Prelude To The Building Of Greek Temples example essay topic

278 words
The Dorian immigration (before 1000 BC) was a prelude to the building of Greek temples, at first made of timber and sun-dried brick. The superb stone and marble buildings on a defined floor plan were achieved in the middle of the 6th century BC, although the most perfect examples, like the Parthenon (5th century BC) came later. Jupiter Capitolinus appeared to Augustus in a dream and expressed jealousy of Jupiter Tongans on account of the erection of a temple in his honor. Augustus then affixed bells to the shrine of the new temple, and pacified the complaining Jove by assuring him that the god of the small temple was simply his doorkeeper. The Pantheon is one of the great spiritual buildings of the world. It was built as a Roman temple and later consecrated as a Catholic Church.

Its monumental porch originally faced a rectangular colonnaded temple courtyard. At the White Temple of Uruk (3500-3000 B.C. ), the temple setting had evolved further. The corner bastions had been eliminated, and the building with its platform had been placed on a huge mound of earth, an artificial mountain called a ziggurat. The ziggurat was a pyramid structure, built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, with a shrine at the summit. The core of the ziggurat was of sun-baked bricks, and the facings were of fired bricks, often glazed in different colors, which are thought to have had cosmological significance.

Access to the summit shrine was provided by a series of ramps on one side or by a continuous spiral ramp from base to summit.