Image Details

Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis

An intriguing but complicated building, the Erechtheum, built in the last two decades of the fifth century B.C.E., was intended to house a variety of diverse cults, each with its own designated space. The principal entrance was through a facade with six Ionic columns on the structure’s eastern side (far right in the photo). The Erechtheum also had a north porch (far left in the photo) with an Ionic colonnade and a south porch with columns in the shape of beautiful maidens (the caryatids).