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| During the Dark Age, worship took place in the open air around an altar. However, the need
arose in the Geometric period to construct a building to house the cult statue and the conduct of certain rituals.
|
 The
three most important types of temples have their roots in Mycenaean architectural tradition.
The simplest type is a quadrangular house with a stone bench,
such as the temple of Ombrios Zeus on Mt. Hymettus. Two temples in Crete belong to the
same type but are of a more careful construction. The first one was found in Dreros
and is considered to be a Delphinium, that is a temple dedicated to Apollo, Artemis
and Leto. On the facade there was probably a shallow entrance porch,
whilst within the interior were two wooden roof supports and between them
an
eschara (hearth) construction for sacrifices. The smoke of sacrifices
escaped through a skylight in the flat roof, above which there was
a secondary protective
double pitched roof. According to the most prevalent
view, it was constructed in the mid-8th century BC. Dating to approximately the same period,
or a bit earlier, is the second temple of Gortys, which bore relief decoration. |
The second type of temple, the apsidal, was more widespread in mainland
Greece. The oldest temple of this type was found recently at Mende in Chalcidice, and dates
to the 10th century BC. Inside, a
bothros (sacrificial pit) was discovered. A similar building
at Lefkandi on Euboea, belongs to the same century, but it is doubtful whether
it was a temple at all. In neighbouring Eretria, however, two apsidal
Daphnephoria (temples of Daphnephoros Apollo) have been excavated, dating to the
beginning and the end of the 8th century BC. The first one bore a sort
of double wooden colonnade
for supporting the roof, whereas the second one was a regular
Hekatompedhos (100 feet or approximately 35 metres long). The temple of Artemis at
Raceta in Achaia belongs to the end of the Geometric period, and has surviving stone bases from the
wooden colonnade. |
The third and last type of Geometric temple is common both
in the Peloponnese and central Greece, as well as in Ionia and the Aegean. It is the
megaron type, the origin of which goes back to the Mycenaean megaron and from
which the Doric and Ionian temple would later develop. Two such buildings
have been found in the sanctuary of Apollo at Thermo in Aetolia. The oldest one dates
to the end of the 9th century BC. Around 800 BC, the first Heraion of Samos,
which was an Hekatompedhos, must have been built. It had a
saddled roof and an interior wooden colonnade. Close to the back wall of the temple
the base of a cult statue was found. The temples at Tiryns and Yria on Naxos,
also belonged to the megaron type. In the latter, two building phases can be discerned
dating to the end of the 9th and the 8th centuries BC. |