1. Temples by Gkougkoutsi Maria The Temple of Hephaestus The Temple of Poseidon

2. Location The temple of Hephaestus is situated at the north-west side of the Agora of Athens.

3. History The temple was dedicated to the ancient god Hephaestus, the patron saint of metal working and craftsmanship. It was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC.

4. Architecture The building has a pronaos, a cella housing cult images at the centre of the structure, and an opisthodomos. The alignment of the antae of the pronaos with the third flank columns of the peristyle is a design element unique middle of the 5th century BCE. There is also an inner Doric colonnade with five columns on the north and south side and three across the end (with the corner columns counting twice).(wikipedia)

5. Architecture The decorative sculptures highlight the extent of mixture of the two styles in the construction of the temple. Both the pronaos and the opisthodomos are decorated with continuous Ionic friezes(instead of the more typical Doric triglyphs supplementing the sculptures at the pediments and the metopes. The frieze of the pronaos depicts a scene from the battle of Theseus with the Pallantides in the presence of gods while the frieze of the opisthodomos shows the battle of Centaurs and Lapiths. (wikipedia)

6. Architecture Only 18 of the 68 metopes of the temple of Hephaestus were sculptured, concentrated especially on the east side of the temple; the rest were perhaps painted. The ten metopes on the east side depict the Labours of Heracles. The four easternmost metopes on the long north and south sides depict the Labours of Theseus.(wikipedia)

7. The Temple of Poseidon The temple is situated in Cape Sounio, southeast of Athens.

8. History It was dedicated to Poseidon, the god of the sea. He was the second most important god after Zeus.

9. History The first temple, built in the Archaic period, was destroyed by Xerxes during the Greco-Persian war. The temple whose ruins we see today was rebuilt by Pericles around 440 BC.

10. Architecture The design of the temple is hexastyle which means that it had a front portico with six columns. Its architecture resembles that of the temple of Hephaestus in the Acropolis. It is rectangular with a collonade on all four sides. The white marble columns are doric.