The Protocorinthian System

Abstract Remains of the earliest roof tiles thus far known in post-Mycenaean Greece have been excavated at Corinth, the traditional birthplace of Doric architecture. The roofing system is known as the Protocorinthian system, a name assigned to the system because these tiles were found at Corinth in contexts with Protocorinthian pottery. Similar tiles have also been found at Isthmia, Perachora, and Delphi (Map 1 ); two roofs at Olympia possess characteristics of both the Protocorinthian system and the Argive system, and must be transitional between the two (see Chapter 8). Protocorinthian tiles, of canonical form for neither Corinthian nor Laconian system, display characteristics of both and must be the source from which these two major roofing systems, not to mention various other local schools, evolved. The source for the Protocorinthian tiles themselves is more obscure: the sophistication of their design suggests to some that they are not the first to be invented, but· rather are based on earliermodels. That these models were not prehistoric tiles is clear from comparisons of the two styles: prehistoric tiles, which may or may not have been used on roofs, had separate pan and cover elements, the pan flat and the cover convex, while Protocorinthian tiles combine both elements into one piece, the pan element concave, the cover convex.