h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Greek Temples - A7970547
Author: Gnomon - U151503

What do you think? Is it interesting? Is it too technical? Does it need anything else?

Great Entry, Gnomon. If I was forced to make a comment it would be:

I miss a rounding off paragraph. Maybe you could write a small one - perhaps telling the reader that story about all that 19th century 'classical' kitsch, which was partly inspired by the architecture of those temples.



Very thorough Entry anyways, Gnomon.

SAUSAGE

I think you are right, Sausage. What story are you talking about?

I meant all that 'classic' kitsch you see in central Europe (and very particularly here in Munich). In the 19th century (almost) all top-bananas (Kings 'n Queens and the like) put some (Greek-ish) Shrines and Temples in their gardens and parks because they loved all that Greek philosophing stuff that was soooo intelligent.

However, some of those noble people had either their very own understanding of the classic Greek period, or very uninformed architects on their payroll. As a consequence, you find all kinds of (ridiculous) mixtures of Greek architecture and different proportions in these mock-temples (this is why I called them 'kitsch') - in the worst case, you can also see the initiator of that would-be temples (say King so-and-so) posing as a classic hero.

Of course you could just re-address the points you made earlier in your Entry where you describe that (more) modern libraries and musea use that 'Greek-ish' style in their architecture. That it had a profound impact on the architecture of the 19th century. Of course, also, you could tell the story in a much less biased way (than mine).

SAUSAGE

(I'm just Happy that King Ludwig was not a fan of Egyptian architecture)

Fantastic as ever!

"As the country became more affluent and people had more wealth, the temples grew accordingly."

I think that may be a little misleading. Was Greece one country at this time? Certianly a few centuries later it was dozens of city-states.

Also, you spell Phidias differently to me, but I've googled it and you way has far more hits, so I'll have to change it in my Pericles entry. (Speaking of which, perhapos you could link to it if it gets edited first?)

Great work

I have a couple of links to add for you, but I need to get ready for something here, so I'll post them later.


Dancer

Hercules - A852833, A988897

Gods - A447310

And also there's the article about triangles that has been picked but not yet edited - I think it should get linked to by "triangular" since it probably won't get linked to much.


Dancer

Thanks, folks. I'll add those links, and I'll update the links if the Pericles and Triangle entries get picked before mine.

Elentari, as a result of your comment I've looked into the spelling of Phidias and I'm going to change it to Pheidias. It's a better transcription of the ancient Greek name, although it would be Phidias in modern Greek.

Slightly relevant aside: In Olympia, there are the remains of a building which was traditionally known as the workshop of Pheidias. Archaeologists in the 20th century examined it closely and found two really interesting things: one was a mould for making a portion of a very large statue, which suggests that it was the workshop used for making the statue of Zeus. The other thing was a simple wine beaker. It said "I belong to Pheidias" on it.

You're right about Greece not being a "country". I'll change that.

Yes, it's interesting, some new words, but your definitions were well-placed to deal with them, so not too technical either.

"The Parthenon was dedicated to Athena Parthenoss. the virgin warrior goddess of Athens," I think that full stop should be a comma.

I'm not sure that link to Heracles entry is in the right place. Because of the way the sentance was put together I thought I was going to look at a picture of the cartoon to see the statue. I don't really know what to do about it though, or even if anything should be done.

I don't think you need an ending paragraph - having one of the seven wonders of the world go up in flames I think is a very good ending. We need to take care of our treasures.

I've added a final section "The Influence of the Greek Temple" which ends with a conclusion which I hope is not too corny.

looks good

"Colonnade of columns" reads oddly to me, since you don't seem to talk about anything else that could make up a colonnade in the article.

Fa-bu-lous.


SAUSAGE

"reverence for classical Values". Is that supposed to be capitalised?

I've corrected those typos, and have changed colonnade of columns to line of columns. I've also changed the reference to Hercules slightly to be more in line with Ideno's suggestion.

This is pure brilliance.

Two things: do you need to define "architrave"?

A habit of yours, I think: you say Roman civ. peaked several hundred years after Greek, *so* the Romans were impressed -- you can see why they were, but is "so" the right word here? I would have said "and", because "so" strongly implies *logical* implication. Yes they should have been impressed, but it's conceivable that they could have just trashed it all.

But what I really like is how you get stuck in straight away into relevant relevations. For instance, the first ones were made of wood -- never knew that! Could the Doric scrolls derive from soft rectangles of thin damp or soft wood, or huge leaves or reeds, that had tended to curl just that way?

Post hoc ergo procter hoc.

Can you say it in Greek, Elentari?

I've changed "so" to "and" as you suggested, R.

It was the Ionic columns that had the scrolls, not the Doric, but it could indeed have been a feature of the wood.