Origins
The earliest Greek sanctuaries probably did not contain temple buildings, though our knowledge of these is limited since many of these were destroyed, and the subject is controversial. A

Colouring
Only three basic colours were used: white, blue and red, occasionally also black. The crepidoma, columns, and architrave were mostly white. Only details, like the horizontally cut grooves at the bottom of Doric capitals (annuli), or

Public and private sponsors
The sponsors of Greek temples usually belonged to one of two groups: on the one hand public sponsors, including the bodies and institutions that administrated important sanctuaries; on the other hand influential and affluent

Canonical Greek temples maintained the same basic structure throughout many centuries. The Greeks used a limited number of spatial

Proportions
The foundations of Greek temples could reach dimensions of up to 115 by 55 m, i.e. the size of an average

To loosen up the mathematical strictness and to counteract distortions of human visual perception, a slight curvature of the whole building, hardly visible with the naked eye, was

Cult statue and naos
The functions of the temple mainly concentrated on the naos, the "dwelling" of the cult statue. The elaboration of the temple's external aspects served to stress the dignity of the naos. In contrast, the naos itself was often