Purpose of stylobate curvature for rainwater drainage

Establish whether the Parthenon’s stylobate upward curvature was intentionally designed to facilitate rainwater drainage across the exposed peristyle.

Background

The paper models thin-film drainage on the measured stylobate slopes and shows the curvature could plausibly help prevent puddling by promoting slow runoff.

While physically plausible, the authors state there is no evidence that this was the intended purpose of the curvature and explicitly mark that intention as unknown.