Imagery Location of the Siphnian Treasury
Creators: Danielle Hoyer, Yeonsoo Kang Copyright © The Contributors. Sharing and remixing permitted under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (cc-by).
Show place in Google Earth.
Show area in GeoNames, Google Maps, or OpenStreetMap.
treasury
{ "type": "Point", "coordinates": [ 22.501642, 38.481620 ] }
Substantive
Certain
representative
- Classical (Greco-Roman; 550 BC-330 BC) (confident)
- Hellenistic Greek, Roman Republic (330 BC-30 BC) (confident)
Pleiades
The Siphnian Treasury was constructed in the Ionic order ca. 530-525 BCE, though some claim that it could have been built as late as 480 BCE. It measured 8.9m by 6.3m. The building is made of marble from either Ios or Siphnos. It consists of two different parts: a porch and a cella. The porch was distyle in antis, but in place of the two columns were sculpted figures of young women in elaborate drapery (caryatids). The construction of the elaborately-decorated building was funded with the profits from gold and silver mines that had been discovered on the island in the 6th century BCE. The purpose of the treasury was to house lavish offerings given to various gods and goddesses. The Treasury was richly decorated with architectural sculpture in its pediments and frieze, in an Attic-Ionic style. The sculptures in the rear pediment illustrated the struggles between Apollo and Heracles for the Delphic Tripod, while portions of the frieze depicted a Gigantomachy and scenes from the Trojan War. Currently, only the foundation of the building is visible near the Sacred Way.