1 The authors have considered many aspects of the conundrum presented by the thymele, and they build a solid, persuasive case for their thesis. This thesis was initially suggested in brief by Schultz and Wickkiser, and the present book represents a more full and collaborative endeavor to investigate it further. The authors’ central thesis is that the thymele served as a venue for performances of song, instrumental music and dance in honor of the deity, and that the unusual construction of the thymele’s foundations (discussed below) served to amplify and make those performances more melodious and soothing. With a diameter of almost 22 m and a height of about 9 m, the peripteral thymele would have dominated the broad terrace to the west of the small Temple of Asklepios and must have been a focal-point for the sanctuary as a whole. Attributed to the architect Polykleitos the Younger by Pausanias (2.27.5), the thymele (so labeled in its building accounts) shows off brilliantly the potential of using the rectangular conventions of Greek temple architecture for a round building. The authors of this book present an intriguing and exciting thesis about the form and function of one of antiquity’s most beautiful buildings, the thymele (or tholos) in the sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros.
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