Tracing the Normative Framework of Mycenaean Monumental Architecture: The Melathron on the Late Bronze Age Citadel of Gla, Boeotia

Strategically built on a natural stone outcrop rising from the Kopaic Plain in Boeotia, the Melathron of Gla has long attracted scholarly attention owing to its original plan featuring two perpendicular wings. While its regular layout and internal partitioning suggest careful spatial organization akin to Mycenaean palatial buildings, the absence of earlier architectural phases makes it an exceptional case study for tracing the existence and application of guiding principles underlying monumental architectural creation. By exploring the distinctive stages of planning, design, and construction through which the Melathron was conceived and built, we provide evidence for the architect’s formulation and systematic application of a designing grid. This grid was based on specific sets of measurement units and their replication, eventually enabling the architect to spatially formulate a series of requirements set forth by the commissioner. Our study demonstrates that a normative framework was adopted, which allowed a consistent integration of the Melathron’s construction across the successive building stages and facilitated the collaboration among different groups of specialists.1