B22.020 Temple of Zeus Olympius

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Denis Baly

Image ID

B22.020

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Article

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The majestic Corinthian columns of the Temple of Zeus Olympius. Trachtenberg writes that this temple is one of the earliest instances of "the Corinthian" appearing "as the principal exterior order of a normal peripteral temple" (103). Of the 104 columns of the temple, with 8 and 20 on the short and long sides (octastyle dipteral), only sixteen remain today. Fifteen of these remain standing, while one of them collapsed because of a feirce wind in 1852. They are approximately 1.7 m in diameter, and have 20 flutes. -MA (Source: Trachtenberg and Hyman, Architecture, from prehistory to post-modernism: the western tradition, 1986)