Greek and Roman Art, Architecture and Archaeology
This domain tests visual and material evidence: can you identify a building or object, date it approximately, describe technique, and explain what it communicated? You are expected to use terms such as order, elevation, frieze, entablature, vault and stratigraphy correctly.
Greek architecture and sculpture
Orders: Doric (simple capital, triglyph-and-metope frieze), Ionic (volutes, continuous frieze), Corinthian (acanthus). Parthenon, 447–432 BC, Iktinos and Kallikrates, Doric peripteral, 8 by 17 columns, with refinements - entasis, curved stylobate, widened corner columns. Sculpture: Archaic kouroi and korai; Severe style; Polykleitos' Doryphoros and his written canon; Hellenistic drama (Laocoön, Pergamon altar).
Roman building
Roman innovation lay in arch, vault, concrete and organisation: the Pantheon (Hadrianic, c. AD 118–125) with its 43 m dome and oculus; the Colosseum (AD 70–80, Vespasian to Titus); baths, aqueducts, fora. Pompeii and Herculaneum preserve urban fabric and four styles of wall painting; the Ara Pacis (13–9 BC) turns imperial message into carved marble.
Worked example
You are shown a Doric temple with 6 by 13 columns and no sculpted frieze. Reasoning: first classify order, plan and elevation; then date by proportion and technique; then ask about function, patron and setting. The absence of sculpture matters - it may indicate a treasury or a cheaper later build - and the answer should flag that identification from style alone is provisional without provenance.
Traps
Confusing Roman copies with Greek originals; dating by 'look' alone; describing a building without saying what it did.