ABSTRACTS - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

combination study of the information coming from the excavated parts of the cemeteries of Ancient
Sikyon can contribute to the reconstitution of the ceremony of placing the dead into the ground.
Erik Østby, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Bergen University, Norway
The Temples of Apollo at Sikyon: Identification and Reconstruction
As part of a program for research and conservation of the monuments from ancient Sikyon, directed by
Dr Kalliopi Krystalli-Votsi on behalf of the Archaeological Society at Athens in the 1980’s, an architectural
study of the temple foundation at the agora of the ancient city was undertaken in the years from 1985 to
1989 with the collaboration of Dr Erik Ostby from the Norwegian Institute in Rome. The complex
foundations preserve remains of two successive temples of Doric style, one from about 300 BC and one of
the early 6th century, and some traces probably of a still earlier precursor.
The Hellenistic temple was peripteral, but deliberately archaizing with a peristasis of 6 x 18 columns and a
long naos divided in three deep rooms. It was probably constructed in connection with the urbanistic
reorganization of Demetrios Poliorketes after 303 BC. A square construction at its northern flank was
probably a monumental altar.
The Archaic temple was probably tetrastyle prostyle, stone built to the top, and had no peristasis. In the
cella two parallel colonnades supported the roof construction. Certain foundations and block complexes
which find no good explanation neither in the Archaic nor in the Hellenistic context seem to indicate a still
earlier phase, probably of the late 7th century.
A monumental, circular basis with cavities at the rim, probably for the legs of a monumental tripod, had
the same position inside both temples. This confirms the identification with the temple of Apollo
mentioned by Pausanias at the agora of Sikyon (2.7.8-9), and suggests some connection with the early
temple of Apollo at Delphi.