Research Spotlight: Roof Tile Manufacturing Techniques
Phil Sapirstein pressing clay into a roof tile mold
I’ve worked at Corinth for ten years. As a specialist in Archaic Greek architecture and architectural terracottas, I have studied the rich collection of Archaic roof tiles in the storerooms. I have focused on the Old Temple, the seventh-century predecessor to the Temple of Apollo. Its interlocking tiled roof of the so-called Protocorinthian system is the earliest yet identified in the archaeological record and, thus, a progenitor to all Mediterranean roofs. Besides the architectural material, I was also a trench supervisor for the excavations directed by Guy Sanders in 2000 and 2006. After a brief visit in 1997, I started working regularly at Corinth in the summer of 1999. Robin Rhodes recruited me to work for his Greek Architecture Project at Corinth, whose objective has been the analysis and publication of the Old Temple. Along with several other students, I learned the process of measuring, plotting, inking, and digitizing the blocks. The roof tiles, however, had curved profiles and a complex set of cuttings that were much more difficult to draw accurately. In order to project these non-orthogonal features correctly, we developed a three-dimensional system for plotting the drawings. I took an interest in the topological challenges presented by the tiles and, in 2002, used our measurements to create 3D computer models. These made it possible to analyze the interlocking system of the Old Temple roof, and I reconstructed the full roof for a poster at the 103rd Annual Meeting of the AIA. In 2003, I began dissertation research on the manufacturing techniques of the Protocorinthian tile system, including the roof of the Old Temple and other buildings at Corinth, Isthmia, Perachora, and Delphi. From my observations, I developed a hypothesis for the forming and finishing sequence of each tile type which will appear in a Hesperia article in 2009 entitled “How the Corinthians Manufactured Their First Roof Tiles.” Reconstruction of the roof of Corinth’s 7th century B.C. temple by Phil Sapirstein With the encouragement and support of Guy Sanders, I initiated a project to test the hypothesis by fabricating replica tiles from locally available clays. Guy and I built molds and frames and gathered clays from a number of sites. I produced several full-scale replica Protocorinthian tiles in 2004 and 2006. The culmination of this project came in 2006 and 2007, when, with the collaboration of John Lambert (an MFA ceramicist) and the Greek Architecture Project, we constructed a large experimental kiln and fired the replica tiles. I also made several dozen bricks to test the performance characteristics of the clays we had gathered. The results of this research will be submitted for publication in a series of articles. I plan future research at Corinth, including participation in the Greek Architecture Project as it moves into producing visualizations of the full site of Corinth, a final publication of my analysis of the Protocorinthian roof, and continued study of Corinthian clays and architectural terracottas.