Universität zu Köln

A recently excavated Ionic temple in Western Turkey is dated to the middle of the sixth century B.C. by the archaeological findings. It was destroyed by a fire only a few years after its construction. Despite this fact, the marble parts of the eaves show signs of deep erosion. The erosion was therefore examined with mineralogical methods and reproduced experimentally. This led to the conclusion that fairly deep erosion marks can actually occur after a relatively short timespan, and thus do not contradict the archaeological findings. Instead, it seems that the depth of the erosion is closely connected to the stone material, the loca- tion of the temple on a mountain site in climatically unfavourable conditions and the constructive details of the eaves.

English