Erechtheion
The Erechtheion stands on uneven ground and housed several sacred sites, so its plan is unusually irregular for a Greek temple. It is the masterpiece of the Ionic order on the Acropolis. Most famous is the Porch of the Maidens, where six female figures, caryatids, support the roof in place of columns.
The Erechtheion was built between 421 and 406 BC, with an interruption during the Peloponnesian War. It replaced the old Temple of Athena destroyed by the Persians and was to house the city’s most sacred object: an ancient wooden image of Athena Polias. The architect is unknown; Mnesicles, who built the Propylaea, has been suggested. We nevertheless know an unusual amount about the construction itself, because inscriptions recording the accounts survive. They state what stonemasons, carpenters and sculptors were paid, and that citizens, resident foreigners and slaves worked side by side. The building is of Pentelic marble. The frieze was made of dark limestone from Eleusis, to which figures of white marble were attached, so that they stood out as reliefs against a dark background.
The plan is fragmented because the temple had to embrace several sacred sites at different levels: the marks of Poseidon’s trident, a saltwater spring, the tomb of King Cecrops and, close by, Athena’s olive tree. The eastern part, with six Ionic columns in the façade, lies higher than the western part. On the north side is a tall porch with Ionic columns and a lavishly carved doorframe, regarded as one of the finest of antiquity. On the south side is the Porch of the Maidens, a small loggia where six young women carry the entablature on their heads. Each figure has its own folds of drapery, and the leg that bears the weight is straight as a column. The Ionic capitals are unusually richly decorated with guilloche and bead-and-reel, and parts were once gilded and painted.
The temple later became a church and in Ottoman times the residence of a commander. In the early 19th century Lord Elgin had one of the caryatids and a column taken to London, where they are in the British Museum. During the Greek War of Independence the building was badly damaged. Extensive restorations have been carried out since the 19th century. The five caryatids still in place were moved indoors in 1979 to protect them from air pollution, and copies now stand in the porch; the originals are displayed in the Acropolis Museum. The caryatids became one of the most copied motifs in European architecture, for example at St Pancras Church in London. In 19th-century Swedish architecture too, female figures supporting balconies and doorways recur, with the Erechtheion as a distant model.