How did the Greeks and Romans build colossal temples?

i am standing in salinas a greek city in western sicily next to the ruins of one of the largest temples ever constructed the temple was flattened by earthquakes centuries ago but the remains are still awe-inspiring the column drums scattered around me are 10 feet thick some weigh 50 tons even the tumbled blocks from the sanctuary wall weigh a few tons each every stone you see was dragged here from quarries 10 miles away and stacked into walls and columns more than 50 feet high this video will explore how with only the most basic technology the greece and romans built structures as colossal as the temple at salinas we'll focus on temples for the simple reason that temples with their huge columns and massive architraves required heavier blocks than most other buildings as a point of reference let's start with the parthenon at about 100 feet wide by 230 feet long the parthenon was a very substantial building the largest temple in fact to be constructed on the greek mainland during the classical period but the parthenon was dwarfed by other temples one of those giants stood a short distance from the parthenon where its ruins can still be seen this was the temple of olympian zeus which was at 135 feet wide by 350 feet long about the size of a football field its columns were almost twice as tall as the parthenons and the gable of its pediment was as high as a nine story building some temples were even larger like the temple of apollo at ditima whose door was almost 50 feet tall or the famous temple of artemis at ephesus which featured 127 60-foot columns thanks to the modular nature of temple design the process of planning such buildings was straightforward the hard part was quarrying thousands of tons of stone bringing that stone to the construction site and lifting it into place let's take a quick look at the process most greek temples were made of stone from local quarries the aegean islands and parts of mainland greece had deposits of fine marble most other places had to cope with limestone and sandstone of varying quality to reduce their weight stones were shaped in the quarry channels were cut around them with iron picks and metal wedges used to detach them from their beds stone at the risk of blowing your mind is heavy most stones in fact weigh about two and a half tons per cubic yard during the classical period temples were often built with relatively small blocks and column drums which could be moved by wagon but colossal temples and especially those built before about 500 bc tended to use huge blocks that were too heavy for wheeled transport over short distances sledges and rollers were sometimes used the architect of the temple of artemis at ephesus devised special wooden frames that allowed 25 ton blocks to be pulled along like gigantic rollers once stones reached the building site they had to be set into place at first the usual method was to haul them up a dirt ramp but around the end of the 6th century bc cranes began to be used an ancient crane was a system of compound pulleys supported by a wooden frame ropes were looped around projections or carved channels in the blocks as men at the crane's base turned a capstan the ropes were tightened and the stone began to rise the greeks already knew that multiplying pulleys made lifting easier and seem to have used cranes to good effect the most sophisticated cranes however appeared later the most famous colossal temple of the roman era is probably the temple of jupiter at balbeck in what is now lebanon the columns of this temple are 65 feet high and the peak of the roof was almost 150 feet above the courtyard where worshippers gathered the blocks of the architrave above the columns weigh up to 100 tons there were temples in the city of rome that were even larger unlike the greek counterparts the columns in roman temples were often monolithic made that is from a single piece of stone since these columns weighed anywhere from 50 to 100 tons the romans had to step up their crane game though they seem to have sometimes been larger roman cranes did not differ fundamentally from the greek cranes in which they were based we know of two basic models one variety with three police and another variety with five however many pulleys a crane had the romans attached long spokes to the capstan for additional leverage for exceptionally heavy loads the captain was replaced with a large tread wheel turned by men walking inside the enormous temples in short was well within the technological capacity of the greeks and romans the real challenge was financing the project like medieval cathedrals huge temples could take centuries to build some cities simply ran out of money leaving gigantic white elephants for future generations to cope with the temple of hera at samos for example was under construction for almost 800 years and then just as it was approaching completion an earthquake knocked it down one wonders if the people of samos were relieved well that's it short and sweet check out tonestone.com for much more on ancient architecture and engineering and as always thanks for watching you

Channel: toldinstone

Views: 187,429

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Id: ADuHca1a0tk

Length: 6min 25sec (385 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021