Tower of the Winds

Brief Information

The Tower of the Winds combined several ways of reading the weather and time at once: its eight marble faces are oriented toward the points of the compass, sundials operated on the exterior, and a water clepsydra was installed inside. So it is not simply a tall ancient tower in the Roman Agora, but a stone instrument in which the building’s very form takes part in measurement.

Water for the internal clock came from the Acropolis, and on the south side a round turret adjoined the tower, connected with an aqueduct that passed nearby. Later, the structure changed its purpose: in the Byzantine period it became a church bell tower, then a baptistery. This fact matters not as a separate biography of the building, but as a clue: the ancient instrument proved coherent and conspicuous enough that it was not dismantled, but adapted to new rituals.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to start with the octagonal form and the three-stepped podium. The faces are not accidental: each is oriented toward its own point of the compass, so the tower’s geometry is connected with the winds and the sundials. Beneath the upper frieze, you can compare the images of the winds with the clock markings: the figures named the direction, while the lines helped determine the time.

On the frieze, the winds are shown as winged male figures with different attributes. Northern Boreas is wrapped in heavy clothing, northeastern Kaikias pours hail from a shield, southern Notos overturns a vessel of water, and flowers fall from beneath the cloak of western Zephyrus. These details turn the direction of the wind into a recognizable image. Another trace of the structure is the two doors on the northeastern and northwestern sides and the remains of the portico columns. The lost capitals are known from reconstructions: without volutes, with acanthus and palm-like leaves, they show that even the tower’s supports were not an entirely ordinary version of the ancient order.