#pycnostyle

Temple of Aphrodite

Aphrodisias, Asia minor (Turkey)

1st century CE

The sanctuary of Aphrodite was the heart of the community, and its central focus was a traditional Greek-style temple surrounded by columns and built entirely of marble. The temple was the house of the goddess and accommodated her cult statue. It was an Ionic temple and designed in the hellenistic manner of the architect Hermogenes. In technical terms, it was pseudodipteral, octostyle, and pycnostyle. That is, the temple chamber (cella) was surrounded by a wide colonnade (pseudodipteral); it has an eight-column facade (octostyle); and its columns are set close together (pycnostyle). The long sides had thirteen columns. Its outside dimensions were 8.5 X 31 m.

The site was a local cult center centered around a local fertility goddess since at least the 7th century BCE. In the hellenistic period, the local goddess came to be identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, in a similar manner as the Artemis of Ephesus was originally a local goddess who came to be identified with Artemis, and the city became a pilgrimage for people from across Anatolia and the Aegean sea.

The chronology of the temple is secured by inscriptions. The first phase, dated to the 30s BCE by a dedication of C. Julius Zoilos inscribed on the door lintel, probably included the cella with a columned porch. Around this the outer columns were added during the first century CE, as recorded in individual donor inscriptions on the columns. In the second century CE, the temple was enclosed in an elaborate colonnaded court, framed by a two-storeyed columnar façade on the east side, and by porticos on the north, west, and south. Soundings beneath the temple have revealed archaic pottery and some early structures on a different orientation, including a large piece of early Hellenistic pebble mosaic, but nothing to demonstrate an archaic predecessor of the Roman temple.