A place travelers can visit Apollon Temple Didyma

Reviews: Apollon Temple Didyma

General description: Apollon Temple Didyma

The fourth largest sanctuary in the Greek world after the Temple of Artemis (and the Heraion of Samos and the Olympieion at Sicily), the Didymaion was built to rival the Artemision, employing one of the same architects, who was completing his work there, and having the same approximate dimensions. Great Ionic capitals with swirling volutes lie scattered about. Enormous Medusa heads that decorated an architrave atop the columns sit prone on the ground.

 Pausanias (c. 160 AD) said the Didymaion was constructed before Greek colonization (10th century BC), and some date it to the 2nd millennium BC. The Didymaion was reached by a Sacred Way from the harbor of Panormus.

 
 Originally, 122 enormous Ionic columns surrounded the temple; today only three remain intact. Dating from the 2nd century BC, the columns are 60 feet tall (the height of a six-story building) and have a diameter of 6 feet at the base. Even the stumps of columns that fell are impressive in size and display beautiful carvings at their base.

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