Cnidian Treasury

Cnidus was represented at the Sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi by the Treasury of the Cnidians of the late Archaic period and by a late Classical period building, called "Lesche", a kind of club for social gatherings.

It was a marble building, erected before Cnidus was conquered by the Persians in 544 B.C.

The treasury was built in the Ionian order, prostyle, but there is not much information on the exact plan of its elevation and the roof.

At the time of the Great Excavation it was thought that the friezes and sculpted decoration of the Siphnian Treasury actually originated from the Treasury of the Cnidians, a misinterpretation which led archaeologists to overestimate its artistic and aesthetic value.

Apart from the main inscription, its walls and antae bear about sixty more inscriptions,[2] mostly honorary decrees and manumission acts, as well as two decrees of a fiscal character, quite enlightening on the finances of the time.