page_title: Temple of Hephaestus
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Temple of Hephaestus / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Temple of Hephaestus (South side), Ancient Agora, Athens, Greece.Español: Hefestión (fachada sur), Antigua ágora de Atenas, Grecia.
context_page_description: The Temple of Hephaestus or Hephaisteion or earlier as the Theseion, is a well-preserved Greek temple; it remains standing largely intact. It is a Doric peripteral temple, and is located at the north-west side of the Agora of Athens, on top of the Agoraios Kolonos hill. From the 7th century until 1834, it served as the Greek Orthodox church of Saint George Akamates. The building's condition has been maintained due to its history of varied use.
context_section_description: Many architects have been suggested, but without firm evidence one refers simply to The Hephaisteion Master. The temple is built of marble from the nearby Mt. Penteli, excepting the bottom step of the  krepis or platform. The architectural sculpture is in both Pentelic and Parian marble. The dimensions of the temple are 13.71 m north to south and 31.78 m east to west, with six columns on the short east and west sides and thirteen columns along the longer north and south sides (with each of the four corner columns being counted twice).
  The building has a pronaos, a cella housing cult images at the centre of the structure, and an opisthodomos. The alignment of the antae of the pronaos with the third flank columns of the peristyle is a design element unique middle of the 5th century BC. There is also an inner Doric colonnade with five columns on the north and south side and three across the end (with the corner columns counting twice).
  The decorative sculptures highlight the extent of mixture of the two styles in the construction of the temple. Both the pronaos and the opisthodomos are decorated with continuous Ionic friezes (instead of the more typical Doric triglyphs, supplementing the sculptures at the pediments and the metopes. In the pediments, the Birth of Athena (east) and the Return of Hephaistos to Olympos (west), and, as akroteria, the Nereids Thetis and Eurynome (west) accompanied by Nikai, the two ensembles are dated to ca. 430 and ca. 420–413 BC respectively. The frieze of the pronaos depicts a scene from the battle of Theseus with the Pallantides in the presence of gods while the frieze of the opisthodomos shows the battle of Centaurs and Lapiths.
  Only 18 of the 68 metopes of the temple of Hephaestus were sculptured, concentrated especially on the east side of the temple; the rest were perhaps painted. The ten metopes on the east side depict the Labours of Heracles. The four easternmost metopes on the long north and south sides depict the Labours of Theseus.
  According to Pausanias, the temple housed the bronze statues of Athena and Hephaestus. An inscription records payments between 421–415 BC for two bronze statues but it does not mention the sculptor. Tradition attributes the work to Alkamenes.  Pausanias described the temple in the 2nd century: 
  "Above the Kerameikos [in Athens] and the portico called the King's Portico is a temple of Hephaistos. I was not surprised that by it stands a statue of Athena, because I knew the story about Erikhthonios [i.e. the first king of Athens, a son of Hephaistos and Athena, birthed by Gaia the Earth]."
  In the 3rd century BC a small garden of pomegranate, myrtle, and laurel trees and shrubs was planted around the temple.
  The sanctuary would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire.
caption: Doric colonnade facing the Agora
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