Temple of Apollo Didyma

Temple of Apollo Didyma

ca. 300 BCE-200 AD

1858

Single Built Works

Turkey (nation)

Didyma (historic site)

Miletus (deserted settlement)

Hellenistic

temples (buildings)

Apollo (Greek deity)

Ionic order

View to north east at the Temple of Apollo Didyma at Miletus, Turkey. onic and Corinthian. The columns of the peristyle were Ionic; the two columns in the east chamber were Corinthian. There were two engaged Corinthian half-columns against the east wall of the adyton at the top of the monumental staircase ... In plan, the temple presents a number of unusual features. It is a monumental, dipteral temple on a seven-stepped crepidoma, with decastyle facade and twenty-one columns along the flanks. The temple is oriented to the east; its pronaos is approached by a flight of fourteen steps between projecting low walls or wings. The temple has no opisthodomos; and its pronaos contains three rows of four columns each. A wall bars access to the cella (or adyton) from the pronaos; above the wall, a wide opening or window allowed the visitor to glimpse the naiskos in the interior of the cella. On the right and left sides of the west wall of the pronaos, doorways lead to two sloping, barrel-vaulted passageways. These passages or tunnels emerge on the third step of a monumental staircase. By descending this staircase, the visitor arrives in the cella; by ascending these twenty two steps, the visitor is brought back up to a room, the east chamber, situated between the pronaos and the cella. The east chamber was entered through three doors in its west wall, and contains two Corinthian columns which supported the roof of the chamber. Two staircases, at the north and south of the east chamber, perhaps led to the roof of this room. The cella or adyton was situated ca. 4 m. below the level of the east chamber, and was hypaethral. The cella walls were articulated by Ionic pilasters supported by a podium; there were nine along each side and three across the rear wall, in addition to the corner pilasters. Between the doors to the east chamber, on the east wall of the adyton, were two engaged Corinthian half-columns. Towards the rear (west) wall of the cella or adyton stood a small shrine or naiskos in the form of a tetrastyle prostyle temple of Ionic order, the location of the sacred spring of the oracle and possibly the home of the cult image of Apollo,"--Perseus Digital Library.

Length of stylobate at lowest step 118.34 meters, at top step 109.34 meters, width of stylobate at lowest step 60.13 meters, at top step 51.13 meters

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