For such we naturally look to the north side of the Acropolis, where lay the ancient king’s palace (Fig. 2, C). About that old palace westward there lay clustered a number of early altars, ‘tokens’ (σημεῖα), sacred places and things (ἱερά). Later these were enclosed in the complex building known to us as the Erechtheion. It is by studying the plan of this later temple that we can best understand the grouping and significance of the earlier sanctuaries. The Erechtheion as we have it now is shown in Fig. 17. Its plan is obviously anomalous, and has puzzled generations of architects. It was reserved for Professor Dörpfeld, with his imaginative insight, to divine that the temple, as we have it, is incomplete; and, further, to reconstruct conjecturally the complete design. In the light of this reconstruction the Erechtheion, as we now possess it, became for the first time intelligible. [Illustration: FIG. 17.] [Illustration: FIG. 18.] This reconstruction is shown in Fig. 18. The temple in the original plan was intended to consist of two cellas, each furnished with a pronaos; the east cella is marked on the plan ‘Athena-Polias Tempel,’ the west cella is marked ‘opisthodom,’ _i.e._ opisthodomos or back chamber. Between these two cellas is a building divided into three chambers, marked in the plan ‘Poseidon-Erechth(eus)-Tempel.’ The middle chamber of the three is entered by two porches, a large one to the north, a smaller one—the famous Karyatid porch—to the south. This middle chamber alone of the three was probably provided with a low roof as shown in the sketch in Fig. 19. A building so complex cries aloud for explanation. It has become symmetrical, but what is its significance? What for us its connection with the sanctuaries of ‘other deities as well’? [Illustration: FIG. 19.] To understand the new temple we must go back to the times before it was built[66]. It was intended—though ultimately this intention was not fully accomplished—to replace other existing sanctuaries, and these were first the old temple of Athena, and second the old temple of Erechtheus. The ‘old temple of Athena’ appears on the plan (Fig. 18) to the south of the Erechtheion; the very scanty remains of the old temple of Poseidon-Erechtheus are seen running diagonally under the western part of the new Erechtheion. The ‘old temple of Athena’ consisted, it is clear, of two parts: to the east the actual cella of the goddess; to the west, divided into three chambers, the opisthodomos or treasure-house. We are concerned wholly, it must be noted, with the ‘other deities,’ not with Athena; for from the consideration of Athena and her sanctuaries Thucydides has dispensed us; but the arrangement of the new Erechtheion cannot be understood without some reference to the disposition of the old temple of Athena.