The Lefkandi-Toumba building as a timber-framed structure

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Abstract

The article demonstrates that the building or megaron on the Toumba hill at Lefkandi (Euboea), dating from c.950 BCE, was a timber-framed structure, in contrast to the common view of it as a building with load-bearing walls. This raises the possibility that the walls, perhaps even parts of the frame and the roof, were still under construction, rather than fully completed as previously assumed, when the building was buried under a mound. The reconstruction of the building as a timber-framed structure, as well as an analysis of the manner of production of its wooden elements and a structural analysis intended to test the integrity of the frame point to a sophisticated and solid structure, giving us valuable insights into ancient wooden architecture and the complex rationale behind the adoption of designs of this kind as prototypes of later large-scale temples in Greece. There is no evidence that the timber frame suffered any significant structural failure, but if such failure ever occurred, it would most likely be a partial uplift of the thatched roof due to high winds.