Kourion Complex (Apollo) post 1945 (1 of 2)

(5)

Doric columns composed of unfluted stone drums like those of the Southeast Building. The central room has been in part restored. Part of the north wall of the building was found in the portico flat on its face where it had fallen after an earthquake. During the course of reconstructing the wall stone by stone, the excavators were fortunate enough to find the building inscription in situ. The original is of marble and is now in the store rooms of Curium House at Episkopi. Extant traces of color showed that the letters were painted in alternating lines of blue and red. A copy of the inscription has been set up in the wall. It tells us that the Emperor Trajan in 101 A.D. constructed in honour of Apollo Caesar and Apollo Hylates the last two exedrae and that his governor, Justus Kokkeius Lepidus was in charge of the work and dedicated the building.

The central room, or exedra, has been in part restored in ancient stone to better facilitate an understanding of the building. Each exedra has a ∩ shaped platform around the walls with the open side of the ∩ facing the doorway. A colonnade of Doric columns stood on the edge of the platform, six on a side and one at the end. There is a small doorway on either side of the main doorway. These brought one to the platform. Each exedra, with the exception of exedra 1, appears to have communicated with one corridor, always the one to the east of it, through a small doorway at the north end of the east wall, between the east doorway leading from the portico, and the three steps opposite which brought one up to the top of the platform. One could reach the west arm of the platform by a similar stairway. In exedra 3, the east stairway has been in part restored as well as the coping blocks which ran between the plinths on which the