A British geoscientist is trying to explain why the ancient Greeks built temples on seismic faults.

It is about the professor and geoscientist Ian Stewart, director of Plymouth University Sustainable Earth Institute, who in his research analyzed in a documentary at the BBC explains why the ancient Greeks insisted on building temples and other statues on locations that were "hit" by earthquakes.

In his study, Ian Stewart argues that the earthquake had a sacred and divine origin for the ancients, and therefore they insisted on building temples in seismic areas.

Delphi and the active faults

Stewart relied on the theory of ancient scholars who had reported that Delphi became a sacred place for the ancients because there was a sacred spring there that erupted from a seismic rift.

A case in point is the fact that although an earthquake destroyed the sanctuary of Delphi in 373 BC, the temple was rebuilt on the same site.

However, Stewart believes that Delphi was not an exception and that other sites such as Mycenae, Ephesus, Cnidus and Hierapolis had also acquired a special "status" due to the presence of adjacent rifts.

He told the BBC: "I have always thought it more than a coincidence that many important sites in the Aegean world lie exactly over rifts caused by seismic activity.

"The ancient Greeks placed great emphasis on thermal springs created by earthquakes, but perhaps the building of temples and cities near these sites was more systematic than previously thought."

The temples and the hot springs

His study found correspondences between active rifts and ancient Greek cities both in Greece and on the opposite shore of the Aegean Sea, in what is now western Turkey.

"The ancient Greeks were incredibly smart people and I think they would have recognized the importance of earthquakes and their citizens would want to benefit from them," Stewart said.