Editing Ancient Greek architecture (section)

=== Early development ===
There is a clear division between the architecture of the preceding [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] and [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] cultures and that of the ancient Greeks, with much of the techniques and an understanding of their style being lost when these civilisations fell.<ref name="Boardman1" />

[[Mycenaean architecture]] is marked by massive fortifications, typically surrounding a citadel with a royal palace, much smaller than the rambling Minoan "palaces", and relatively few other buildings. The [[megaron]], a rectangular hall with a hearth in the centre, was the largest room in the palaces, and also larger houses. Sun-dried brick above rubble bases were the usual materials, with wooden columns and roof-beams. Rows of [[ashlar]] stone [[Orthostates|orthostats]] lined the base of walls in some prominent locations.<ref>{{harvnb|Lawrence|1957|pp=65–67}}.</ref>

The Minoan architecture of Crete was of the trabeated form like that of ancient Greece. It employed wooden columns with capitals, but the wooden columns were of a very different form to Doric columns, being narrow at the base and splaying upward.<ref name="HG" /> The earliest forms of columns in Greece seem to have developed independently. As with Minoan architecture, ancient Greek domestic architecture centred on open spaces or courtyards surrounded by [[colonnade]]s. This form was adapted to the construction of [[hypostyle]] halls within the larger temples. The evolution that occurred in architecture was towards the public building, first and foremost the temple, rather than towards grand domestic architecture such as had evolved in Crete,<ref name="HG2" /> if the Cretan "palaces" were indeed domestic, which remains uncertain.

Some Mycenaean tombs are marked by circular structures and tapered domes with flat-bedded, cantilevered courses.<ref name="HG" /> This [[architectural form]] did not carry over into the architecture of ancient Greece, but reappeared about 400 BC in the interior of large monumental tombs such as the [[Lion of Knidos|Lion Tomb at Knidos]] (c. 350 BC).