KINGDOM OF MACEDON - THE PALACE OF PELLA

The palace was built on the plateau of a hill north from the city. Its location was strategic, since it could supervise the wider area, the lagoon where the city was built, the ancient port, the roads leading to Pella and the fertile land around.

The palace was accessible via the city. Two streets led from the market place (agora) to the palace. This approach emphasized the shift from the civic to the royal, which was protected and controlled and located on a higher level. It was a declaration of the royal power. For hundreds of meters, on this uphill route, the visitors were exposed to the sway of the royal superiority, expressed materially through the placement of the palace and the compulsory course one had to take, in order to reach it. This was a course that prepared the visitor for the contact with the royal power. 

Architecture was an important tool in the construction of the image of royal authority. The palace of Pella with its huge size of 70.000 sq.m., its complexity and theatricality emerged as the symbol par excellence of the power of the Macedonian kings.