The most famous and influential work of Greek architecture is certainly the Parthenon, a Doric temple that we will examine in Chapter 14 (see 14.26). Here, we look at the smaller Temple of Athena Nike (13.4), which stands nearby on the hilltop site in Athens known as the Acropolis. With their stepped bases and volute capitals, the columns indicate that this is an Ionic temple. The columns support a structure whose remains, reconstructed here in a line drawing (13.5), display other important elements of Greek architecture. The plain, horizontal stone lintels of Egypt are here elaborated into a compound structure called an entablature. The entablature consists of three basic elements. The simple, unadorned band of lintels immediately over the columns is the architrave. The area above the architrave is the frieze, here ornamented with sculpture in relief. The frieze is capped by a shelflike projection called a cornice. The entablature in turn supports a triangular element called a pediment, which is itself crowned by its own cornice. Like the frieze, the pediment would have been ornamented with sculpture in relief. If these elements look familiar to you, it is because they have passed into the vocabulary of Western architecture and form part of the basis of the style we refer to broadly as classical. For centuries, banks, museums, universities, government buildings, and churches have been built using the elements first codified and named by the Greeks, then adapted and modified by the Romans.