The Erechtheion is an ancient Greek temple constructed on the acropolis of Athens between 421 and 406 BCE in the Golden Age of the city in order to house the ancient wooden cult statue of Athena and generally glorify the great city at the height of its power and influence.

The Erechtheion is an ancient Greek temple constructed on the acropolis of Athens between 421 and 406 BCE in the Golden Age of the city in order to house the ancient wooden cult statue of Athena and generally glorify the great city at the height of its power and influence.
The Erechtheion has suffered a troubled history of misuse and neglect, but with its prominent position above the city and porch of six Caryatids, it remains one of the most distinctive buildings from antiquity.

The Erechtheion (or Erechtheum) is an ancient Greek temple constructed on the acropolis of Athens between 421 and 406 BCE in the Golden Age of the city in order to house the ancient wooden cult statue of Athena and generally glorify the great city at the height of its power and influence. The Erechtheion has suffered a troubled history of misuse and neglect, but with its prominent position above the city and porch of six Caryatids, it remains one of the most distinctive buildings from antiquity.

Erechtheion

The project to replace the damaged buildings of the acropolis following the Persian attack on the city in 480 BCE was begun in 447 BCE, instigated by Pericles, supervised by Pheidias, and funded by surplus from the war treasury of the Delian League. The results would include the Parthenon and new Propylaea on the Acropolis itself and an Odeion and the Temple of Hephaistos. The final piece to complete the magnificent complex of temples on the acropolis was the Erechtheion, begun in 421 BCE during the so-called Peace of Nikias. However, the project was interrupted by resumption of hostilities between Athens and Sparta (the Sicilian expedition), and the temple was not finally completed until 406 BCE under the supervision of the architect Philocles.

The Erechtheion, named after the demi-god Erechtheus, the mythical Athenian king, was conceived as a suitable structure to house the ancient wooden cult statue of Athena, which maintained its religious significance despite the arrival of the gigantic chryselephantine statue within the nearby Parthenon. The building also had other functions, though, notably as the shrine centre for other more ancient cults: to Erechtheus, his brother Boutes – the Ploughman, Pandrosos, the mythical first Athenian king Kekrops (or Cecrops) – half-man, half-snake, and the gods Hephaistos and Poseidon.

As with the other new buildings on the acropolis, the Erechtheion was built from Pentelic marble which came from the nearby Mt. Pentelicus and was celebrated for its pure white appearance and fine grain. It also contains traces of iron which over time have oxidised, giving the marble a soft honey colour, a quality particularly evident at sunrise and sunset.

 

Related Posts

Found a sword on a mountain slope…

Found a sword on a mountain slope…

“The Sword Beneath the Soil” The morning was gray and cool, the kind of silence that lingers after rain. Beneath the fading mist, a man knelt beside…

What creature is this?

What creature is this?

The Gold They Left Behind…

The Gold They Left Behind…

Beneath the quiet streets of Rome, where candlelight flickers against walls of bone, lie the jeweled remains of forgotten martyrs — the Catacomb Saints. In the 16th…

Gigantic Fossilized Crab Found in Japanese Shoreline Rocks

Gigantic Fossilized Crab Found in Japanese Shoreline Rocks

At dawn on a bruised-gray coast, we found the circle of legs first—arched ribs of shell rising from the sand like the spokes of a drowned cathedral—and…

The Stone Face That Appeared Overnight

The Stone Face That Appeared Overnight

High in the misty cliffs where the ocean meets the jagged bones of the Earth, a face emerged one morning — vast, solemn, and impossibly human. It…

Mysterious Cave Tunnels in South America

Mysterious Cave Tunnels in South America

The air is heavy, still, and old—older than language itself. The man’s headlamp cuts a trembling circle of light into the red earth, illuminating walls that glimmer…