There were no more kings in Greece after the Dark Ages , and so there were no more palaces or fancy tombs . Instead, people began to build big temples for the gods . The Egyptians had already been doing this for a thousand years, so it was not a new idea, but it was new in Greece.
Greek temples are the most famous part of Greek architecture.
They combine the Greek tradition of the megaron house with the Egyptian temple to make a new, simple, and elegant form. The first Greek temples, built around 800 BC , were made of wood, which was easier to build in than stone. In the early temples, the columns and the roof were made of wood. To keep the wood from rotting, the Greeks put a flat stone under each column, and to help the columns support the weight of the roof, they put a block of wood at the top of each column. But soon the Greeks began to build in limestone , which was more impressive and would last longer.