Editing Ancient Greek architecture (section)

==== Architectural ornament ====
{{multiple image
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|header    = Architectural ornament of fired and painted clay
|image1    = Gorgona pushkin edited.jpg
|width1    = 225
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|caption1  = This Archaic gorgon's head ''antefix'' has been cast in a mould, fired and painted.
|image2    = Delphi Museum2 edited.jpg | width2    = 205
|alt2      =
|caption2  = The lion's head gargoyle is fixed to a revetment on which elements of a formal frieze have been painted.
}}

Early wooden structures, particularly temples, were ornamented and in part protected by fired and painted [[terracotta]] revetments in the form of rectangular panels, and ornamental discs. Many fragments of these have outlived the buildings that they decorated and demonstrate a wealth of formal border designs of geometric scrolls, overlapping patterns and foliate motifs.<ref name="Boardman2" /> With the introduction of stone-built temples, the revetments no longer served a protective purpose and sculptured decoration became more common.

The clay ornaments were limited to the roof of buildings, decorating the cornice, the corners and surmounting the pediment. At the corners of pediments they were called [[Acroterion|acroteria]] and along the sides of the building, [[antefix]]es. Early decorative elements were generally semi-circular, but later of roughly triangular shape with moulded ornament, often palmate.<ref name=Boardman2>{{harvnb|Boardman|Dorig|Fuchs|Hirmer|1967|pp=22–25}}.</ref><ref name=BF19>{{harvnb|Fletcher|1996|p=163}}.</ref> Ionic cornices were often set with a row of lion's masks, with open mouths that ejected rainwater.<ref name="BF5" /><ref name="BF19" /> From the Late Classical period, acroteria were sometimes sculptured figures (see [[Architectural sculpture]]).<ref name="Dorig" />

In the three orders of ancient Greek architecture, the sculptural decoration, be it a simple half round [[astragal]], a frieze of stylised foliage or the ornate sculpture of the pediment, is all essential to the architecture of which it is a part. In the Doric order, there is no variation in its placement. Reliefs never decorate walls in an arbitrary way. The sculpture is always located in several predetermined areas, the metopes and the pediment.<ref name="Boardman2" /> In later Ionic architecture, there is greater diversity in the types and numbers of mouldings and decorations, particularly around doorways, where voluted [[Bracket (architecture)|brackets]] sometimes occur supporting an ornamental cornice over a door, such as that at the Erechtheion.<ref name="BF5" /><ref name="BF21" /><ref name="Boardman2" /> A much applied narrow moulding is called "bead and reel" and is symmetrical, stemming from turned wooden prototypes. Wider mouldings include one with tongue-like or pointed leaf shapes, which are grooved and sometimes turned upward at the tip, and "egg and dart" moulding which alternates ovoid shapes with narrow pointed ones.<ref name="BF5" /><ref name="Boardman2" /><ref>{{harvnb|Fletcher|1996|p=164}}.</ref>