The Parthenon Part 3: The Collumns of the Parthenon

Here I'm going to tell you about the collumns of the Parthenon. The collumns are in the Doric Order. Below is a doric order collumn:

First let me tell you about the orders. They're quite complicated to explain. In total, there are 5 types of column orders: Doric Order, Ionic Order, Corinthian Order, Tuscan Order and Composite Order. The Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, are from the Greeks, while the Tuscan and Composite are from the Romans. They're all classical orders.The doric order is the oldest order, and the simplest one.

We'll talk starting from the top fo the collumn. The triglyph comes from the word tri, which means "three", and glyph, which means mark, so triglyph means three marks. You can see three lines there up in the picture.

The space between the triglyphs are called metopes, which are often filled with sculptures.

The abacus, or the slab at the top of the collumn is just simple.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/145381894195548785/

Now we go to the tricky part. Most people think that the collumns are straight, but actually they're not. From the top towards the middle, the width grows bigger, then towards the bottom, it tapers, which means the width becomes smaller.  So the widest point is at the middle, and the thinnest point is at the top. The collumn is not carved out of one stone, they're carved from different stones. They put them together by making a hole at the centre of the already-carved stones, so that a piece of wood will string them together. 

It's quite fascinating because the Ancient Greeks made the shaft have a sense of elasticity, making it able to bear the weight above it, and design it not only using math and geometry, but also with human perception, because the further we go, the smaller something is. 

This is the end of Parthenon Part 3