Greece: Bassai sculptures

Bodies twist across the marble frieze, with Greeks fighting Amazons and Lapiths struggling with Centaurs. These twenty-three blocks once decorated the inside of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai in Greece. The frieze occupies the upper part of Room 16. Its figures were made for a continuous architectural band. Follow a gesture from one figure to the next and notice how closely the bodies fill the available height. Scenes of combat could spread around a temple interior as a sequence of overlapping actions. Surviving metopes, square carved panels from the temple’s porches, are displayed below. They belonged to a different part of the building from the long interior frieze. Comparing the two formats helps you reconstruct where sculpture met architecture. Reaching this gallery involves stairs, with no level or lift access.