Lighting the Way: Natural and Artificial Light in the Greek House

Barbara Tsakirgis (Vanderbilt University)

Greek houses were constructed on narrow city streets and shared party walls with neighbors on either side.  The homes were, however, where women, children, and slaves spent much of their lives engaged not only in daily activities but also in household industry.  This paper examines the ways in which Greek houses were lit and the use of light and shade to add drama or privacy to domestic spaces.

Natural light entered the house mostly through the unroofed space of the domestic court.  Surrounding rooms or porticoes in later houses were indirectly lit by the sun as it penetrated this central space.  Domestic assemblages indicate that the workers in a house, women and slaves, took advantage of the direct illumination and conducted most activities in and around the court.  Loom weights for weaving and cooking pots and kitchen utensils are often found here. 

Little natural light entered the house through windows.  Because of the absence of window glass and the high cost of wood for shutters, the Greeks rarely constructed windows in the exterior walls of their houses.  There is evidence for windows in the interior of houses; the openings allowed light to penetrate more deeply into the rooms that ringed the central court.

Artificial light was provided to the occupants of houses by the hearth, braziers or oil lamps.  The expense of wood and charcoal must have limited the use of hearths and braziers to their primary function as the source of heat for warmth and cooking; light was a secondary benefit from both.  Illumination for nocturnal activities was provided by oil lamps.

Light and its absence were used in domestic ritual and for social control.  Torches lit the procession of bride to her husband’s home.  That same woman might be out of the sight of visiting men in her home when she sat in a room shaded by a portico or the position of the sun.