Plan of Athena Temple

Plan of Athena Temple

This is a diagram of the Athena Temple in Priene.  It is the class model for Greek temple architecture.

The following is a portion of a helpful article in Wikipedia.  The links in the article will take you to Wikipedia.


Peripteros (Greek: Περίπτερος) is the special name given to a type of ancient Greek or Roman temple surrounded by a portico with columns. It refers to the useful element for the architectural definition of buildings surrounded around their outside by a colonnade (pteron) on all four sides of the cella (naos), creating a four-sided arcade (peristasis). By extension, it also means simply the perimeter of a building (typically a classical temple), when that perimeter is made up of columns.[1] The term is frequently used of buildings in the Doric order.[1]