Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T00:51:31.785Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Extended angle intercolumniations in fifth-century Athenian Ionic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

J.J. Coulton
J.J. Coulton
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is a widespread feature of Doric temples that the intercolumniations nearest the angles should be somewhat narrower than normal so as to allow a regular distribution of triglyphs and metopes in the frieze. The nature and working of this adjustment have been widely discussed; but little attention has been given to the contrary arrangement in two Athenian Ionic temples, where the intercolumniations nearest the angles are actually wider than normal. Of the standard handbooks on Greek architecture in English, only that of Dinsmoor notes that the angle intercolumniations of the north porch of the Erechtheion are 0·052 m larger than the central one, and even he does not discuss the fact in his main treatment of the building. He also notes that the angle intercolumniations of the temple by the Ilissos are 0·051 m greater than the central one, but attributes that to later distortion of the building. Shear mentions both these instances in her discussion of the possible works of Kallikrates, and accepts the wider intercolumniations of the Ilissos temple as part of the original design. Following Stevens, she explains this feature in the Erechtheion as intended to allow a regular spacing of the ceiling beams, and suggests that the same explanation may apply to the Ilissos temple too.

Information

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 99 , November 1979, pp. 155 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 E.g. Robertson, D. S., Greek and Roman Architecture 2 (1943) 106–9Google Scholar; Coulton, J. J., Creek Architects at Work (1977) 62–4Google Scholar.

2 Dinsmoor, W. B., The Architecture of Ancient Greece (1950) (hereafter AAG) 340Google Scholar; no discussion ibid. 187–95. The feature is not mentioned in the following discussions of the Erechtheion: D. S. Robertson, op. cit. (n. l) 127–35; Lawrence, A. W., Greek Architecture 3 (1973) 164–6Google Scholar; Gruben, G., Die Tempel der Griechen 2 (1976) 193–206Google Scholar.

3 AAG 339.

4 Hesp. xxxii (1963) 391, 413.

5 Caskey, L. D.et al., The Erechtheum (1927) 80Google Scholar; Hesp. xxxii (1963) 413.

6 Figures in this paragraph are from AAG 339–40.

7 Compare the probable use of a similar rule in Doric temples of the same period (BSA lxix [1974] 83–4, Rule 3). In terms of the abbreviations used there, the present rule may be expressed as I = W/(N + ½), or, if worked in reverse, W = I(N+½).

8 AAG 195 n. 1; Dinsmoor, W. B. in Atti del VII Congresso Internazionale di Archeologia Classica (1961) i 358—9Google Scholar.

9 The effect is more directly shown by the less familiar proportion, lower torus diameter/intercolumniation. for which the figures are: Ilissos temple 0·449, Nike temple 0·483, Erechtheion N. porch 0·398, E. porch 0·464.

10 BSA Ixix (1974) 83, Rule 3 and n. 64; Coulton, J.J., Greek Architects at Work (1977) 62–4Google Scholar.

11 BSA lxix (1974) 61; BSA lxx (1975) 61–2.

12 Most fully by Shear, I. M., Hesp. xxxii (1963) 375–424Google Scholar; see also Boersma, J. S., Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 B.C. (1970) 75–6Google Scholar.

13 The figures are taken from AAG 337–40, supplemented by: Kerameikos x, Hoepfner, W., Das Pompeion (1976) pl. 25Google Scholar; Roux, G., ĽArchitecture de ľArgolide (1961) 229–30Google Scholar, 257; Ist. Mitt xviii (1968) 213–14; Wiegand, T., Didyma i (1941) 108Google Scholar; Humann, C., Magnesia am Maeander (1904)Google Scholar.

14 Archaic temple: c. 41·0×107·75 m; Hellenistic temple: 41·11×107·89m (AAG 91, 280; G. Gruben, op. cit. [n. 2] 230, 234). Welter, 's figures (Ath. Mitt xlvii [1922] 70)Google Scholar are unreliable. If Dinsmoor is right in suggesting that the archaic Olympieion was to have 21 columns on the flanks (AAG 91), the stylobate proportions would conform fairly closely to BSA lxix (1974) 82, Rule 1 (stylobate width/8×21=107·625 m; stylobate length =c. 107·75 m).