Roman Agora, Tower of the Winds

One of the highlights of the Late Hellenistic Architecture is an octagonal building with two Entrance porches in distyle prothyron, one to the northwest and the other to the northeast. The Structure was built in the 1st Century BC by the astronomer Andronikos of Kyrrha and served as a hydraulic clock and wind indicator. The building, Decorated and crowned with a dome, housed a mechanism that marked the hours by measuring the level of water as it dripped from a small circular tank to the south. The outer shell of the Structure, with its octagonal roof and eaves in the shape of lion protomes, bore a bronze weather vane that showed wind direction, indicated by low-relief sculptures on the slabs that crowned the eight walls. The winds were indicated by epigraphs. The Structure was turned into a Koranic school under the Turks.