Opisthodomos

The confusion arises from the lack of agreement in ancient inscriptions.

In modern scholarship, it usually refers to the rear porch of a temple.

On the Athenian Acropolis especially, the opisthodomos came to be a treasury, where the revenues and precious dedications of the temple were kept.

Architecturally, the opisthodomos (as a back room) balances the pronaos or porch of a temple, creating a plan with diaxial symmetry.

The upper portion of its outer wall could be decorated with a frieze, as on the Hephaisteion and the Parthenon.