Foundations of the Pessinus Temple

Remains of the temple area from Pessinus, a city of the Antiquity in Asia Minor founded on the upper course of the river Sangarios (Sakarya River), near Ballıhisar (Sivrihisar), Eskişehir province of modern Turkey. Pessinous was the principal cult center of the cult of the Greco-Phrygian Cybele which goes back to the old Anatolian goddess Koubaba whose cult spread over Anatolia during the second millennium BC. According to the researchers, it is thought that the construction of the temple was designed on the basis of a grid, and that the governing module, determining the intervals and height of the columns, was equal to the lower diameter of the columns (0.76 m). The large stepped podium points out to have been influenced by Hellenistic and early Imperial pseudodipteroi. The temple towered over the back of an amphitheater, which combined a central staircase with two caveat wings for spectators. (Verlinde, A. 2012, The Temple Complex of Pessinus. Archaeological Research on the Function, Morphology and Chronology of a Sanctuary in Asia Minor: unpublished PhD thesis, Ghent University). The commonality of theatre-temples where gladiatorial combats were held in honor of the emperors is associated with the tradition of imperial cult (Hanson, J.A. 1959, Roman Theater-Temples, Princeton, N.J.)135 film (36×24 mm