"Drawing on the Greek and Lycian architecture and sculpture in the British Museum - a collection second to none in quality, quantity, and geographical and chronological range - this lavishly illustrated volume tells a remarkable story reaching from the archaic temple of Artemis, the Parthenon, and other temples of the Athenian Acropolis to the temple of Apollo at Bassai, the sculptured tombs of Lycia, the Mausoleum, and the temple of Athena Polias at Priene. Ian Jenkins explains each as a work of art and as a historical phenomenon, revealing how the complex personality of these buildings is bound up with the people who funded, desisted, built, used, destroyed, discovered, and studied them. With 250 photographs and specially commissioned line drawings, the book comprises a monumental narrative of the art and architecture that gave form, direction, and meaning to much of Western culture. "--Jacket.