Temple of Apollo (Aegina)
The ruins of the Temple of Apollo on the Greek island of Aegina are located at the port of the main town of the same name on the island. The only upright column of the building gave the place the name Cape Kolona , which has been attested since the 16th century.
Reconstructed shape and history up to destruction
The remains of the temple that are visible today belong almost exclusively to a Doric peripterus , who lived between 520 and 510 BC. Was built. As a possible successor to an older temple from the early 6th century BC It was the center of the Apollo cult on the island and the first structure that newcomers saw in the commercial port of Aegina. After the reconstruction by Wolfgang Wurster , its roof was supported by 6 × 11 (possibly 6 × 12) columns. The only column left today belonged to the opisthodom at the back of the temple. At 18.75 × 34.28 m, the foundation is somewhat wider than that of the better-known Temple of Aphaia in the east of the island. The few remaining traces of color indicate the colorful design of the temple, the details of which, however, cannot be reconstructed.
The temple is documented early in ancient literature ( e.g. Herodotus ). The travel writer Pausanias names him in the first place in his description of the island. He is followed by other travel writers who, however, out of ignorance, ascribe the temple to other gods (including Artemis , Hecate , Athena ). The time of the destruction of the temple is unknown. When the city hill was walled in the 3rd century AD, Doric building blocks were used, but there are no references to building blocks of the temple in the wall. In the 16th century there was a Venetian fortress on the hill, and the name of the place on a map from that time suggests that the temple had already been destroyed: Cap de Conon is probably written from Cap de Colonne .
The first modern source for the state of the temple are the travel reports of Jacob Spon and George Wheler , who visited Aegina in 1675. They report that nothing remains of the temple but two Doric columns with an architrave . In August 1765 the London Society of Dilettants traveled to Aegina and William Pars created a watercolor with a view of the ruins, which is now on display in the British Museum .
exploration
The first archaeologist to examine the ruins was the British archaeologist William Gell . He visited the island from 1800 to 1803 and mentioned the temple ruins in his travelogue from 1819. A pen drawing from his sketchbook shows that the architrave and the capital of the southern column had already collapsed at that time. Even Edward Dodwell described the ruins after his visit in September 1805. William Martin Leake , who visited the island in 1804 and 1806, no new findings could provide. The architects Charles Robert Cockerell and Carl Haller von Hallerstein undertook the first thorough investigation in 1811. After a second trip (1812), Cockerell had collected a lot of data and made sketches that were of great importance for the later reconstruction. At that time it was still assumed that the temple was dedicated to Aphrodite , and was based on the tradition of Pausanias, whose route was still incorrectly reconstructed.
The remains of the temple were badly damaged in the following years: Otto Magnus von Stackelberg is the last to describe both columns on his journey (1810–1815). In the period between 1815 and 1828 the northern, complete column overturned, probably in a storm. In the winter of 1828/1829, the American doctor Samuel Gridley Howe caused the most serious damage to the remains: In order to provide the refugees of the Revolutionary War with work and food, Howe had them remove the remains of the temple for the daily wage of a loaf of bread per person use to build a new pier in the port. He started with 300 workers and lastly employed 700. The only thing they left were the foundations sunk deep into the earth and the last standing pillar.
In the course of this destruction, which was reported by the Knight von Scharnhorst in 1829, concern about the building stock on the island grew. A French expedition systematically recorded the monuments of the island in 1829 and also described the remains of the Temple of Apollo. Further descriptions come from Ludwig Ross (August 1832), Leo von Klenze (summer 1834) and Edmond About (1852). A systematic excavation of the temple took place only in 1894 by Valerios Stais . It was continued from 1904 by Adolf Furtwängler on behalf of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and was interrupted after his death in 1907. Paul Wolters and Gabriel Welter did not resume excavations until 1924 . Welter established himself at home on Aegina and carried out research (published in 1938), in which he also proved that the temple was consecrated to the city god Apollo. After the Second World War , research was idle for a long time before the Bavarian Academy of Sciences appointed Hans Walter chairman of the Aegina Commission in 1966 . His team carried out extensive excavations in the area of the ruins, which allowed an extensive reconstruction of the original shape. The results of these excavations were published in 1974 by Wolfgang Wurster. The final proof for the attribution to the god Apollon was also provided here.
The Austrian archaeologists Florens Felten and Stefan Hiller from the Austrian Archaeological Institute have been leading the excavations in Kolonna since 1993 .
literature
- Walther Gauß: Aigina . In: The New Pauly - Reception and Science History , Volume 1
- Klaus Hoffelner: Das Apollon-Heiligtum , in: Alt-Aegina I, 3, Mainz 1999. ISBN 3-8053-2030-2
- Ingrid Margreiter: The small finds from the Apollon-Heiligtum II, 3, Mainz 1988. ISBN 3-8053-1008-0
- Wolfgang Wurster : The Temple of Apollo , in: Alt-Aegina I, 1, Mainz 1974
- Gudrun Klebinder-Gauß: Ceramics from classical contexts in the Apollon sanctuary in Aegina-Kolonna . Vienna 2012
Web links
- Temple of Apollo III in the Arachne archaeological database
Coordinates: 37 ° 45 ′ 1.1 ″ N , 23 ° 25 ′ 24.7 ″ E