The ErechtheionTravlos, 1971, p. 213 (, latinized as Erechtheum ; , ) or Temple of Athena PoliasAncient Greek: Ναὸς τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς τῆς Πολιάδος, Greek: Ναός της Αθηνάς Πολιάδος. An epithet it shares with the Old Temple of Athena. is an ancient Greek Ionic temple, on the north side of the Acropolis, Athens, that was primarily dedicated to the goddess Athena.
The iconic Ionic building, which housed the statue of Athena Polias, has in modern scholarship been called the Erechtheion (the sanctuary of Erechtheus or Poseidon), in the belief that it encompassed two buildings mentioned by the Greek-Roman geographer Pausanias: the Temple of Athena Polias; and the Erechtheion.Pausanias 1.26.5, Pseudo-Plutarch, Decem Oratorum Vitae 2.843e. LSJ s.v. Ἐρεχθεύς A.
Whether the Erechtheion referred to by Pausanias and other sources is indeed the Ionic temple or an entirely different building has become a point of contention in recent decades, however, with various scholars ruling out that Athena and Erechtheus were worshipped in a single building.See Kristian Jeppesen, Where Was the So-Called Erechtheion?, AJA, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Oct., 1979), pp. 381–394; Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, "Un oikèma appelé Érechtheion (Pausanias, I, 26, 5)", in P. Carlier and C. Lerouge-Cohen (ed.), Paysage et religion en Grèce antique. Mélanges offerts à Madeleine Jost, Paris, 2010, pp. 147–163.
Alternative suggested locations of the true Erechtheion include the structures on the Acropolis conventionally identified as the Arrephorion, the Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus, the Sanctuary of Pandion, and the Dörpfeld foundations.
Although scholars have not yet reached consensus on this issue, the building has continued to be referred to conventionally as the Erechtheion.
In official decrees, the Ionic building is referred to using a neutral formula: "... το͂ νεὸ το͂ ἐμ πόλει ἐν ο͂ι τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἄγαλμα" ("the temple on the Acropolis within which is the ancient statue").IG I3 474.1 https://www.atticinscriptions.com/inscription/IGI3/474 In other instances it is referred to as the Temple of the Polias.Pausanias 1.27.1, Strabo IX 396
The joint cult of Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus appears to have been established on the Acropolis at a very early period, and they were even worshipped in the same temple as can, according to the traditional view, be inferred from two passages in Homer and also from later Greek texts.Iliad VII 80–81, Ody II 546–551 The extant building is the successor of several temples and buildings on the site. Its precise date of construction is unknown; it has traditionally been thought to have been built from –406 BCE, but more recent scholarship favours a date in the 430s, when it could have been part of the programme of works instigated by Pericles.Not mentioned in Plutarch's list and the conventional date of the start of construction is after Perikles' death, however J.M Hurwitt, The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles 2004, p. 174, conjectures that the inception of the building dates to the 430s.
The Erechtheion is unique in the corpus of Greek temples in that its asymmetrical composition does not conform to the canon of Greek classical architecture. This is attributed either to the irregularity of the siteW. B. Dinsmoor, The Architecture of Ancient Greece, London, England. 1950. or to the evolving and complex nature of the cults which the building housed,M. Korres "Recent Discoveries on the Acropolis," Acropolis Restoration: the CCAM Interventions, R. Economakis, ed., London, England and New York, pp. 175–179. 1994. or it is conjectured to be the incomplete part of a larger symmetrical building.W. Dörpfeld, H. Schleif, Erechtheion, Berlin, 1942. See also Dinsmoor 1932, pp. 314–326, Elderkin 1912, pp. 53–58; Hawes, The Riddle of the Erechtheum. Additionally, its post-classical history of change of use, damage, and spoliation has made it one of the more problematic sites in classical archaeology. The precise nature and location of the various religious and architectural elements within the building remain the subject of debate. The temple was nonetheless a seminal example of the classical Ionic style and was highly influential on later Hellenistic,Notably; Apollo Patroos Roman,Temple of Roma and Augustus, Hadrian's villa Tivoli and Greek RevivalWilkins's Downing College, Inwood's St Pancras. Frank Salmon, The Erechtheion: An Overlooked Paradigm of the Greek Revival?, Cambridge, 2021, Accessed 17/10/2021 architecture.
History The classical Erechtheion is the last in a series of buildings approximately on the mid-north site of the Acropolis of Athens, the earliest of which dates back to the late Bronze Age Mycenaean period. L.B. HollandLeicester B. Holland, Erechtheum Papers IV. "The Building Called the Erechtheum", AJA, Vol. 28, No. 4, 1924, pp. 425–434. conjectured that the remains under the Erechtheion was the forecourt of a palace complex similar to that of Mycenae.However, S. Iakovides, Ὴ Μυκηναικη Ἁκροπολις των Αθηνων, Athens, 1962, and J.A. Bundgaard, Parthenon and the Mycenaean City on the Heights, Copenhagen, 1976 questions this. The scant evidence of the period LHI includes potsherds and scraps of a wall under the foundations of the Ionic temple. From the remainder of the shaft-grave period, there is nothing from LHII–LH IIIA, only from LH IIIB is there evidence of habitation in the form of terracing, children's graves, and a limestone column base. Hurwitt, arguing by analogy with population centres elsewhere from the period, maintains that there may have been a cult centre on the acropolis to the armed goddess a-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja,Hurwit 1999, p. 74. which could represent the primitive origins of the Athenian cult. Additionally, the Mycenaean well and Cyclopean walls, which appear to have been in use between LH IIIB and LH IIIC, attests to attempts to fortify the hill-top as the "strong-built house of Erechtheus" recorded in the Homeric tradition.Odys. 7.79–81 The well may be an indication of the location of the cult of Erechtheus.
The archaeology under the Erechtheion is also poorly evidenced for the archaic and early classical periods.Lesk p. 33 Despite this a number of proposals have been made for a structure on the site immediately before the Achaemenid destruction of Athens in 480 BCE. Orlandos reconstructs an obliquely orientated hexastyle amphiprostyle temple, which would have contained the "trident marks" in its pronaos.A.K. Orlandos, Ή αρκιτεκτονικη των Παρθενωνος, 2 vols., Athens. 1977. See Lesk, p33. Others restore a number of temene adjacent to the Temple of Athena Polias or a tetrastyle naiskos.Hurwit, 1999, p.145. To the south of the Erechtheion site would have been the Dörpfeld Foundations Temple, now thought to be the archaic Temple of Athena Polias, the foundations of which are visible on the acropolis today. Examination of the remains of the north edge of this temple by Korres might suggest the boundaries of the pre-Ionic Erechtheion site and therefore determine the shape of the classical temenos.M. Korres, The History of the Acropolis Monuments, in Acropolis Restoration: the CCAM Interventions, R. Economakis, ed., London, England and New York, pp. 35–51, 1994. Korres argues that a columnar monument marking the kekropeion would have been approximately where the Porch of the Maidens is, and that there was a stoa for the Pandroseion adjacent.Herodotus 8.55
The building accounts for the classical Erechtheion from 409–404 BC have survived, allowing an unusually secure dating of the construction of the temple.Chandler stele IG I3 474 Nevertheless, the question remains of when the building project was inaugurated. There is no primary evidence for when construction began; it is conjectured to be either the 430sDorpfeld, Der ursprünglichen Plan des Erechtheion." AM 29, pp.101–107, 1904. or in 421 during the Peace of Nikias.A. Michaelis, "Die Zeit des Neubaus des Poliastempels in Athens." AM, pp. 349–366. 1889. The latter is broadly the consensus view, the rationale being that this lull in the long Peloponnesian War would have been the most convenient time to begin a major construction project and that there was a likely hiatus in building during the Sicilian disaster of 413.Lesk p. 65. Alternatively, dates as early as the mid-430sHurwit, 1999, pp. 316, 322. and as late as 412 have been put forward.M. Vickers, "Persepolis, Vitruvius, and the Erechtheum Caryatids: The Iconography of Medism and Servitude." RA 1 1985, p. 25. See Lesk p. 66. Work seems to have ended in 406–405, and the last accounts were from 405–404, though some mouldings were never finished and some of the bosses of some stone blocks were not chiselled off.Lesk p. 70
The names of the architect-overseers (episkopos), Philokles and Archilochos, have come down to us.IG I 474 I.3 and IG I3 476 II.2–4 respectively. They worked on the site after 409. But the identity of the architect (architecton) is unknown. Several candidates have been suggested; namely, Mnesikles,Dörpfeld, Zu den Bauwerken Athens: Erechtheion und alter Tempel." AM 36, pp. 39–49. 1911. Kallikrates,Shear, 1999, p. 82 n.58. and Iktinos.Hawes, See Lesk p. 71
The subsequent history of the building has been one of damage, restoration and change of use, which complicates the task of reconstructing the original structure. The first recorded fire that the classical building suffered was perhaps 377–376,Xenophon HG 1.6.1, Dinsmoor dates the fire to 377–376, The Burning of the Opisthodomus at Athens. AJA 36, pp. 143–172, 1932. However, Paton et al. 1927, pp. 459–463, dates it to 406. a second more severe fire took hold sometime in 1st century BCE or earlierLesk p. 198 followed by a campaign of repair. The Erechtheion along with the Parthenon suffered a further major destruction at some point in the 3rd or 4th century CE; whether this was due to Herulian or Visigoth attack or a natural disaster is unclear. Julian the Apostate undertook the reconstruction of the Parthenon as a pagan temple in circa 361 and 363, at which point the Parthenon was the only attested site of the cult of Athena on the Acropolis, implying that the Erechtheion had been abandoned.
In the post-classical period, the Erechtheion was subject to a number of structural changes that must be assumed to have been prompted by the building's adaptation to Christian worship. The first was its conversion to a pillared hall with a groin vaulted roof at some point in the 4th century. In the late 6th or 7th century, the Erechtheion was converted into a three-aisled basilica church with the West Corridor serving as the narthex. The central portion of the east foundations was removed to make room for a curved apse. In the 12th century, the basilica was renovated. The round apse was enlarged and was given straight sides on the exterior. The chancel screen was extended to the North and South Walls. During the Frankish occupation (1204–1458), the Erechtheion was deconsecrated and changed to a Bishop's residence, probably for the Catholic bishops of Athens who held mass in the Latin Cathedral of Church of Our Lady of Athens.Lesk, p. 372 With the advent of Ottoman control and the adaptation of the Acropolis plateau to a garrison, the Erechtheion took on its final incarnation as the Dizdar's harem.According, at least, to Spon's account of 1678. See Lesk p. 439.