Erectheion A pretty flash temple

What was the Erechtheion?  United several shrines into one building: -The sacred Olive Tree of -The sacred Olive Tree of -The marks of ______ trident and the subsequent spring -The marks of ______ trident and the subsequent spring -The tomb of Kekrops -The tomb of Kekrops -Shrine to snake of Erechtheos -Shrine to snake of Erechtheos -Sanctuary of Pandrosos -Sanctuary of Pandrosos -Altars for Attic Hero Boutes and Hephaistos -Altars for Attic Hero Boutes and Hephaistos

The site Could not be built in the original position. Why? Built to the north of the Parthenon, but this created its own problems.  Right on edge of Acropolis, so the site sloped away to the north and the west  Nearby shrines ruled out grand terraces  These shrines had to incorporated into new temple area

The actual building!  Built in Pentelic marble, it was built in the Ionic style. Why not Doric?  The cellas were placed on two different levels to account for the slope, the higher on the east and the lower on the north and west slopes.  What does this mean for the rest of the building?

Reconstruction

This meant that the normal layout with front and back porches (east and west axis) and surrounding collonade was impossible. So there is the usual east porch…

East porch

But the porch on the west was left out, and was instead placed on the north…

North porch

To balance this out, there is a small porch on the south side, commonly known as the porch of the maidens, with Caryatid columns. We will talk about this porch in detail a little bit later.

South porch

 Interestingly, these two porches double the width of the of the Erechtheion.

What about the west porch?? There was no west porch, but there was an unusual façade which sheltered the tomb of Kekrops. This façade has two levels, one which corresponds to the same level as the north porch, the other corresponds to the south porch

West Façade  Door to the tomb of Kekrops

What effect does this have?  This gives the impression that there are half columns sitting on a ledge.  The bases of these half columns are at the same level as those on the east porch  These columns were joined by a bronze grill all the way to the architrave

The lower level  The door to the tomb of Kekrops is on the lower level.  This lower west cella was for Poseidon and Erechtheus  It was divided into an anterooma nd two inner chambers.  This could only be accessed through the north porch

 Access to the lower west cellas