[Article] the legacy of wood in Greek temples

Greek temples were initially constructed in the Dorian and Archaic periods almost exclusively out of wood and mud brick. Some of these techniques were carried into later archaic and classical temples by the conservatism of the architects. However, as temples became larger and more complex, various sacrifices of convention had to be made because of practicality and aesthetics. Gradually techniques developed to be more suited to stone rather than wood.

However, wood in Greek religious buildings had a long history, and some religious areas such as Olympia had initially been comprised of just an altar, and offerings were left on the surrounding trees. Therefore, it was normal for Greek temples in such areas to be built of wood or at least incorporate a great deal of the substance because of the absence of any large stone quarries nearby. Transportation of good quality stone to, Olympia for example, was costly and difficult, and was only fully accomplished when the site flourished in the classical period. Before that time, earlier temples such as that of Hera (c.600 BC) had to be constructed largely out of wood and mud brick. The Greek traveller Pausanias states that there was one wooden column still remaining in the Opisthodomos of the temple in his time (c2nd century AD), and that the entablature was all wooden. The temple of Hera at Olympia is important in this respect because it marks a notable transition from mud brick and wood to stone, and contains elements of both architectural techniques – the stereobyte and Stylobates of a later stone temple, and a curtain wall that rises from the stereobyte up to a few metres, to where the mud brick wall of the Naos begins. The temple also interestingly contains an internal selection of spur walls and columns which have no apparent use, because a roof comprised of mud brick and wood would require need the amount of support which such strutures these supplied  – therefore, it can be assumed that they may have been for aesthetic purposes, and this means that later colonnades could have developed on the same basis.

Both prominent orders of classical columns themselves initially came from developments in archaic wooden columns – it is maintained that the 20 flutes on the Doric columns and the 24 on Ionic are due to attempts to strip bark in vertical lines, which inadvertantly created an aesthetically pleasing effect which was retained. This was maintained in all classical temples, with the slight variations of a Doric column having smoothed flutes, and the Ionic having sharp flutes. There is also a considerable amount of evidence from the Ionic architrave that it may have been constructed initially from wood – the three horizontal lines on such an architrave are widely thought to have originated from the use planks of wood in the archaic period as entablature. There is also a possibility that the Doric Triglyphs are representational of planks of wood, perhaps used to support the column below further.

There are many notable examples of temples, however, in the high classical period that actually deviated from the instated principles of building, and many such methods and attributes have no relation to the wooden origins of temples whatsoever. For example, the Caryatids of both Mnesticles’ c.421-405 BC Erechtheum on the Acropolis of Athens, and the c.524 Siphnian treasury at Delphi were mainly installed for two main reasons; for simple aesthetics and to provide suitable columns which were designed specifically for the weight of the Entablature and Cornice in question. Methods of construction on the acropolis (especially the Parthenon) were also non conventional – bosses or Annotes were added to drums and pieces of Stylobate or Stereobyte to lever them into position, and some still remain to be seen in the unfinished Propyleon. Such methods would obviously not have been required in wooden or mud brick temples.

The curved Stylobate of the Parthenon and incredibly slight optical refinements, all used to make the building seem to bend inwards to prevent the massive entablature from looking too stocky, would have been impossible to do in wood; as would have the elements of many other temples in the same period. In many respects, stone allowed infinitely more possibilities to the Greek architect than wood ever did. Elements such as Ambythrosis in the construction of the Naos of the Parthenon and Erechtheum could never have been done in mud brick, and allowed a much cleaner fit. This was the technique of roughening and making a slight indent on the interior joining surface of a marble stone for use in a central area of a temple so that the join was much cleaner. The columns in the Parthenon also reflect ingenuity that would have been impossible with wooden construction – aside from a small wooden peg that joined the two drums of a column together, they were not fixed in place but merely held by weight, whereas wooden columns were essentially a trunk of a tree. The construction of such marble columns (even limestone, such as in other temples) required much more practice and skill to utilise than a simple wooden column. The Parthenon itself is disproportionally wide and long when compared to all other temples of earlier and the same period – the usual ratio is 6 x 13, whereas the Parthenon boasts a massive 8 x 17, which shows a clear attempt to impress which went beyond even the basic ground plan conventions of a temple of the period.

Even earlier temples that had just come out of the archaic, wooden transition period, showed elements of great ingenuity that showed a massive detraction from instated conservative norms concerning wood. For example, the c.500 BC temple of Aphaea at Aegina contains a back, skewed door in the opisthodomos. Although this was clearly added later (it is slightly skewed, suggesting that it was cut in at a secure angle and thus was not incorporated into the initial building of the temple), it shows a massive deviation from conventional norms, and is not in any of the famous “crossover” period temples such as the c.600 BC temple of Hera at Olympia. Other notable examples in include the early 6^th century BC “Alcmenoid” temple in Delphi, constructed by Agamedes and Trophonios. Even at this early stage, it contained a second Naos or “Adyton” to incorporate the sanctuary of the Pythia (although this is an exception, it was skilfully done), as well as a ramp which is found in many later temples. Doric stone temples had a series of three steps – the Stylobate and two stereobytes – that were proportional to the height of the columns in the Peristyle. This meant that in temples such as the “Alcmenoid” temple at Delphi and Libon’s c.471-457 BC temple of Zeus at Olympia, the steps were too high to be of any practical use, and thus a ramp was added for the sake of practicality. Such temples also have an internal colonnade to support the massive weight of the roof, and this was done whilst maintaining the conventional ratios of Doric columns. This “double decker” method used two Doric columns stacked on top of each other to ensure that the ratio of 1-4/6 was maintained whilst there was enough room in the Naos. Although earlier temples may have had a series of columns inside, the size of their construction (the temple of Zeus was almost twice the size and height of the temple of Aphaea at Aegina) meant that serious problems were presented of the nature discussed above. It has been speculated that in temples such as the Erechtheum, Hephesteum and Parthenon that there may have been two opposite galleries in between the two “double decker” columns and the Naos wall – something which wooden temples never had or needed.

The differentiation in decorative styles from the Ionic or Doric orders became heavily blurred by the 4^th century BC – temples such as the Parthenon incorporate an Ionic frieze on the outside of the Naos (depicting the Pan-Athenaic possession) and on the Peristyle, a series of Doric metopes depicting a Gigamomantry, the Trojan war, the battle between the Athenians and Amazons, and the battle of the Centaurs and Laipths. This also occurs in Ictinus’ temple of Apollo at Bassae, where an ionic frieze depicts the battle of the centaurs of Laipths over the Opisthodomos and Pronaos on the side facing inwards towards the Naos itself. The temple of Apollo at Bassae is also heavily experimental, facing North, having a side doorway, an Adyton (second Naos), a single Corinthian column at the end of the Naos and a series of engaged ionic columns. None of these features were actually needed for the structural integrity of the temple, and this shows that by the classical period, the wooden convention was being largely replaced for other forms of Aesthetics.