Erechtheion and the Caryatids (421 BC): Temple on the Acropolis

The Erechtheion is an Ionic temple on the Acropolis of Athens, built in about 421-406 BC during the Peloponnesian War. It sheltered the most sacred image in Athens, the ancient wooden statue of Athena Polias, together with shrines to the legendary king Erechtheus and to Poseidon. Its south porch, where six marble maidens known as the Caryatids hold up the roof, is one of the most famous pieces of architecture of the ancient world.

Background: rebuilding the sacred rock

The Persians sacked the Acropolis of Athens in 480 BC, burning its temples. In the mid-5th century BC Pericles launched a great building programme on the hill, beginning with the Parthenon in 447 BC and the monumental gateway, the Propylaia.

The Erechtheion replaced older shrines on the north side of the hill that were connected with the city’s oldest legends. According to myth, Athena and Poseidon competed here to become patron of Athens. Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and produced a salt spring; Athena planted the first olive tree and won. The marks of the trident and Athena’s sacred olive were preserved in and beside the temple.

Building probably began around 421 BC, perhaps during the lull created by the Peace of Nicias. Work slowed in the hard years after the Sicilian disaster. Surviving inscriptions from 409/408 BC record a commission inspecting the unfinished building, and later accounts list payments to workers until its completion around 406 BC. The original architect is not known.

An unusual design

Unlike the Parthenon, the Erechtheion has no simple rectangular plan. The ground drops about 3 metres from east to west, and the builders had to respect several holy places. The result is a temple on two levels with three very different porches.

• The east porch has six slender Ionic columns and led to the cella, or inner room, of Athena Polias.
• The north porch, on the lower level, has tall Ionic columns and a richly carved doorway. An opening in its roof and floor was left above marks in the rock identified with Poseidon’s trident.
• The south porch, the Porch of the Maidens, rests on a high base over the place believed to be the tomb of Cecrops, the mythical first king of Athens.

The western part of the building housed other cults, including that of Erechtheus. Next to it lay the Pandroseion, an open sanctuary where Athena’s olive tree grew. The temple was built of Pentelic marble, with friezes of dark grey Eleusinian limestone on which white marble figures were attached.

The Caryatids

The six Caryatids, each a little over 2 metres tall, stand in two rows: four at the front and one behind each corner. Each carries the roof on a basket-like capital resting on her head. Their weight rests on one leg, while the other is slightly bent, so that the folds of their dresses fall like the fluting of a column. Their long braided hair helps to strengthen the slender neck, structurally the weakest point.

The building accounts simply call them korai, or maidens. The name “Caryatids” comes from the Roman architect Vitruvius, writing in the 1st century BC. He claimed that the town of Caryae in Laconia had sided with the Persians, and that the Greeks enslaved its women and portrayed them carrying burdens as a lasting punishment. Many scholars doubt this explanation, and the statues are more often seen as elegant attendants of the sanctuary.

The workers who built the temple were citizens, resident foreigners and slaves, and the accounts show that skilled craftsmen of all three groups earned about one drachma a day.

Later history

Over the centuries the Erechtheion was converted into a Christian church, then used as a residence under Frankish and Ottoman rule. Between 1801 and 1805 agents of Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed one Caryatid and a column from the east porch. Both are now in the British Museum.

The temple was badly damaged during the Ottoman siege of the Acropolis in 1826-1827, in the Greek War of Independence. It was restored in the early 20th century and again by the Acropolis Restoration Service from the late 1970s. Because air pollution was eating away the marble, the five remaining Caryatids were moved indoors in 1979 and replaced by replicas. Since 2009 they have stood in the Acropolis Museum, where they were cleaned with lasers in the early 2010s.

Timeline

• 480 BC: the Persians sack the Acropolis.
• c. 421 BC: construction of the Erechtheion begins.
• 409/408 BC: a commission records the state of the unfinished temple.
• c. 406 BC: the temple is completed.
• 1801-1805: Elgin’s agents remove one Caryatid.
• 1979: the remaining Caryatids are replaced by replicas.
• 2009: the five originals go on display in the new Acropolis Museum.

Legacy

The Porch of the Maidens has been copied countless times. The Romans reproduced the Caryatids in the Forum of Augustus and at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli. In the 19th century the Greek Revival style used them widely, for example on St Pancras New Church in London (1819-1822). The figures remain one of the most recognised symbols of classical Athens.

Why it matters

The Erechtheion was the religious heart of the Acropolis, home to the oldest and holiest cults of Athens. Its inventive design and the Caryatids show Athenian architects at their most original, and the dispersal of the statues between Athens and London keeps it at the centre of debates about cultural heritage.