The megaron is the great hall

Great hall

A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...

 of the Grecian

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 palace

Palace

A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word itself is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills in Rome. In many parts of Europe, the...

 complexes. It was a rectangular hall, fronted by an open, two-columned porch, and a more or less central, open hearth vented though an oculus

Oculus

An Oculus, circular window, or rain-hole is a feature of Classical architecture since the 16th century. They are often denoted by their French name, oeil de boeuf, or "bull's-eye". Such circular or oval windows express the presence of a mezzanine on a building's façade without competing for...

 in the roof above it and surrounded by four columns. It is the architectural predecessor of the classical Greek temple. It was used for poetry, feasts, worship, sacrifice, formal royal functions, councils, and is said to be where guests of the king would stay during their visits. Originally it was very colorful — made with the Minoan architectural order, the insides made of fired brick and a wooden roof supported on beams. The rooftop was tiled with ceramic and terracotta tiles.

In the theory of architecture, the Megaron is considered to be the earliest architectural act. It is the earliest intervention that transforms utilitarian buildings into buildings with architectural qualities. The Megaron creates the notion of special approach and axis and thus is considered to be the predecessor of all orders in architectural theory.

A famous megaron is in the large reception hall of the king in the palace of Tiryns

Tiryns

Tiryns is a Mycenaean archaeological site in the prefecture of Argolis in the Peloponnese, some kilometres north of Nauplion.-General information:...

, the main room of which had a throne placed against the right wall and a central hearth bordered by four Minoan

Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...

-style wooden columns that served as supports for the roof.
The megaron of Odysseus is well described in the Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

.

• Biers, William R. 1987. The Archaeology of Greece: An Introduction. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press)
• Klein, Christopher P. (Editor in Chief) Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Tenth edition. Harcourt Brace (1996). ISBN 0-15-501141-3
• Vermeule, Emily, 1972. Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).