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Buildings in D.C. From Ancient Greece? By: Caitlin Secoy You've probably heard of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. right? How about the Temple of Athena from Paestum, in ancient Greece? If you have, have you ever noticed how similar they are? Most buildings in D.C. are quite similar to older buildings in Greece. Both the Temple of Athena and the Lincoln Memorial are built with Ionic columns. Ionic columns are columns that are somewhat thin with a scroll like design at the top (the Capital) of it. Let me tell you a little bit more information about both of these buildings!

The Lincoln Memorial started construction on February 12, 1915, Lincoln's Birthday. The building was finished sometime in 1917. It was a Memorial for President Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president. It was dedicated to him on May 30th, 1922. The height of the actual building is: 99 feet tall. The memorial has Doric columns on the outside, but Ionic columns on the inside. There are 36 Doric columns outside to represent the 36 states of the Union at when President Lincoln died in 1865. The height of each individual column is: 44 feet tall. Diameter of each individual columns base is: 7 feet and 5 inches. Lincoln’s statue is made of Marble brought from Georgia, but the columns are made of Limestone from Indiana.

The Temple of Athena was actually around before 480 BC, but it was destroyed by the Persians and then rebuilt in 435 BC. The temple has been through a fire, and a great earthquake that scattered large pieces of the building far apart. It was finally “completed” in 420 BC. This temple is actually smaller then most temples in the Acropolis. The temple faces the East and was designed by Kallikrates. It's column's height to it's lengths are unlike most Ionic temples, it is 7:1 instead of customary 9:1 The temple has 6 columns on both of the short sides, 4 up front and 2 in behind them.. The columns were made out of large-grained grey-blue Marble, from Mycale.

Looking at all that information you can see just how similar buildings in Washington D.C. and buildings from ancient Greece are-and aren't! It looks like some of the ideas from Greece were taken and used in our more modern buildings. So next time you're out look at some of the architecture and really think about where it came from.