Glossary Architecture and settlements
Ashlar
Also called: ashlar masonry
Masonry of stone blocks cut and dressed square, laid in regular courses with fine joints.
Ashlar appears in Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age, in the thirteenth century BCE, and marks the island's grandest buildings: the Ashlar Building at Enkomi, Building X at Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, and monumental buildings at Maroni and Kition. The technique links Cyprus with Ugarit and the Levant, where dressed stone was used for palaces and elite houses. In the Iron Age ashlar reappears in royal tombs, temples and city walls, often as a facing over a core of rubble. See architecture.
Related terms
- Built tomb
A tomb constructed of masonry, usually of dressed stone blocks, instead of being simply cut into the bedrock.
- Mudbrick
A building brick of clay mixed with straw or other temper, shaped in a mould or by hand and dried in the sun without firing.
- Settlement hierarchy
A ranking of settlements by size and function, from towns down to villages and hamlets, within one region or state.
Where it appears
- Bronze Age Chamber Tombs
- Architectural Transformations in Ancient Cyprus
- Earthquakes in Ancient Cyprus
- Fortifications in Ancient Cyprus: From Khirokitia to the Siege of Paphos
- Seafaring and Ships in Ancient Cyprus
- Food Storage in Ancient Cyprus: Pits, Pithoi and Storerooms
- Achaemenid Persia
- Copper Metallurgy in Ancient Cyprus
- Food and Diet in Ancient Cyprus
- From Bronze to Iron: Cypriot Pottery c. 1300–950 BCE
- Gold, Silver, Tin, Arsenic and Iron in Ancient Cyprus
- Late Bronze Age Cyprus
and 7 more compendium pages