Structural Assessment of Ancient Building

Components, the Temple of Artemis at Corfu

Georg Herdt, Aykut Erkal, Dina D’Ayala and Mark Wilson Jones
University of Bath, UK

Abstract:
The pediment of the temple of Artemis at Corfu is one of the very earliest remains of monumental Greek
construction. This temple, which dates towards the beginning of the 6th century BC (to judge from the
style of the sculptures of the pediment), has suffered extensively since antiquity, leaving us with only a
highly fragmented image. Excavated by Gerhardt Rodenwaldt at the beginning of the 20th century, the
Artemision was reconstructed on paper by Hans Schleif, in their 2 volume publication. The reconstruction
has been criticized in minor respects, but the plausibility of the pedimental sculptures in their proposed
position has been generally accepted. In this paper however structural analysis suggests that the current
position of these sculptures is inconsistent with stability. This triggers a revised reading of the architectural
reconstruction, calling into question the whole plan, with its supposed grand pseudo-dipteral layout.

Keywords:
Ancient Greece, Structural Analysis, Finite Element Method, Corfu, Conservation, Architectural Sculpture

1. Introduction stone-architecture” (Gruben 2001, 112).

Due to the ruined state of so many
ancient structures, the efforts of architects and
archaeologists are essential to restitute their
original appearance by means of traditional
drawings, and, increasingly, using virtual
techniques. However, the consideration
of whether proposed reconstructions are
structurally stable is often not confronted
adequately. Unless physical reconstruction
(anastylosis) is involved, issues of structural
feasibility may not be addressed, or only
indirectly by virtue of common sense and
reference to comparanda. On account of
the structural conservatism of many Greek
trabeated buildings this situation is generally
unproblematic; yet there are some cases where
structural analysis can be usefully employed to
validate – or not – a particular reconstruction,
even one that has been widely accepted and
reproduced in the literature.
2. Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis on the island of
Corfu, according to Gottfried Gruben, is the
“first and mightiest example of developing
Corresponding author: gherdt@gmx.de
Erected in the early 6th century, it holds a key
place in the development of the Doric order that
went on to govern the appearance of so much
Greek architecture. The pediment of the temple
is important as the first surviving substantially
complete assembly of Greek architectural
sculpture. In addition the monument is striking
in terms of its structure and dimensions. As
reconstructed by the excavators, it measures
47.90 metres long, 22.41 m wide and about
14 m high, incorporating a complete circuit of
columns (peristasis) with 8 on the ends and 17
on the flanks (Fig. 1).
The significance of the Artemision is
highlighted by the fact that only a generation
or two earlier the great majority of temples
in Greek territories were much smaller and
narrower; they were built of perishable
materials and involved relatively modest
spans; their appearance was characterized by
ornament and sculpture that by comparison
must have been much less elaborate (even if in
truth we lack the information to be absolutely
certain on this point). In the decades of
transition between humble structures of this
sort and Artemis’s impressive temple there
did exist a few other temples that likewise
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Figure 1. Plan of the temple of Artemis at Corfu.
deserve to be called monumental. Two of the
most notable are the temple of Poseidon at
Isthmia (ca. 650 BC) and the temple of Hera at
Olympia (ca. 600 BC). The former had a cella
measuring approximately 32 m by 7.9 m, but it
is unclear whether there really was a peristasis
of wooden columns/posts (Gruben 2001, 106).
The Heraion measures 50 m by 18.76 m and is
the first building known with certainty to have
had a monumental and regular peristasis, one
consisting of 6 by 16 columns, though initially
these were made of wood (Gruben 2001, 52).
Soon after our Artemision there followed in
Sicily a succession of large religious structures,
some of them truly gigantic (Gruben 2001,
288). The Corfu temple was not necessarily the
project that launched the new monumentality
(this distinction could belong to a different
building that happens to be lost to us), but
it clearly stands at a critical moment in the
development of Greek temple architecture.
The chief focus of this paper is the detailed
reconstruction of the pedimented front of the
temple and its sculpture as proposed by the
excavators. The association of the sculptures
with this building is not in doubt; however
their capacity to bear load requires evaluation.
A revised reconstruction has the advantage of
being more plausible from the point of view of
statics and constructional soundness, and this
in turn has implications for the layout.
2
Figure 2. Elevation of the temple of Artemis. Existing
fragments are indicated by tone.
3. Documentation
Following excavations in 1911 to 1914,
the two volume report on the sanctuary of
Artemis at Corfu was published by Gerhard
Rodenwaldt and Hans Schleif in 1939 and
1940. Their reconstruction of the temple and
its dimensions is based on the study of two
main aspects; the foundations and the sculpted
pediment. Presumably because they were
of little use to later builders, the sculptures
were not destroyed and remain surprisingly
complete. Rodenwaldt and Schleif’s restitution
of their original disposition is carefully thought
through and represents an important advance in
the knowledge of Greek architectural sculpture.
The stonework of the foundations on the other
hand, was almost completely removed by later
builders in the locality (Gruben 1996, 91). On
this basis Schleif restores the eight columned
front as 22.41 m wide, which is about 3½ m
wider than the slightly older temple of Hera
at Olympia. The proposed column-spacing is
quite dense, with 17 columns reconstructed for
the 47.90 m long flanks. Since so little is known
about the substructures (the layout of the
foundations being determined by the change of
fill in the presumed robbed trenches – hardly
the most certain method), Schleif sought to
give order to the plan by applying a foot grid.
The result was questioned in 1943 by Hans
Riemann, who suggested a different value for
the foot. However, for seventy years no doubts
have been raised over the more fundamental
 Structural Assessment of Ancient Building Components, the Temple of Artemis at Corfu
Georg Herdt et al.
Figure 3. The block with of the left lion-panther according
to Rodenwaldt.
points of Rodenwaldt and Schleif’s work, and in
particular the monumental scale of the edifice,
the extent of which matches their reconstruction
of the pediment (Kähler 1949, 42).
The pediment and its sculptures are
indeed impressive. The Gorgon itself in the
centre of the tympanon measures more than 3
m in height. The overall length of the pediment
is about 20 m, though there is an element of
estimation due to some missing parts (Fig.
2). Generally, the sculptural blocks are in
pieces but in a good condition; many surfaces
are intact, and for some blocks the outline of
missing parts can be confidently reconstructed.
Each block incorporates a decorated framing
strip, one at the top and one at the bottom; the
upper follows the pitch of the roof under the
raking geison, the other sits on the horizontal
geison. The decoration of these two strips is
different; a chevron pattern for the upper and a
meander pattern about 30 cm tall for the lower.
The sculpted taller blocks at the centre
of the pediment present an increased width at
the bottom, forming a stand which is preserved
up to a maximum depth of about 55.5 cm.
The depth of the sculptures is 17 cm at the
sides and roughly 29 cm near the centre. This
leaves a surplus of the stone material of 26.5
cm to form the background at the bottom. The
section steps in higher up, as can be observed
at the left panther-lion, and then continues to
narrow towards the top, presumably to lighten
the blocks for the sake of lifting them (Fig. 3).
Around the heads of the two panther-lions the
stone has been trimmed down to as little as 5 cm
thick behind the feline’s mane. And even worse,
the block displaying the Pegasus is reported to
narrow down to 4 cm (Schleif 1940, 25).
Four blocks of the raking stone geison
remain, each measuring about 2 m in length.
The surfaces of these stones show a series of
cuttings, allowing a definite allocation of their
position and that of the adjoining blocks. At
their lower surface an erosion mark (67.5
cm from the front) indicates the junction
with the next components. Connections were
effected by means of dowels, the cavities for
which still remain visible on each geison-
block. The upper surfaces of the geison blocks
also display a smoothed area as well as holes
for connecting to the sima, with dove-tail
connectors for joining each block and a large
socket at the rear for the timber beams that
once spanned across the porch. The smoothed
surface matches the dimensions of the second
sima, the marble sima, of which some elements
survive. This must have substituted an earlier
sima, fragments of which also survive made of
terracotta and about 80 cm in height, as well as
some tiles.
To define the cross-section of the pediment,
Schleif placed the sculptures centrally below the
raking-geison; their position is set at 67.5 cm
from the front by the limit of the erosion due to
weathering. The sculptures were thus sheltered
from rain, but two problems arise with this
position. The first concerns the sequence of
construction, since the geison is placed on
top of the sculptures. For this to be the case
these must have been inserted into position
before the roof could have been placed onto the
building, the inverse of usual practice. But more
importantly: Schleif’s reconstruction presumes
that load from the roof can be applied to the
sculpted blocks, and he supplies a section that
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sima directly onto the massive geison block,

Figure 4. a) Temple of Artemis, section through the
pediment at the ‘dying-giant’ (Schleif) and b) at the
‘panther-lion’ (Herdt).
makes it look plausible (Fig. 4a). However, he
does not supply a section through other blocks
which have been tapered by the sculptors to
the point that their structural capability must
be called into doubt (Fig. 4b). Indeed it seems
doubtful that Greek sculptors ever intended
such a slim profile to bear load. Hence the need
to test its feasibility by means of structural
analysis.
For this purpose, the weight of the roof
has to be assessed. The surviving blocks were
combined into two alternative reconstructions
by Schleif, of which one results in a lighter
construction for the roof than the other.
Solution A places the monumental terracotta
while Solution B engages an additional layer
in between these two components. Solution B
therefore raises the sima about 25 cm, which
is consistent with a decorative bead at the edge
of the geison. According to Schleif it is the
presence of the bead that makes Solution B more
probable than Solution A (Schleif 1940, 57 Abb.
43.). However, this fill layer brings additional
load onto the sculptures and the slender wall
to which they are attached. In order to check
the level of potential stresses, structural
analysis using Finite Element Modelling has
been performed. The presumed properties of
the materials and loads, necessary to perform
the analysis, are given in Table 1. These have
been chosen from the literature (Schleif 1940,
21) on the basis of the archaeological evidence
using limit conditions assumptions. In addition
to the self-load, tiles have been applied as
uniformly distributed loads over the roof and
terracotta as a line load on the outer edge of the
roof. More accurate results could be obtained
by a detailed survey of the remaining fragment
and characterisation of the original materials.
4. Structural Analysis
The Finite Element Method (FEM) has
been used to structurally analyse the proposed
reconstruction of the pediment. The model
replicates the left lion-panther sculpture and
the objective is to verify whether the thinner
portion of the stone section would be able to
withstand the roof loads as proposed in Schleif’s
hypothesis B. After generating its geometry
in AutoCAD, the model has been transferred
into the finite element software ALGOR (Fig.

Structural Materials Non-structural Materials Table 1. Material

Properties and
Properties Lime Stone Fill Layer Mass Roof Tile Cover Sima
Loads.
(raking (Timber, Density and (Compacted Clay) (Compacted Clay)
geison) Clay, Earth, Resultant Uniformly Uniformly
Pebble) Dead Loads Distributed Distributed Line
Surface Load Load
Mass Density 3500 kg/m3 2200 kg/m3 Mass Density 2500 kg/m3 2500 kg/m3
Elasticity Modulus 30 Gpa 0.2 Gpa Dead Loads 2250 N/m2 25000 N/m
Poisson Ratio 0.25 0.30

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 Structural Assessment of Ancient Building Components, the Temple of Artemis at Corfu
Georg Herdt et al.

parts have been assigned

coarser meshes (Fig.
6). The model was
constructed using 8-node
3-dimensional brick
finite elements having 3
translational degrees of
freedom at each node. The
advantage of using these
elements is to provide
a complete 3-D state
of stress in the stones.
Boundary conditions
at the base of the stone
have been assumed as
fixed, i.e. the base of the
stone is not able to move
downward under the
applied load. Although
Figure 5. Model generated in AutoCAD. a) Schematic Model; b) CAD Model this is not necessarily the
case, as some deflection in
5). Meshing (discretization) has been applied, the bottom of the pediment between columns
paying attention to each part in the model. As might have occurred under the weight of the
such, the sculpture and the background stone stones above, the error committed is of the
have been finely meshed to better analyse same order of magnitude as the other numerical
the critical thin section where higher stress assumptions in the model.
concentrations are expected, while the other

Figure 6. Model geometry including the structural parts and meshing. a) Perspective View; b) Front View; c) Right-
side View.
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tensile strength is in the range of 1 to 2 MPa.

Figure 7. Displacement Magnitude (Contours of resultant
displacements).
5. Analysis Results and Discussion
The results show that the maximum
displacement magnitude is as expected at the
edge of the pediment overhang, a very modest
0.156 mm (Fig. 7). The critical stresses are
detected at a position just below the strip
decorated with the chevron, where the depth
of the background stone is at its
minimum.
This allows only a very modest safety factor,
which would be in contrast with the usual
overdesign of Doric temples. Figure 9 shows
the distribution of minimum principal stresses,
i.e. the value of maximum compression at any
point in the stone. In general the values are
very low and far from the typical compressive
strength of a limestone, usually in the range
between 20 and 200 MPa, for un-weathered
un-fractured limestone. However it should be
noted that where the cross section is reduced,
just above the head of the panther, the stress
is at its worst, 4.45 MPa. Given the way in
which the load is transferred from the geison,
performance is best simulated by considering a
concentrated load over the thin slab of stone.
The strength to point load of limestone, is much
lower than its uniaxial compressive strength at
about 2 MPa to 10 MPa, hence again creating
a condition which would lead to either a very
small safety factor or even failure. The results,
therefore, suggest that the structural stability of
the structure is not fully ensured for Schleif’s
hypothesis B.
Thus numerical analysis, thanks to the 3D
modelling, is able to identify the concentration
of stresses resulting from the specific proposed
geometry and construction, and it shows that the

The distribution of the

maximum principal stresses
shown in figure 8 demonstrates
that tensile stresses are
generally very low except for a
concentration of stress at the
necking of the block between
the body and the head of the
panther where the cross-section
reduces. The value in this area
is as high as 0.71 MPa. Values
of strength for Corfu Limestone
have not been found in the
literature, though a typical
Figure 8. Maximum Principal Stresses. a) Front and right-side views;
average value for limestone b) Back and left-side views.

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 Structural Assessment of Ancient Building Components, the Temple of Artemis at Corfu
Georg Herdt et al.
Figure 9.
Minimum
Principal
Stresses.
sculptures would not able to bear the assumed
loads. Inclusion of likely additional components
not included by Schleif - for example a roof
acroterion - would make the situation even
more severe. Indeed such a feature might well
be expected, and in this period acroteria were
large and prominent and therefore heavy. The
weight of any such embellishment would arrive
at the edge of the verge, increasing stresses on
the sculpted blocks underneath. Furthermore,
if the designer of the temple intended to
bring load upon these elements, he surely
would not want to weaken them by tapering.
Schleif’s solution opposes normal principles of
craftsmanship by transmitting structural forces
through fragile parts of great value, due to an
artistic effort invested in the sculpture.
6. Discussion
As the structural analysis indicates,
Schleif’s proposal loses credibility due to the
risk of failure involving the most precious
components of the building, inviting alternative
solutions. Indeed, it seems more likely that
the sculptures were disconnected from the
structural system. This can be achieved by
reconstructing the sculptures closer to the front
of the pediment and placing a proper load-
bearing wall at the back (Fig. 10). This relatively
Figure 10. Temple
of Artemis, proposed
new position for the
sculptures of the
pediment, divorcing
them from the structural
system.
minor change has significant implications. The
supposed horizontal geison with an inclined
leading edge has to be altered into a more
typical flat-topped geison, the common shape
for horizontal geisa, which would now host the
sculptures up to near its edge. This in fact was
the normal condition judging from later well-
preserved temples (Schwandner 1985, 108).
Due to the geometry of the corner of the
pediment, the modification of a shallower
geison results in a more compact elevation,
which would be at least 1 m shorter and could
perhaps be as much as 3 m shorter. Such a
reduction would require rethinking not just
the façade but also the plan as a whole. A more
compact elevation favours a façade with six
instead of eight columns, like so many other
temples of that period. A front with seven
columns is also hypothetically possible. As
part of his eight-column-wide proposal Schleif
imagined what the Roman architect-writer
Vitruvius called a pseudo-dipteral layout, and
both the resulting elevation and the plan have
been widely reproduced since their publication
seventy years ago. A pseudo-dipteros fits within
the overall envelope of a dipteral or double
colonnade, except that there are no inner
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rows of columns. This involves a wide span for
the peristyle; indeed at Corfu – according to
Schleif – this reaches almost 5 m, which is to
say substantially greater than that the span of
the temple interior. Be it noted that Vitruvius
writes that this pseudo-dipteral scheme for
temples was only invented by Hermogenes,
who worked in the early second century BC.
Can we be sure that such an enterprise was
possible four centuries earlier, not long after
600 BC? Greater confidence over the design of
the Artemision can probably only be achieved
by inspecting once more what remains of its
foundations. In fact, an archaeological re-
evaluation of the site now seems imperative.
7. Conclusions
This paper reveals that the hitherto
accepted reconstruction of the Temple of
Artemis should be called into doubt. Schleif’s
solution involves putting load onto the
sculptures and this does not stand up to
scrutiny, nor a complete three-dimensional
structural analysis using Finite Element
modelling. Assessing ancient building
components structurally help us find plausible
positions for them. It is a tool that can be used
to guide new reconstructions and anastylosis,
or for scrutinizing published proposals as in
this case. By combining structural analysis
with attention to the archaeological details
of surviving blocks it should be possible to
reconstruct ancient monuments in ways that
are structurally plausible.
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