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Some Observations on the Origin of Triglyphs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

M. L. Bowen
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Extract

The origin of the Doric triglyph has been long a subject of dispute, and the problem is briefly this. The earliest stone triglyph that we have is dated to circa 600 B.C., and there is no direct evidence for earlier examples in other materials except in the temples at Thermon and Calydon, where terracotta metopes were found dated by their style to circa 640 B.c., the Calydon examples being slightly the later of the two. Undecorated terracotta metopes were found in the seventh century temple at Gonnos; on these see below. The spacing of the columns in the Heraion at Olympia, which shows contraction at the angles, has been adduced as evidence of a triglyph-frieze; but the earliest stone column cannot have been put in before 600 B.C., and the existing contraction may be the result of a later arrangement. Pottery of 600–590 B.C. has been found beneath the present structure. Yet the form of the Doric triglyph remained without variation for over four centuries, although it gives many indications of being unsuited to the material in which it has survived. This, it is argued, points to at least as long a period of development before its appearance in stone at the end of the seventh century. What determined this form, and in what material it was developed, are the two questions confrontine students of this problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 45 , November 1950 , pp. 113 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1950

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References

* I should like to thank allthose who have made this article possible, especially Professor D. S. Robertson, Mr. J. M. Cook, and the Council of the Hellenic Society (for permission to reproduce fig. 2) ; also Mr. D. G. Fenter for the illustrations, and all those who have read it through and helped me with suggestions.

1 Angle contraction does not appear in Greek architecture until circa 540 B.C. (Temple of Apollo at Corinth).

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7 ‘Nam in angulis contraque tetrantes columnarum triglyphi constituuntur, quibus in locis omnino non patiuntur res fenestras fieri. Dissolvuntur enim angulorum in aedificiisiuncturae, si in is fenestrarum uerint lumina relicta.’ Vitruvius, loc. cit.

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22 Palladio IV 2, 49, fig. 1.

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48 As, perhaps, had the tripods found in Cretan shrines.

49 Biegen, Korakou, 80, House L.

50 Biegen, op. cit., 131, fig. 135.

51 Destroyed 1300 B.C.

52 BSA XIV, 1.

53 Or offering table. Yavis, Greek Altars, 58.

54 Ann. (N.S.) III–IV, 9.

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60 And on many other classical and post-classical altars (Yavis, op, cit., 139).

61 Walters, Cat. of Terracottas in B.M., D786.