Stremma

The stremma (pl. stremmata; Greek: στρέμμα, strémma) is unit of land area used mainly in Greece and Cyprus, equal to 1,000 square metres or approximately ¼ acre.

History

The ancient Greek equivalent was the square plethron, which served as the Greeks' form of the acre. It was originally defined as the area plowed by a team of oxen in a day^[1] but was nominally standardized as the area enclosed by a square 100 Greek feet (pous) to a side. It was the size of a Greek wrestling square.

The Byzantine or Morean stremma continued to vary depending on the period and the quality of the land, but usually enclosed an area between 900–1,900 m² (9,700–20,500 sq ft).^[2] It was originally also known as the "plethron" but this was eventually replaced by "stremma", derived from the verb for "turning" the ground with a Byzantine plow.^[3]

The Ottoman stremma, often called the Turkish stremma, is the Greek (and occasionally English) name for the dunam, which in turn is probably derived from the Byzantine unit.^[4] Again, this varied by region: some values include 1,270 m² (13,700 sq ft),^[5] and 1,600 m².^[6]

Conversions

One modern stremma is equivalent to:

Metric

• 1,000 square metres
• 0.1 hectares
• 0.001 square kilometres

Imperial

• 10,763.9 square feet
• 0.247 105 38 acres
• 0.000 386 102 square miles

See also

• 1 E3 m² for further comparisons
• Byzantine units
• Conversion of units
• Greek units
• Metric units

Bibliography

1. Pryce, Frederick Norman; et al. (2012), "measures", The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 917, ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.
2. Siriol Davis, "Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, Part VI: administration and settlement in Venetian Navarino", Hesperia, Winter, 2004
3. Λεξικό της κοινής Νεοελληνικής (Dictionary of Modern Greek), Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών, Θεσσαλονίκη, 1998. ISBN 960-231-085-5
4. V.L. Ménage, Review of Speros Vryonis, Jr. The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of islamization from the eleventh through the fifteenth century, Berkeley, 1971; in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) 36:3 (1973), pp. 659-661. at JSTOR (subscription required); see also Erich Schilbach, Byzantinische Metrologie.
5. The Dictionary of Modern Greek Λεξικό, 1998
6. Costas Lapavitsas, "Social and Economic Underpinning of Industrial Development: Evidence from Ottoman Macedonia" (PDF). Ηλεκτρονικό Δελτίο Οικονομικής Ιστορίας. Retrieved 2012-08-29.