How the Historical Greeks Constructed Their Magnificent Temples: The Artwork of Historical Engineering


Doric, Ion­ic, Corinthi­an: these, as prac­ti­cal­ly each­one who went by faculty within the West some­how remem­bers, are the three vari­eties of clas­si­cal col­umn. We should recall them, extra specif­i­cal­ly, as rep­re­despatched­ing the three historic Greek archi­tec­tur­al kinds. However as ancient-his­to­ry YouTu­ber Gar­rett Ryan factors out in the brand new Advised in Stone video above, solely Doric and Ion­ic columns belong ful­ly to historic Greece; what we consider once we consider Corinthi­an columns have been devel­oped extra within the civ­i­liza­tion of historic Rome. The con­textual content is an expla­na­tion of how the traditional Greeks constructed their tem­ples, one of many char­ac­ter­is­tics of their design course of being the usage of columns aplen­ty.

It’s one factor to listen to about Greek columns within the class­room, and fairly anoth­er to stroll amid them in per­son. That, per­haps, is why Ryan deliv­ers the open­ing of his video perched upon the ruins of what’s referred to as Tem­ple C. Hav­ing as soon as stood proud­ly in Seli­nus, a metropolis belong­ing to Magna Grae­cia (Greek-speak­ing areas of Italy), it now con­sti­tutes one of many prime vacationer attrac­tions for antiq­ui­ty-mind­ed vis­i­tors to mod­ern-day Sici­ly.

Although his chan­nel could also be referred to as Advised in Stone, Ryan begins his transient his­to­ry of the Greek tem­ple earlier than that hardy mate­r­i­al had even come into use for these pur­pos­es. At first, the Greeks fash­ioned the houses of their gods out of mud brick, with thatched roofs and wooden­en porch­es; solely from the sev­enth cen­tu­ry BC, “prob­a­bly impressed by con­tact with Egypt,” did they begin construct­ing them to final.

Or they constructed them to final so long as could possibly be anticipate­ed, in any case, giv­en the character of the mate­ri­als avail­in a position within the historic world and the mil­len­nia which have handed since then. Take the Tem­ple of Apol­lo on the Sanc­tu­ary of Didy­ma in mod­ern-day Turkey, which his­to­ry-and-archi­tec­ture YouTu­ber Manuel Bra­vo pays a vis­it in the video simply above. It might not look as if the close to­ly 2400 years since its nev­er-tech­ni­cal­ly-com­plet­ed con­struc­tion started have been form, but it surely’s nev­er­the­much less one of many guess­ter-pre­served tem­ples from historic Greek civ­i­liza­tion in exis­tence (to not males­tion the biggest). Even in its ruined state, it offers what Bra­vo describes because the impres­sion of — or no less than, in its hey­day, hav­ing been — “a for­est of giant columns,” a constructed ver­sion of “the sacred forests that Greeks used to con­se­crate to the gods.” They’re Ion­ic columns, in case you have been received­der­ing, however don’t sweat it; there received’t be a quiz.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Metropolis of Nashville Constructed a Full-Scale Repli­ca of the Parthenon in 1897, and It’s Nonetheless Stand­ing Immediately

A 3D Mod­el Reveals What the Parthenon and Its Inte­ri­or Regarded Like 2,500 Years In the past

How the Parthenon Mar­bles Finish­ed Up In The British Muse­um

Discover Historical Athens 3D, a Dig­i­tal Recon­struc­tion of the Greek Metropolis-State on the Peak of Its Influ­ence

What Historical Greece Actual­ly Regarded Like: See Recon­struc­tions of the Tem­ple of Hadri­an, Curetes Road & the Foun­tain of Tra­jan

The His­to­ry of Historical Greece in 18 Min­utes: A Brisk Primer Nar­rat­ed by Bri­an Cox

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the guide The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.



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