom of the free end and the top of the contact end, where special holes had been cut in the middle for accommodating the ends of the crowbars (Fig. 22a). Then, as the block was lowered, contact between the adjoining faces was tested and adjustments made by levelling out potential imperfections. Once this was done and the block was laid down on its bedding, the free end was pushed in order to tighten the joint. This last step required that a pry hole (or two) in the course below it be present to provide purchase for the crowbar (Fig. 22b).Footnote ¹⁰⁰

Fig. 22.

Setting by manoeuvring with levers accommodated by specific cuttings. (a) Once a block has been brought on rollers against its neighbour, the block is lifted with levers at two points and the rollers removed. The block is then lowered. (b) The free end of the block is pushed to tighten the joint. Drawings by the author.

The blocks from the early temples of Isthmia and Corinth may have been set into position in one of two ways: by using levers; or by using a combination of ropes and levers. Levers would have been feasible on a practical level, as in most cases the anathyrosis is deep enough in the centre to allow the tip of a lever to be extracted after a block was lowered onto its bedding. Moreover, some of the wall blocks from Isthmia present a rough cutting, 0.10–0.15 m wide and about 0.03–0.04 m deep, that is particularly interesting in this connection, a fact that has thus far been overlooked. This cutting was intentionally carved (apparently with an adze) in the middle of the side face's bottom edge. As we have seen, this is where a lever hole is likely to be found on later Greek blocks, so it seems reasonable to hypothesise that the cutting at issue was carved specifically for use with a lever.

The blocks from Isthmia thus offer the earliest Greek evidence for lever holes and confirm that levers were employed in setting the first stone blocks of Greek monumental architecture. In particular, on some blocks from the ends of Broneer's reconstructed wall, the cutting is found on the exposed non-grooved end (Fig. 23), which would have been the free end while the block was being manoeuvred into place.Footnote ¹⁰¹ This would seem to suggest that the lever was used to lift and lower this end in the very same way as later practice. However, while examination of the ends of Broneer's reassembled blocks is often difficult (in some blocks this part is not even preserved), it does show that there are blocks on which the cutting is absent. Moreover, on others the cutting is found on the opposite side, the one with grooves. For this fact I have no better explanation than that the builders, while accustomed to using levers for moving stones (presumably from quarrying), might have discovered the best method during the process of experimenting with different setting techniques.

Fig. 23.

Rough cuttings at the lower edge of the free, non-grooved end of the blocks at Isthmia. (a) Block IA 852, at the eastern end of the taller portion of Broneer's reconstructed wall. (b) Blocks IA 851 (bottom) and IA 3576 (top), at the opposite end of the same portion of the wall. Photos by the author.

Besides using a lever to lift and lower the free end of a block, later practice required a means for pushing the free end and a means for lifting the side of the block near the neighbouring stone. Would our blocks have allowed these two additional operations? As to pushing the free end after lowering the block on its bedding, I believe that, even without a pry hole, a wooden lever inserted into the gap between the bedding and the slightly concave underside of the block – or into the special cutting described above, if present – would have had sufficient grip on the rough limestone surface to move the block, considering its relatively modest weight and the fact that, generally, crowbars are more effective when they are inclined against rather than perpendicular to the direction of action (in order not to slip out). The grooves would have provided the only means of lifting and lowering the opposite side of the block. Because a lever was used on the free end, it seems logical that the same means would also be adopted on the contact end for pulling a loop of rope, so that two men, one on each side of the block, would suffice for the job (Figs 24e and 25a).

Fig. 24.

(a) Fisherman's knot (consisting of two overhand knots). (b) Flemish bend (consisting of a double figure eight bend). (c) Sling for suspending a block, consisting of a loop of rope accommodated in the grooves. (d) Attaching the sling to a lever. (e) Using levers for moving the block vertically (and removing the rollers). Drawings by the author.

Fig. 25.

Setting technique (1: lifting and lowering; 2: pushing) and the conjectural development of ways of lifting the contact end of a block with levers. (a) Lever attached to a rope accommodated by grooves in the blocks of the early temples at Isthmia and Corinth. (b) Lever attached to a loop of rope accommodated by a V-shaped hole. (c) Lever's tip accommodated by a specific cutting below the upper edge of the block's contact face. Drawings by the author.

There is no evidence as to how the rope was tied around each individual block to form a sling for lifting or, later during setting, how exactly the rope was attached to the lever at the contact end. From a practical standpoint, though, the setting method proposed above could only work if, after lifting, the sling could be easily and quickly attached to the lever, and then just as easily untied to remove the rope once the block was set. Among the most reliable knots used today for joining two ends of a line under load are the fisherman's knot and the Flemish bend (Fig. 24a, b). These are double versions of the overhand knot and the figure eight bend, respectively, which are both attested from Egyptian times onwards.Footnote ¹⁰² There can be little doubt that the Greeks, who were skilled sailors, mastered these knots and their variations from early times.

With a sling made from a loop of rope (Fig. 24c) it would have been easy to equalize the rope lengths above a block to ensure that its resting face stayed horizontal during lifting. If such a sling was used, after the block had been laid down and brought against its neighbour, the same sling could be easily attached to a lever (in a position convenient for lifting the block's end) by passing one of the loop's ends through the other and then around the lever's tip a number of times (twisting the loop at each successive round) (Fig. 24d, e).Footnote ¹⁰³ Once the block had been set, untying either of the knots mentioned above would have only taken a matter of seconds, for they are relatively easy to loosen once the tension is over.

Developments in setting technique

The use of linear grooves continued throughout the Archaic period, but sporadically and on blocks of special categories.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ In subsequent Greek Archaic architecture, the characteristic V-shaped holes (Fig. 26) that I have discussed in connection with lifting appeared on the top face of blocks (references in Coulton Reference Coulton1974, 2 n. 8). While the presence of one or two such holes near the centre of the top face points to lifting as the sole purpose, two V-shaped holes, one located near each end,Footnote ¹⁰⁵ would have permitted both lifting and the final setting, as I have argued was the case for the parallel grooves. Indeed, after lifting, a loop of rope attached to the cutting near the neighbouring stone would have allowed workmen to lift and lower this side with a lever (Fig. 25b) in much the same way, I believe, as with the grooves of the Early Archaic Corinthian blocks (Coulton Reference Coulton1974, 2 fig. 2).

Fig. 26.

V-shaped holes on Archaic blocks. (a) A wall block from a lower course of the Temple of Hera Akraia at Perachora, with an off-centre V-shaped cutting and a pry hole. (b) Fragment A 163 from the early Temple of Zeus at Nemea. Photos by the author.

However, in most cases there seems to have been only one V-shaped hole near one end, for which the only plausible purpose would have been manoeuvring a block into place. In fact, if such a cutting were used for suspending a block, this would hang almost vertically (Coulton Reference Coulton1974, 2). The earliest examples of such off-centre cuttings in Archaic Corinthian architecture appear on foundation blocks of the Corinthian Treasury at Delphi, a building dedicated by Kypselos (reign 657–627) and consequently dated immediately after the early temples of Corinth and Isthmia (references in Pfaff Reference Pfaff, Williams and Bookidis2003, 105 n. 84). Later examples appear, in the Corinthia, on some foundation and wall blocks of the Temple of Hera Akraia at Perachora (Fig. 26a) and on some reused blocks in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth, as well as on a few other isolated Corinthian blocks (Pfaff Reference Pfaff, Williams and Bookidis2003, 107). Similar cuttings appear also at Olympia, on the wall ashlars of the Temple of Hera (Durm Reference Durm1910, fig. 71), and in ancient Argolid, on the geison blocks of the Archaic temple on the Acropolis at Mycenae (Klein Reference Klein1997, 283–5, figs 10, 15) and on blocks from the early Temple of Zeus at Nemea (Fig. 26b).Footnote ¹⁰⁶ In particular, the temple at Nemea shows striking similarities with those from the early temples at Isthmia and Corinth, suggesting that this building should be regarded as their most direct descendant.

Unlike the blocks from Corinth and Isthmia, those with off-centre V-shaped holes from later Archaic contexts also, in some cases, have pry holes (Fig. 26a).Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Providing much better purchase for levers than shear friction, pry holes represent the Greeks' best solution for pushing stones.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ V-shaped holes placed near the contact end, no matter how soon they were used with tongs, seem reminiscent of their forerunners, rather than being on the verge of the next technological advance. As we have seen, in later periods, lifting the contact face of a block would involve a special cutting near its top edge, as well as a corresponding cutting on the neighbouring stone (Figs 22a and 25c). These sophisticated cuttings allowed the lever more control and were better suited for marble blocks.Footnote ¹⁰⁹