Early temples were built with mud brick, timber frame and supports, rubble, thatch roofs. The concept of a temple was a house for a god’s image,

Architecture: Early Temples

Early temples were built with mud brick,

timber frame and supports, rubble, thatch roofs.

The concept of a temple was a house for a god’s image, meaning the statue was at the back of the hall.

Early Temples – Dark Ages

statue

After 700 BC the Greeks began building

temples of stone.

Doric temples prospered throughout Western Greece, Sicily and Southern Italy.

Better roofs were created due to the use of baked clay tiles.

Early Temples - Archaic Age

During the mid 7th century BC, travellers

introduced stone columns to Greek temples.

Stone columns in the Doric style imitated previous wooden columns.

Later on they would develop into Ionic and Corinthian styles.

Temple development

The Temple of Artemis is an ancient temple

built in the archaic style around 580 BC in the city of Corcyra.

It is known as the first Doric temple exclusively built with stone.

Considered the first building to have incorporated all of the elements of the Doric architectural style.

Corcyra: Temple of Artemis

Temple of Hera was built between 490 and

470 BC

The Temple of Hera is constructed in the classic Greek, Doric architectural style.

It consists of colonnades of Doric columns on a rectangular foundation

Sicily: Temple of Hera

The Temple of Zeus at Olympia built in 472 was the

model of the fully developed classical Greek temple in the Doric style.

Home to the statue of Zeus, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world

The main structure of the building was limestone coated with a thin layer of stucco (a mixture which when hardens gives the appearance of marble)

Olympia: Temple of Zeus