Thisio

Thisio

The Temple of Hephaestus in central Athens Greece, is the best-preserved ancient Greek temple in the world, but is far less well-known than its illustrious neighbour, the Parthenon of Acropolis. The temple is also known as the Hephaesteum and the Theseum (Greek: Θησείο,Thiseio, Thisio), due to a belief current in Byzantine times that the bones of the legendary Greek hero Theseus were buried there; in fact the bones alleged to be those of Theseus were buried in the 5th century BC at another site nearer to the Acropolis.

General information

The temple is located about 500m north-west of the Acropolis and about 1km due west of the modern centre of Athens, Syntagma Square. It was built in about 449 BC on what was then the western edge of the city of Athens, in a district which contained many foundries and metalwork shops. It was therefore dedicated to Hephaaestus , the god of blacksmiths and metallurgy. It was designed by Ictinus, one of the architects who worked on the Parthenon. It stands on a slight rise and in ancient times commanded a fine view of the Agora.

Built of marble from Mount Pentelus, in the Doric style, the temple is hexastyle, that is with six columns under the pedimented ends, and has thirteen columns on each side (counting the corner columns twice). The temple is peripteral, with columns entirely surrounding the central enclosed cella. In the entablature there is the plain frieze that is expected with the sober Doric mode, but above it in the spaces between the triglyphs— which are like decoratively grooved beam-ends pegged into place— the labours of Heracles are depicted in bas-relief.