Cella

As Cella (Latin, small room ',' cell ' ) refers to the use of Vitruvius in accordance with the internal main room of an ancient Greek or Roman temple. The cella, in which the gods statue was erected, was viewed as a space of divinity and was not generally open to the visit. The central act of worship - the victim - was not in the cella instead, but was offered upon the altar standing outside the temple. Of this, slightly different was particularly divided on Sicily (eg in Selinunte ) in early Greek temples, and the early classical period, behind the cella, a separate room where the statue of the god was placed. He is referred to as Adyton and could only be entered from the cult personnel. In Greek, the Cella Seko ( gr Σηκός, pen ', Sacred District ') is called.

Architecture

Most windowless received the Cella their natural lighting usually alone through the front door. To support the ceiling and roof construction, it was necessary for larger temples to arrange columns in the cella. While early temples often have only a middle row of columns (eg Delos, Naxians - Oikos, Paestum, so-called Basilica ), usually two rows of columns divided the cella into three naves, a significantly larger nave and two narrow aisles. Since the Late Archaic period Doric order, the columns were positions in the cella even executed for technical reasons, when the building was so small that no support would have been required to canonical ' temples. Unlike temples of the Ionic order columns these positions were arranged in Doric temples usually in two storeys above the other, so that in the aisles galleries on the upper floor ( Hyperoa ) emerged ( Temple of Aphaia on Aegina ). Instead of splitting into three naves first time the nave U-shape was framed by the side aisles on the high Classical Parthenon in Athens.

In many temples the cella is compared with other components increased slightly again. Hypäthraltempel had instead of the cella, a courtyard, which was designated as Seko.

Other uses of words

The windowless and exclusively by the Brahmin priests to boarding the innermost chambers ( garbhagriha, womb chamber ') of Indian temples, always harboring a cult image or a Shiva Lingam, are often referred to as Cella in archaeological research ' or as ' Sanctum called '.

In late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, even small chapels or monks 'cells, were called Cella '. Ultimately small spaces are generally referred to as a "cell".