Modern Description:
The Temple of Apollo Daphnephoros is Eretria's most significant monument, and was always the hub of the ancient city. (East on highway, then last street south before the roundabout.) Now that the Archaeological Department has re-covered with earth most of the recent excavations, all that is visible is the large crepidoma of the Doric peripteral temple, erected c. 530/520 BC, to which the pedimental sculpture in the museum originally belonged. It had 6 x 14 columns, with a cella articulated in three aisles divided by a double row of columns. Noteworthy is the beautiful dressing of the blocks of the lowest level, which possess their natural irregular profile underneath, and are finished to a perfect, flat, lipped ledge on the upper surface. Below what is seen however, archaeologists have identified two earlier buildings: the first, c. 800 BC, was an apsidal ‘Daphnephoreion', perhaps designed to imitate the early ‘hut' of laurel branches which traditionally stood at Delphi; the second, built over it in the mid 7th century BC, was a longer building, again terminating in a wide apse at the northwestern end, with 6 (wooden) columns on the ends and 19 down each side. In plan and design this building has affinities with the heroön at Lefkandi and with the early hekatompedon at Samos. It lies partially under the north edge of the visible temple base.
Wikidata ID: Q42114709
Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands 
(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)
