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The ErechtheionTravlos, 1971, p. 213 (, latinized as Erechtheum ; , ) or Temple of Athena PoliasAncient Greek: Ναὸς τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς τῆς Πολιάδος, Greek: Ναός της Αθηνάς Πολιάδος. An epithet it shares with the Old Temple of Athena. is an Classical Greece Ionic order temple, on the north side of the Acropolis, Athens, that was primarily dedicated to the goddess Athena.
The iconic Ionic building, which housed the statue of Athena Polias, has in modern scholarship been called the Erechtheion (the sanctuary of Erechtheus or Poseidon), in the belief that it encompassed two buildings mentioned by the Greek-Roman geographer Pausanias: the Temple of Athena Polias; and the Erechtheion.Pausanias 1.26.5, Pseudo-Plutarch, Decem Oratorum Vitae 2.843e. LSJ s.v. Ἐρεχθεύς A.
Whether the Erechtheion referred to by Pausanias and other sources is indeed the Ionic temple or an entirely different building has become a point of contention in recent decades, however, with various scholars ruling out that Athena and Erechtheus were worshipped in a single building.See Kristian Jeppesen, Where Was the So-Called Erechtheion?, AJA, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Oct., 1979), pp. 381–394; Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, "Un oikèma appelé Érechtheion (Pausanias, I, 26, 5)", in P. Carlier and C. Lerouge-Cohen (ed.), Paysage et religion en Grèce antique. Mélanges offerts à Madeleine Jost, Paris, 2010, pp. 147–163.
Alternative suggested locations of the true Erechtheion include the structures on the Acropolis conventionally identified as the Arrephorion, the Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus, the Sanctuary of Pandion, and the Dörpfeld foundations.
Although scholars have not yet reached consensus on this issue, the building has continued to be referred to conventionally as the Erechtheion.
In official decrees, the Ionic building is referred to using a neutral formula: "... το͂ νεὸ το͂ ἐμ πόλει ἐν ο͂ι τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἄγαλμα" ("the temple on the Acropolis within which is the ancient statue"
/ref> In other instances it is referred to as the Temple of the Polias.Pausanias 1.27.1, Strabo IX 396
The joint cult of Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus appears to have been established on the Acropolis at a very early period, and they were even worshipped in the same temple as can, according to the traditional view, be inferred from two passages in Homer and also from later Greek texts.Iliad VII 80–81, Ody II 546–551 The extant building is the successor of several temples and buildings on the site. Its precise date of construction is unknown; it has traditionally been thought to have been built from –406 BCE, but more recent scholarship favours a date in the 430s, when it could have been part of the programme of works instigated by Pericles.Not mentioned in Plutarch's list and the conventional date of the start of construction is after Perikles' death, however J.M Hurwitt, The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles 2004, p. 174, conjectures that the inception of the building dates to the 430s.
The Erechtheion is unique in the corpus of Greek temples in that its asymmetrical composition does not conform to the canon of Greek classical architecture. This is attributed either to the irregularity of the siteW. B. Dinsmoor, The Architecture of Ancient Greece, London, England. 1950. or to the evolving and complex nature of the cults which the building housed,M. Korres "Recent Discoveries on the Acropolis," Acropolis Restoration: the CCAM Interventions, R. Economakis, ed., London, England and New York, pp. 175–179. 1994. or it is conjectured to be the incomplete part of a larger symmetrical building.W. Dörpfeld, H. Schleif, Erechtheion, Berlin, 1942. See also Dinsmoor 1932, pp. 314–326, Elderkin 1912, pp. 53–58; Hawes, The Riddle of the Erechtheum. Additionally, its post-classical history of change of use, damage, and Spolia has made it one of the more problematic sites in classical archaeology. The precise nature and location of the various religious and architectural elements within the building remain the subject of debate. The temple was nonetheless a seminal example of the classical Ionic style and was highly influential on later Hellenistic art,Notably; Apollo Patroos Roman,Temple of Roma and Augustus, Hadrian's villa Tivoli and Greek RevivalWilkins's Downing College, Inwood's St Pancras. Frank Salmon, The Erechtheion: An Overlooked Paradigm of the Greek Revival?, Cambridge, 2021, Accessed 17/10/2021 architecture.
archaeology under the Erechtheion is also poorly evidenced for the archaic and early classical periods.Lesk p. 33 Despite this a number of proposals have been made for a structure on the site immediately before the Achaemenid destruction of Athens in 480 BCE. Orlandos reconstructs an obliquely orientated hexastyle amphiprostyle temple, which would have contained the "trident marks" in its pronaos.A.K. Orlandos, Ή αρκιτεκτονικη των Παρθενωνος, 2 vols., Athens. 1977. See Lesk, p33. Others restore a number of Temenos adjacent to the Temple of Athena Polias or a tetrastyle naiskos.Hurwit, 1999, p.145. To the south of the Erechtheion site would have been the Dörpfeld Foundations Temple, now thought to be the archaic Temple of Athena Polias, the foundations of which are visible on the acropolis today. Examination of the remains of the north edge of this temple by Korres might suggest the boundaries of the pre-Ionic Erechtheion site and therefore determine the shape of the classical temenos.M. Korres, The History of the Acropolis Monuments, in Acropolis Restoration: the CCAM Interventions, R. Economakis, ed., London, England and New York, pp. 35–51, 1994. Korres argues that a columnar monument marking the kekropeion would have been approximately where the Porch of the Maidens is, and that there was a stoa for the Pandroseion adjacent.Herodotus 8.55
The building accounts for the classical Erechtheion from 409–404 BC have survived, allowing an unusually secure dating of the construction of the temple.Chandler stele IG I3 474 Nevertheless, the question remains of when the building project was inaugurated. There is no primary evidence for when construction began; it is conjectured to be either the 430sDorpfeld, Der ursprünglichen Plan des Erechtheion." AM 29, pp.101–107, 1904. or in 421 during the Peace of Nikias.A. Michaelis, "Die Zeit des Neubaus des Poliastempels in Athens." AM, pp. 349–366. 1889. The latter is broadly the consensus view, the rationale being that this lull in the long Peloponnesian War would have been the most convenient time to begin a major construction project and that there was a likely hiatus in building during the Sicilian disaster of 413.Lesk p. 65. Alternatively, dates as early as the mid-430sHurwit, 1999, pp. 316, 322. and as late as 412 have been put forward.M. Vickers, "Persepolis, Vitruvius, and the Erechtheum Caryatids: The Iconography of Medism and Servitude." RA 1 1985, p. 25. See Lesk p. 66. Work seems to have ended in 406–405, and the last accounts were from 405–404, though some mouldings were never finished and some of the bosses of some stone blocks were not chiselled off.Lesk p. 70
The names of the architect-overseers ( episkopos), Philokles and Archilochos, have come down to us.IG I 474 I.3 and IG I3 476 II.2–4 respectively. They worked on the site after 409. But the identity of the architect ( architecton) is unknown. Several candidates have been suggested; namely, Mnesikles,Dörpfeld, Zu den Bauwerken Athens: Erechtheion und alter Tempel." AM 36, pp. 39–49. 1911. Kallikrates,Shear, 1999, p. 82 n.58. and Iktinos.Hawes, See Lesk p. 71
The subsequent history of the building has been one of damage, restoration and change of use, which complicates the task of reconstructing the original structure. The first recorded fire that the classical building suffered was perhaps 377–376,Xenophon HG 1.6.1, Dinsmoor dates the fire to 377–376, The Burning of the Opisthodomus at Athens. AJA 36, pp. 143–172, 1932. However, Paton et al. 1927, pp. 459–463, dates it to 406. a second more severe fire took hold sometime in 1st century BCE or earlierLesk p. 198 followed by a campaign of repair. The Erechtheion along with the Parthenon suffered a further major destruction at some point in the 3rd or 4th century CE; whether this was due to Herulian or Visigoth attack or a natural disaster is unclear. Julian the Apostate undertook the reconstruction of the Parthenon as a pagan temple in circa 361 and 363, at which point the Parthenon was the only attested site of the cult of Athena on the Acropolis, implying that the Erechtheion had been abandoned.
In the post-classical period, the Erechtheion was subject to a number of structural changes that must be assumed to have been prompted by the building's adaptation to Christian worship. The first was its conversion to a pillared hall with a roof at some point in the 4th century. In the late 6th or 7th century, the Erechtheion was converted into a three-aisled basilica church with the West Corridor serving as the narthex. The central portion of the east foundations was removed to make room for a curved apse. In the 12th century, the basilica was renovated. The round apse was enlarged and was given straight sides on the exterior. The chancel screen was extended to the North and South Walls. During the Frankish occupation (1204–1458), the Erechteion was Deconsecration and changed to a Bishop's residence, probably for the Catholic bishops of Athens who held mass in the Latin Cathedral of Church of Our Lady of Athens.Lesk, p. 372 With the advent of Ottoman control and the adaptation of the Acropolis plateau to a garrison, the Erechtheion took on its final incarnation as the Dizdar's harem.According, at least, to Spon's account of 1678. See Lesk p. 439.
More recent research has questioned whether the building was actually in use as a harem, however, as this is not found in Turkish sources. This final period of the building's use also witnessed the beginning of traveller's accounts and architectural recording of the structure along with its despoliation by antique collectors, including Elgin. This is how one of the caryatids was separated from the rest of the building and ended up in the British Museum. At one moment, Perhaps the greatest damage to the edifice came with the siege of 1826–1827, when the Maiden Porch and west facade were felled by cannon fire and the masonry joints were scavenged for lead. This ruined state is the condition of the site that prompted the first major anastylosis of the Erechtheion, by Kyriakos Pittakis between 1837 and 1840.Ephem. Arch. 1839.
Next to this porch is an outside terrace and steps leading to the east porch. East of the north doorway is an underground opening that leads to a crypt under the north porch with a pit for snakes. On the west end of the north elevation of the western naos, a further door and step lead to a walled temenos, the Sanctuary of Pandrosos, where the Pandroseion, tomb of Cecrops I, altar of Zeus Herkeios and the sacred olive tree of Athena would have been.
On the south wall of the western naos was an L-shaped staircase which leads to the higher Porch of the Maidens (or Caryatid Porch, or Korai Porch), a prostyle tetrastyle porch, or pteron, having six sculpted female figures as supports, all facing south and standing on a low wall. The only entrance to the Porch of the Maidens was the stairway from the interior of the naos. The western end is a double-height space, and at the second-storey level, the outside west facing wall has an engaged base moulding with four topped by Ionic capitals. The spaces between these columns were of open grillwork. From the outside, the western facade would have had the appearance of having a floor at the same level as the eastern naos. The coffer of the north porch is continued at the Porch of the Maidens.
No wholly satisfactory account of the interior layout of the Erechtheion from antiquity exists, since over time it has been entirely erased. The points of contention are whether and where there was an internal dividing wall, and whether the building had two storeys as suggested by Pausanias' description of it as a διπλοῦν... οἴκημα.1.26.5. diploun...oikema, "the building is double" W.H.S. Jones, Pausanias, Harvard, 1918. The conventional view of the reconstruction of the interior of the Erechtheion naos is that it was divided in two in imitation of the opisthodomos of the archaic temple of Athena Polias, and that the altar of Athena was in the west half of the chamber, while the altars of Erechtheus, Poseidon, and Boutes were in the other. An alternative view is that the Erechtheion was a replacement for the east cella of the archaic Temple of Athena and would have had an east cross wall.Lesk p. 77
Other suggestions for aspects of the narrative of the frieze include the story of Ion,M. Brouskari, The Acropolis Museum, Athens. 1974, pp. 152–153. the sacrifice of Erectheus' daughters to save AthensHurwit 1999, similar to the peoplos scene on the Parthenon? and the departure of Erechtheus for the battle with Eumolpus.C. Robert, Hermes 25, pp. 437–439. 1890. Peter Schultz's recent reinterpretation of the standing god and goddesses on the east porch of the Nike Athena temple as the birth of AthenaP. Schultz, The Sculptural Program of the Temple of Athena Nike, Athens, 2003. invites comparison with the birth scene on the Parthenon pediment and has prompted the question of whether there is a tradition of birth scenes in Attic sculpture that was continued on the Erechtheion frieze.Lesk, p. 127 As is typical of the Ionic style, the Erechtheion has no pediment sculpture.
Several theories have been proposed about the function and significance of the Maiden Porch.The korai are attributed by some to Alkamenes and Agoracritus, students of Pheidias. J.M. Paton et al, 1927, p. 238. Kontoleon has argued that it served as a monopteral heroön to the tomb of Kekrops.Kontoleon 1949. Scholl has argued that the korai are mourners for Kekrops because of the association of caryatids with tombs.Scholl, A. 1995. "Choephoroi: Zur Deutung der Korenhalle des Erechtheion." JdI 110, pp. 179–212. Shear disputes this is a tomb since it does not follow the pattern of other religious tokens. For Shear the architectural supports are derived from the bases of the columns of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and are typical of the miniaturization of elements of the Ionic style when it was imported from Asia Minor to the Greek mainland.I. Shear, "Maidens in Greek Architecture. The Origin of the Caryatids." BCH 123, pp. 65–85. 1999. See Lesk, p. 105. Nor was the use of korai as an architectural support element a novelty, as they were used before in the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi and perhaps the Kore of Lyons and therefore represent the classical expression of an established archaic tradition.Hurwit 1999 p. 115
Another open question has been the problem of the identity of the korai. In the building accounts, they are referred to as korai or maidens. The lower arms of all the caryatids have been lost. In 1952 the discovery of copies from Tivoli revealed that the korai carried Patera, suggesting that they might be either the arrephoroi (as "bearers of unmentionable things") or Kanephoros.Lesk, p. 107. The six korai of the porch all exhibit subtle variations, implying that they do not represent a repetition of a single person or deity but a group of individuals. Lesk argues that they may have been intended as a replacement for the (highly individuated) Acropolis korai that were destroyed by the Persians and in this capacity represent the servants of Athena who stood ready to make libation to the cult statue housed inside.Lesk p. 107 Vickers suggests not only a later date for the construction of the Erechtheion but that the korai are actually Vitruvius caryatids and represent a memorial to Athens's humiliation in the Peloponnesian War.Vitruvius De Architectura 1.1.5. See M. Vickers, "Persepolis, Vitruvius, and the Erechtheum Caryatids: The Iconography of Medism and Servitude." RA 1 1985, The conflation of the Erectheion korai with caryatids has been as persistent as it is problematic. See Lesk, pp. 262–280.
The Erechtheion is a "remarkably luxurious" building in the detailing of its mouldings.Hurwit, Acropolis in the age of Pericles, p. 178. Lotus-palmette chains (anthemion) decorate the column capitals and epicranitis of the temple. Additionally, egg-and-dart, egg and leaf, bead and reel, Lesbos Cymatium, , and rosettes are liberally placed around the entablature, door and window frames, and the Coffer of the ceilings. The capitals were gilded and the braidings at the column bases were studded with coloured glass.
The cults of the Erechtheion encompass the birth of Erichthonius from the soil of Attica; the tomb of Kekrops, mythical king and cult hero to the Athenians; and their relationship to the tutelary deities of the city. For many years, the accepted scholarly opinion has been that the Erechtheion fulfilled a triplicate purpose in its interior design: to "replace the Old Temple of, to house the old image, and to unite in an organized building several shrines and places of religious significance."A.W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture, 1996. p. 138.
The following may be the product of an attempted syncretism or merely a bricolage of relics accrued over time. On the east porch, immediately before the temple door, was an altar to Zeus Hypatos. Continuing inside in the eastern chamber of the naos would have been the altars to Poseidon and Erechtheus, Hephaistos and Boutes, and thrones of the temple priests.According to the reconstruction of Travlos. See Travlos p. 218. It is here that Athena's peplos might have been displayed. In the western section, there may have been the tomb of Erechtheus, the xoanon of Athena Polias"The ancient olive-wood statue is variously referred to as hagion, bretas, hedos, eidolon, xoanon and agalma. Diipetes means it fell from heaven to imply that it was very old", Lesk p. 759. and perhaps immediately before that a table. Additionally, this room housed the Lamp of Kallimachos,Possibly aligned with the niche at the southwest corner, see Olga Palagia, A Niche for Kallimachos' Lamp?, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 88, No. 4, 1984, pp. 515–521. a Hermes, the saltwater well and a collection of spoils from the Persian War.Of the spoils, see D. Harris, The Treasures of the Parthenon and Erechetheion, Oxford, 1995, pp.201-222. To the north of this chamber was the north porch whose coffered ceiling was pierced supposedly as the entry point of one of Poseidon's thunderbolts; indentations below were thought to be the resulting trident marks.An alternative tradition claims that this was the point at which Zeus killed Erechtheus. J. Harrison, Themis, Cambridge, 1912, p.171. The altar of Thyechoos stood over the trident marks.Lesk, p.161. Continuing outside was the sanctuary precinct, which may have contained the sacred olive tree, the snake pit, the Tomb of Kekrops and the Pandrosieon.
In this same spirit came the work of Richard Pococke, who published the first reconstruction of the temple in 1745Pococke, The Temple of Erectheus at Athens, restored, 1745 and who was the first to conjecture the existence of a larger, symmetrical building. Later, Stuart and Nicholas Revett published the first accurate measured drawings of the Erechtheion in the second volume of their Antiquities of Athens in 1787. This book, perhaps more than any other, was influential in disseminating the Ionic style and the form of the Erechtheion amongst architects and an appreciative public in the 18th and 19th centuries.
For a record of the temple's condition prior to its destruction during the Greek War of Independence, there are the detailed drawings of William Gell.His notebooks are preserved in the British Museum and British School at Athens. Gell's period of study in 1800–1801 coincided with the activity of Lord Elgin, whose despoliation of the Maiden Porch was, at the time, more controversial than his removal of the Parthenon sculptures.Lesk p. 603
In the post-revolutionary period, ambitious plans were drawn up to clear the Acropolis and build a royal palace for the newly installed Bavarian king. Although no such palace was built, the plateau was cleared of much of the post-classical accretions, which were thought to obscure the site, and left as a monument and archaeological site.
For the Erechtheion this meant the remnants of the Frankish North Addition, the Venetian vault in the North Porch, the Ottoman masonry structure in the angle of the westward projection of the North Porch and the West Façade, and the Frankish and Ottoman alterations of the interior were removed.Lesk p. 660 The first attempted reconstruction of the damaged building was Pittakis's in 1839–1840. The second anastylosis was Nikolaos Balanos's in 1902–1909. Dissatisfaction with Balanos's haphazard placement of the ashlar blocks and his use of steel joints that caused additional damage led to the creation of the interdisciplinary Acropolis Restoration Service in 1975, whose conservation work is ongoing.Platon et al. 1977 [5]; Casanaki and Mallouchou, The Acropolis at Athens: Conservation, Restoration, and Research, 1975-1983, Athens, Greece. 1985; Papanikolaou, "The Restoration of the Erechtheion," in Acropolis Restoration: The CCAM Interventions, R. Economakis, ed., London, England, pp. 137–149. 1994.
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