Ancient Greek temple Pictures, Photos and Images of Greek Temples. Archiecture pictures of Acropolis, Selinute & Agrigento.

Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in Greek paganism. The temples themselves did usually not directly serve a cult purpose, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them. Temples were frequently used to store votive offerings. They are the most important and...
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Ancient Greek temple Pictures, Photos and Images of Greek Temples. Archiecture pictures of Acropolis, Selinute & Agrigento.

Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in Greek paganism. The temples themselves did usually not directly serve a cult purpose, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them. Temples were frequently used to store votive offerings. They are the most important and most widespread building type in Greek architecture.

The basic principles for the development of Greek temple architecture have their roots between the 10th century BC and the 7th century BC. In its simplest form as a naos, the temple was a simple rectangular shrine with protruding side walls (antae), forming a small porch. Until the 8th century BC, there were also apsidal structures with more or less semi-circular back walls, but the rectangular type prevailed. By adding columns to this small basic structure, the Greeks triggered the development and variety of their temple architecture.

The first Greek temples were mostly mudbrick structures on stone foundations. The columns and superstructure (entablature) were wooden, door openings and antae were protected with wooden planks. The mudbrick walls were often reinforced by wooden posts, in a type of half-timbered technique. The elements of this simple and clearly structured wooden architecture produced all the important design principles that were to determine the development of Greek temples for centuries.

In the 6th century BC, Ionian Samos developed the double-colonnaded dipteros as an alternative to the single peripteros. This idea was later copied in Didyma, Ephesos and Athens. Between the 6th and the late 4th century BC, innumerable temples were built; nearly every polis, every colony contained one or several. There were also temples at extra-urban sites and at major sanctuaries like Olympia and Delphi.
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