Samos the Temple of Hera

The worship of the goddess Hera in Samos is witnessed from the Bronze Age and specifically in the period of the Mycenaean civilization. Initially, there was a small stone altar and a temple-shaped building to protect the wooden cult statue.

In the 8th century e.g. the altar becomes rectangular and is surrounded by paving. West of the altar is built the first temple of Hera, the so-called Ekatompedos because its length was 100 feet, and with a length-width ratio of 5:1.
The great temple of the goddess Hera is a dipteran Ionic style and was built in Samos during the time of the tyrant Polycrates from 538 to 522 BC.

The only column still standing today is saved at about half of its original height. The infrastructure of the temple is partially preserved up to the height of the parapet and the pilaster.

The temple was characterized by Herodotus as the largest in Greece. It keeps almost unchanged the outline of the nave and pronaus of the oldest (570/60 BC) “Roikous” temple, but its dimensions are larger than that, i.e. 108.63 X 55.16 m.

The largest size it is due to the fact that the arcades of the occasion were reinforced on the front and back with a third colonnade, apparently on the model of the Ephesian temple of Artemis, which had been built a little earlier.

The number of columns amounts to 155 and four different sizes and types can be distinguished. The threshing floor is estimated to have been wooden. Nothing was found of the roof tiles and thus it is concluded that it was never completed.