Π-Shaped Stoa at Brauron

The Doric stoa wrapped around three sides of a central courtyard (20 by 27 m) and faced south toward the temple of Artemis. The foundations extend along the west wing for 38 m, the north wing for 48 m, and the east wing for 63 m. Only the north colonnade of the stoa (11 columns) and one column of each of the two wings were completed. Behind the colonnade, there was a passageway containing many votive stelae (some with votive statues of children at top) and doorways into nine roughly square rooms (c. 5.5 by 5.5 m) on the north and west sides of the structure.

These doorways were off-center relative to the rooms, each of which had raised platforms extending from all sides. On these platforms are many cuttings (some still containing lead) designed to hold dining couches — eleven couches for each dining room. Some of the rooms preserve small stone tables situated in front of the location of the couches. These structures are among the most paradigmatic examples of Greek dining rooms known. The walls of these rooms were constructed of a single course of massive limestone ashlar blocks that have no cuttings on their upper surfaces. The walls were thus completed in mud brick to the level of the roof. On the western side of the stoa there was an entrance with wheel ruts worn into the stone floor and in line with the Classical bridge.

The stoa was built of local limestone covered in marble stucco, except for the Doric capitals, the metopes, the lintels, and the thresholds, which were produced from marble. A highly atypical feature of this design was the use of two triglyphs in the inter-columnar interval as opposed to the typical single triglyph. This was done to lower the total height of the entablature while allowing the metopes to remain square in form. In addition, the returning angles of the frieze demanded the architectural accommodation of corner expansion (as opposed to the corner contraction seen on many temples) to harmonize the intervals of the triglyphs, which could not be placed dead center over the corner column.

Immediately north of the stoa and sharing a common wall was a structure of unknown function with elaborate entrances on both west and east sides. On its long axis it measured 48m (equivalent to the stoa) and was c. 11 m wide. Along the northern wall of this structure there was a series of slotted bases for narrow (perhaps wooden) planks; these planks are hypothesized to have held the garments dedicated to Iphegenia, as discussed by Euripides.

Source: wikipedia.org