Doric, Ionic, Corinthian: these, as practically eachone who went by way of faculty within the West somehow remembers, are the three varieties of classical column. We should recall them, extra specifically, as repredespatcheding the three historical Greek architectural kinds. However as ancient-history YouTuber Garrett Ryan factors out in the brand new Instructed in Stone video above, solely Doric and Ionic columns belong fully to historical Greece; what we consider after we consider Corinthian columns had been developed extra within the civilization of historical Rome. The contextual content is an explanation of how the traditional Greeks constructed their temples, one of many characteristics of their design course of being the usage of columns aplenty.
It’s one factor to listen to about Greek columns within the classroom, and fairly another to stroll amid them in person. That, perhaps, is why Ryan delivers the opening of his video perched upon the ruins of what’s referred to as Temple C. Having as soon as stood proudly in Selinus, a metropolis belonging to Magna Graecia (Greek-speaking areas of Italy), it now constitutes one of many prime vacationer attractions for antiquity-minded visitors to modern-day Sicily.
Although his channel could also be referred to as Instructed in Stone, Ryan begins his transient history of the Greek temple earlier than that hardy material had even come into use for these purposes. At first, the Greeks fashioned the houses of their gods out of mud brick, with thatched roofs and woodenen porches; solely from the seventh century BC, “probably impressed by contact with Egypt,” did they begin constructing them to final.
Or they constructed them to final so long as might be count oned, in any case, given the character of the materials availready within the historical world and the millennia which have handed since then. Take the Temple of Apollo on the Sanctuary of Didyma in modern-day Turkey, which history-and-architecture YouTuber Manuel Bravo pays a visit in the video simply above. It could not look as if the close toly 2400 years since its never-technically-completed construction started have been sort, nevertheless it’s neverthemuch less one of many guesster-preserved temples from historical Greek civilization in existence (to not malestion the most important). Even in its ruined state, it offers what Bravo describes because the impression of — or a minimum of, in its heyday, having been — “a forest of giant columns,” a constructed version of “the sacred forests that Greeks used to consecrate to the gods.” They’re Ionic columns, in case you had been gaineddering, however don’t sweat it; there gained’t be a quiz.
Related content:
A 3D Model Reveals What the Parthenon and Its Interior Regarded Like 2,500 Years In the past
How the Parthenon Marbles Finished Up In The British Museum
The History of Historical Greece in 18 Minutes: A Brisk Primer Narrated by Brian Cox
Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His tasks embrace the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the e-book The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social webwork formerly referred to as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
