Database: Ancient Greek houses

An Ancient Greek house was the living place of the family and their servants. The general plan of a Greek house was built around a courtyard. Several rooms with different functions were placed around the courtyard, which was the main source of daylight into these rooms. One would approach the house by means of a gateway where the guests could stand and have discussion before knocking. The door opened into the courtyard, surrounded by a colonnade and various rooms. In the courtyard there stood an altar for the domestic cults. Among the various rooms around the courtyard could be found a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, bedrooms, and storage rooms. Houses often had a second floor where there would be some bedrooms and rooms dedicated to women and children. In the house, oikos in Ancient Greek, the women were generally in charge of management, which was called in Greek the oikonomia, a word that gave our modern "economy".