Stone pieces were finished at the building site with a claw chisel and hammer. They were then rubbed and polished to a smooth finish. Blocks were lifted into place using a block and tackle to get them close to a final position and then moved to final position with crowbars.
Surprisingly, Greek temple architecture was not innovative – meaning it was not able to adapt designs to new materials and overcome structural limitations. The basic temple design was vertical support of horizontal beams. Architrave blocks were supported at their ends by columns and the roofs were supported by wooden beams resting on the entablature. Column spacing could only be as large as the largest block on the architrave (4.5 meters in the Parthenon). Equally restricting are the wood beams which were limited by available timbers to about 12 meters.