[muawiyah]

The background question ("why did the Greeks orient so terribly many temple faces to the East") has been answered just about as many times as the question has been asked.

The explanation is "No Central Heat".

Might not seem important to most folks ~ who'd care whether or not a temple had central heat ~ but it was certainly very important to the poor priests and acolytes who lived there.

It was to their advantage to have the Sun rise and warm the main portico. Then they could be about their business early in the day.

Of course temples aren't the only ancient buildings (or modern buildings) built with an Eastern exposure for the purpose of warming up.

[SunkenCiv]

Good point. There’s also a tendency to try to find such orientation where it doesn’t actually exist, such as in the Pyramids of Giza, which leads to alleged researchers referring to a high degree of precision in such orientation where there isn’t any precision at all, just wishful thinking and mindreading the dead ancients. :’)

[mikrofon]

The background question ("why did the Greeks orient so terribly many temple faces to the East") has been answered just about as many times as the question has been asked

It certainly wasn't occidental....

[americanophile]

...add to that the fact that most of these temples had one main door - in the portico. If you want to say your morning prayers, or “be about their business early in the day” as you say, it’s nice to have the sun coming in to illuminate the place, no?