Architekturforschungen in Didyma II

Die unfertig stehende Säule des Apollontempels: ein Tiefpunkt antiker Säulenplanung

Abstract

At issue here is the single-standing, unfinished column of the Temple of Apollo in Didyma with its strangely ›bottle-shaped‹ shaft outline. Some 65 ft. tall, the column attracted scholarly attention already in the late 19th c. due to the ancient diameter notations on its drums, which display a precision of up to 1/32 foot. Yet the remarkable, concave outline of its shaft made it doubtful whether this column could have been completed in any acceptable form. In fact, the latest systematic documentation of both the actual shaft diameters and the inscribed diameters now confirms that this was not possible – excluded is even a rectilinear outline, let alone the outward-bulging curve of an entasis, as ingeniously detailed in one of the blue-print drawings on the temple walls. Thus, the Didyma column now stands as the testimony of a monumental construction gone fundamentally wrong. Nearly the total annual budget of the Didyma building yard, about 4 million euro today, was wasted in full public view. An explanation for this utter failure remains elusive.