Everyday Things in Ancient Greece [Second Edition] by Quennell Marjorie;Freeman Kathleen;Quennell C. H. B.;

Author:Quennell, Marjorie;Freeman, Kathleen;Quennell, C. H. B.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Muriwai Books
Published: 2017-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

Pausanias, a native of Lydia, who travelled extensively, and wrote his Description of Greece, between about A.D. 150 and 175, writes that in his time one of the pillars of the back chamber of the Temple of Hera at Olympia was of oak. From this it is conjectured that the entablature, and the columns which supported it, were originally of wood, the latter being replaced with stone as they decayed. Fig. 63 has been drawn to show this timber construction of the early Doric temples, and Fig. 64, of the Temple of Theseus in Athens, shows how the timber forms survived even when stone and marble were used for building. Let us take Fig. 63 first, and we will start with the timber shaft cut from a sturdy oak. It would have been a reasonable thing for a carpenter to place a circular pad on the top of the shaft, with a good square block of wood over it. These became the Echinus and Abacus (64). The purpose of the vertical columns was to support beams, bridged across horizontally from column to column; these became the architraves. Then other beams were placed across the building with their ends resting on the architraves. These tied the whole building together and provided it with a ceiling. The ends of the beams were chamfered off, and so one arrived at the triglyphs (64). One of these crossbeams always came over the top of the column under, and one between the columns, so that spaces were left between the beams on the top of the architrave.

These were filled in with brick at the back, and at first terracotta panels were placed in front of the bricks; later beautifully carved marble panels were inserted, as at the Parthenon, and became the metopes. On the top of all this another beam was placed, to give good fixing for the ends of the overhanging rafters. Later these became part of the marble cornice, and were called mutules (64), but the little wooden pegs used when they were of wood continued to be shown in the new material, and the mutules still sloped as they had when they were the feet of rafters. It is the architrave, frieze, and cornice which together are called the entablature.

Sometimes the wooden mouldings of these early temples were sheathed with gaily decorated terracotta plaques.

At the ends of the building the sloping roofs were finished with flat gables, called pediments. Along the tops of these a gutter, or sima, ran, which finished at the feet with a lion’s head. The roof was covered with thatch in the earliest times, and then, later, with terracotta and marble tiles resting on the rafters; these were flat, with turned-up edges at the sides which were placed together, and covered with a small tile which had an ornamental termination at the eaves, called an antefix. In the later Ionic temples the sima was continued along the sides of the building, as a gutter, with lions’ heads as waterspouts.

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