2: Telamon, Agrigento Archaeological Museum, Sicily (Loth) 1: Temple of Olympian Zeus model, Agrigento Archaeological Museum, Sicily (Loth)įig. 2) The temple collapsed in an earthquake in 1401 and many of its stones were robbed for constructing the nearby town.įig. 1) We can grasp their gigantic scale through a surviving but badly weathered Telamon assembled from fragments for display in the museum. A model in the archaeological museum at Agrigento shows the conjectural placement of the Telamones in the upper portions of the temple’s bays. It apparently was never finished as the Carthaginians conquered Agrigento while the temple was under construction. One of the largest Greek temples ever conceived, it was built to commemorate the Greeks’ defeat of the Carthaginians. Probably the earliest and most impressive use of Telamon or Telamones (pl.) on an architectural work was at the Temple of the Olympian Zeus in Agrigento, Sicily, dating from the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. His name has become the architectural term for a sculpted figure with arms aloft holding a cornice or a lintel. Telamon is thus shown in sculpture as a brawny male bearing a weight or burden. The name Telamon derives from a Greek word meaning support or bearer. He is remembered chiefly as the first to break through the Trojan wall, an act that enraged Heracles, but who was placated when Telamon built an altar in his honor. In the Illiad, Telamon was the son of King Aeacus and father of the Greek hero, Ajax. However, two of the most dramatic celebrities of the Homeric family, Telamon and Atlas, have been applied to buildings only rarely, and almost never in recent decades. Throughout the western world pediments, friezes, balustrades, and niches have been embellished with representations of ancient deities and their kin. Senior Architectural Historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and a member of the Institute of Classical Classical Architecture & Art ‘s Advisory Council.įigures of Greek and Roman mythology have served as architectural adornments from ancient times to modern.
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