House of the Tiles

A monumental Early Bronze Age building at the archaeological site of Lerna in the Argolid, southern Greece, dating to the Early Helladic II period (c. 2500-2300 BC). This two-storey corridor house measures approximately 12 by 25 metres with walls nearly one metre thick, and is named for its innovative baked clay tile roof -- among the earliest known in Greece. Interpreted as either an elite residence, proto-palace, or communal administrative center, it was destroyed by fire possibly while still under construction. Excavated in the early 1950s by John Caskey of the University of Cincinnati for the American School of Classical Studies, the site was afterward covered by a tumulus surrounded by a stone ring, suggesting the newcomers who destroyed it recognized it as sacred ground.