Doric, Ionic, Corinthian: these, as practically eachone who went by means of college within the West somehow remembers, are the three varieties of classical column. We should still recall them, extra specifically, as repredespatcheding the three historic Greek architectural kinds. However as ancient-history YouTuber Garrett Ryan factors out in the brand new Informed in Stone video above, solely Doric and Ionic columns belong fully to historic Greece; what we consider after we consider Corinthian columns had been developed extra within the civilization of historic Rome. The contextual content is an explanation of how the traditional Greeks constructed their temples, one of many characteristics of their design course of being using columns aplenty.
It’s one factor to listen to about Greek columns within the classroom, and fairly another to stroll amid them in person. That, perhaps, is why Ryan delivers the opening of his video perched upon the ruins of what’s often known as Temple C. Having as soon as stood proudly in Selinus, a metropolis belonging to Magna Graecia (Greek-speaking areas of Italy), it now constitutes one of many prime vacationer attractions for antiquity-minded visitors to modern-day Sicily.
Although his channel could also be known as Informed in Stone, Ryan begins his temporary history of the Greek temple earlier than that hardy material had even come into use for these purposes. At first, the Greeks fashioned the properties of their gods out of mud brick, with thatched roofs and woodenen porches; solely from the seventh century BC, “probably impressed by contact with Egypt,” did they begin constructing them to final.
Or they constructed them to final so long as may very well be count oned, in any case, given the character of the materials availin a position within the historic world and the millennia which have handed since then. Take the Temple of Apollo on the Sanctuary of Didyma in modern-day Turkey, which history-and-architecture YouTuber Manuel Bravo pays a visit in the video simply above. It might not look as if the close toly 2400 years since its never-technically-completed construction started have been form, however it’s neverthemuch less one of many guesster-preserved temples from historic Greek civilization in existence (to not malestion the most important). Even in its ruined state, it offers what Bravo describes because the impression of — or a minimum of, in its heyday, having been — “a forest of giant columns,” a constructed version of “the sacred forests that Greeks used to consecrate to the gods.” They’re Ionic columns, in case you had been receiveddering, however don’t sweat it; there received’t be a quiz.
Related content:
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A 3D Model Reveals What the Parthenon and Its Interior Appeared Like 2,500 Years In the past
How the Parthenon Marbles Finished Up In The British Museum
Discover Historic Athens 3D, a Digital Reconstruction of the Greek Metropolis-State on the Peak of Its Influence
What Historic Greece Actually Appeared Like: See Reconstructions of the Temple of Hadrian, Curetes Avenue & the Fountain of Trajan
The History of Historic Greece in 18 Minutes: A Brisk Primer Narrated by Brian Cox
Based mostly in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His initiatives embrace the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the e book The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by means of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social internetwork formerly often known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
