Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Hyperthyrum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

HYPER'THYRUM (ὑπέρθυρον). An ornamental member, consisting of a frieze and cornice supported upon trusses or consoles (ancones, parotides), usually placed above the lintel of a door-frame in temples and other great buildings (Vitruv. iv. 6. 4.); an example of which is given in the annexed engraving (Hyperthyrum/1.1), with one of the trusses in profile by its side, from the temple of Hercules at Cora, constructed precisely as Vitruvius directs in the passage cited; and the preceding woodcut affords an example of a similar ornament, but differently designed, placed over the hypaetrum, in the Pantheon at Rome. This member was intended to increase the apparent size of the doorway, in order to preserve the level of the horizontal line formed by the architrave of the pronaos and the antae; whence it is directed that the top of the cornice of the hyperthyrum should coincide with the tops of the capitals belonging to the columns and antae of the pronaos. If the doorcase itself were made thus high, the valves would be ill-proportioned, and cumbersome to open.

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  Hyperthyrum/1.1