What are the parts of the Greek temple?


What are the parts of the Greek temple? The most important part of a Greek temple plan was the naos (or cella), a small room housing a cult statue of the god or goddess to whom the temple was dedicated. At the front and back of the naos was a porch. The porch at the front was called the pronaos, while the one at the back was called the opisthodomos.


What are the steps of a Greek temple called?

Terminology. Some methodologies use the word stylobate to describe only the topmost step of the temple's base, while stereobate is used to describe the remaining steps of the platform beneath the stylobate and just above the leveling course.


What do you call a Greek temple with four columns in front?

The open end of the porch, or portico, is then supported by between one and four columns in antis, that is to say, “between the antas.” The temples so constructed are called henostyle (one column), distyle (two columns), tristyle (three columns), or tetrastyle (four columns).


What are the two types of Greek temples?

Greek temples are often categorized in terms of their ground plan and the way in which the columns are arranged. A prostyle temple is a temple that has columns only at the front, while an amphiprostyle temple has columns at the front and the rear.


What are the important parts of a temple?

Three key forms of temple architecture
  • Garbhagriha or the sanctum where the main idol of the deity is housed.
  • Mandapa or the portico which leads to the garbhagriha, where the worshipers assemble.
  • Shikhara that is the spire above the sanctum.
  • Vaahan which is the mount or vehicle of the main deity of the temple.


What was the typical layout of a Greek temple?

The Greek Temple (For comparison, the dimensions of the Parthenon are 235 feet in length, 109 feet in width.) The typical oblong floor plan incorporated a colonnade of columns (peristyle) on all four sides; a front porch (pronaos), a back porch (opisthodomos).


What are the parts of the ancient temple?

The body of the temple is the columns and the walls of the cella behind them. The crowning of the temple consists of the entablature and the pediments. The entablature consists of three distinct heightwise parts: the epistyle or architrave, the frieze (diazoma) and the cornice.


What is the base of a temple rests on steps called?

Every temple rested on a masonry base called the crepidoma, generally of three steps, of which the upper one which carried the columns was the stylobate.


What are the key features of a Greek temple?

Greek temples were grand buildings with a fairly simple design. The outside was surrounded by a row of columns. Above the columns was a decorative panel of sculpture called the frieze. Above the frieze was a triangle shaped area with more sculptures called the pediment.


What is the top part of a temple called?

A Hindu temple has a Shikhara (Vimana or Spire) that rises symmetrically above the central core of the temple.