Archaic Greek temples used terracotta sculpture extensively on roofs (e.g., gorgoneia, lions, and figure antefixes). The Heraion at Mon Repos (Corfu), built around 610 BCE, is a key early example of large-scale architectural sculpture integrated with temple design.
The Temple of Artemis at Corfu (c. 580 BCE) is associated with the earliest substantial surviving stone pedimental sculpture from Greece, marking a turning point where pediments became prominent carriers of mythic imagery in sanctuary architecture.
The west pediment from Corfu’s Artemis temple (c. 580–570 BCE) centers on Medusa with flanking animals and subsidiary scenes, demonstrating early solutions for composing figures within the triangular pediment field and for using monumental mythic guardianship imagery.
The Sicyonian Treasury at Delphi featured limestone metopes (c. 560–550 BCE), among the earliest surviving Greek metope reliefs. Their inventive mythological scenes show how Doric friezes became major narrative surfaces well before the Classical period.
The Athenian Treasury at Delphi is generally placed in the late Archaic/early Classical transition (commonly c. 500–480 BCE). Its surviving metopes juxtapose Theseus and Herakles, showing how metopes could carry civic messaging alongside panhellenic myth.
The Temple of Aphaia’s pedimental groups (east pediment reconstruction dated 495–490 BCE) are central evidence for the shift from Archaic to Early Classical style, including more natural anatomy and increasingly coherent battle narratives tailored to pediment geometry.
Construction of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia began around 470 BCE and finished in 456 BCE. Its sculptural decoration—pediments and metopes—became a canonical reference point for Doric temple sculpture in the Early Classical (“Severe”) style.
At Olympia, the temple’s metopes were adorned with the Twelve Labors of Herakles, a defining example of how metopes could sustain a unified narrative cycle while reinforcing the sanctuary’s heroic and divine associations.
The Parthenon’s sculptural program included 64 metopes (mid-5th century BCE), using high-relief mythic combats to articulate the Doric exterior. Together with frieze and pediments, the metopes helped set a benchmark for Classical temple sculpture in Athens.
The Parthenon’s continuous Ionic frieze (often dated c. 442–438 BCE, and widely cited as sculpted c. 437 BCE) ran around the upper part of the naos. It is the most famous Greek temple frieze and a major statement of Athenian civic-religious identity.
The Parthenon’s pedimental sculptures were among the last elements of its decorative program to be finished (given as 437–432 BCE), filling the triangular ends with colossal figures and demonstrating mature Classical solutions for large-scale pediment composition.
The Temple of Athena Nike carried sculpted friezes on all sides, and surviving blocks (including those now in the British Museum) are dated around 425 BCE. These reliefs show how small Ionic temples employed friezes for both mythic/divine and historically inflected battle imagery.
The high-relief marble frieze from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae (commonly dated 420–400 BCE) ran inside the cella—an unusual placement compared with exterior friezes—showing experimentation in how temple sculpture was experienced and seen.
The Nereid Monument at Xanthos (early 4th century BCE, c. 390 BCE) adopted a Greek-temple-like form with sculpted friezes, illustrating how Greek architectural-sculptural formats (including frieze programs) were transferred to elite funerary contexts beyond the Aegean.
In the early-to-mid 2nd century BCE, the Pergamon Altar’s base was wrapped with a monumental high-relief Gigantomachy frieze (often estimated c. 170–159 BCE). Although not a temple pediment/metope scheme, it represents the culminating expansion of Greek architectural frieze sculpture at sanctuary scale in the Hellenistic world.
Architectural Sculpture on Greek Temples: Pediments, Metopes, and Friezes (7th–2nd centuries BCE)
