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In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base. With a height only four to eight times their diameter, the columns were the most squat of all the classical orders; their vertical shafts were fluted with 20 parallel concave grooves, each rising to a sharp edge called an arris.
Early Greeks were no doubt aware of the use of stone columns with bases and capitals in ancient Egyptian architecture, and that of other Near Eastern cultures, although there they were mostly used in interiors, rather than as a dominant feature of all or part of exteriors, in the Greek style. Doric capital of the Parthenon from Athens
The columns are wider at the base than at the top, tapering with an outward curve known as entasis. Each column has a capital of two parts, the upper, on which rests the lintels, being square and called the abacus. The part of the capital that rises from the column itself is called the echinus.
The designs often respond to an order of columns, but usually with a different set of design principles. [4] In order not to protrude excessively from the wall surface, these structures tend to have a rather flat surface, forming brick-shaped capitals, called "anta capitals". Anta capitals are known from the time of the Doric order. [5]
There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns. The Ionic capital is characterized by the use of volutes.
The Athenian Treasury in Delphi with two antae framing a set of two columns. An anta (pl. antæ, antae, or antas; Latin, possibly from ante, "before" or "in front of"), or sometimes parastas (pl. parastades), is a term in classical architecture describing the posts or pillars on either side of a doorway or entrance of a Greek temple – the slightly projecting piers which terminate the side ...
A single Corinthian column stands free, centered within the cella. This is a mysterious feature, and archaeologists debate what this shows: some state that it is simply an example of a votive column. A few examples of Corinthian columns in Greece during the next century are all used inside temples. A more famous example, and the first ...
The Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens, (174 BC–132 AD), with the Parthenon (447–432 BC) in the background. This list of ancient Greek temples covers temples built by the Hellenic people from the 6th century BC until the 2nd century AD on mainland Greece and in Hellenic towns in the Aegean Islands, Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy ("Magna Graecia"), wherever there were Greek colonies, and the ...