bay laurel. The bay plant is closely associated with Apollo because it was used to purify the god after he killed Python. Pausanias says the second temple was a gift from Apollo to the Hyperboreans, the oracle's original founders according to legend, and was constructed by bees with feathers and beeswax. Archaeologists assume bird feathers were used to construct the temple, but Pausanias does not clarify. Another story suggests Pteras, a Delphian man, used fern to build the second temple, a version Pausanias does not accept. The third temple was said to be made of bronze and built by Hephaestus, according to myth, Pausanias believed the temple was bronze but doubted it was the work of Hephaestus. Two stories exists explaining its collapse, one suggests the temple was destroyed in a fire and the other says it fell into a deep fissure of the earth. The fourth temple was stone, built by Trophonius and Agamedes, and was said to be burned accidentally in 548 B.C, during the time Erxicleides ruled Athens. Historians suggests the fourth temple was the first sanctuary during the time of Apollo at Delphi, and the temple referred to in mythology. Apollo left Olympus and visited many lands before deciding on a home at Delphi, according to Homeric hymn, and there he would be an oracle in his temple. According to the Delphi Archaeological Museum, the Sphinx of Naxos, which sits on a tall column guarding Apollo's sanctuary, was built around 560 B.C. The fifth and final temple was originally built in 510 B.C, but had to be reconstructed after an earthquake. The original Alkmaeonid temple, completed by about 511 B.C at the latest, was of the Doric order, with a six by fifteen column peristyle (surrounding colonnade). The sculpted decoration of its pediments was the work of the Athenian sculptor Antenor. The east pediment depicted Apollo's arrival at Delphi in triumph on his four-horse chariot. The west pediment depicted the battle between gods and giants (gigantomachy). The earthquake destroyed this temple in 373 B.C. Inaugurated in 330 B.C (43 years after the earthquake), the restored temple was also of Doric order, on the same footprint as its predecessor, and made of marble-coated porous stone. Amphiktionic council held a meeting prior to the construction of the new temple and decided the cost of the new building would be split. A quarter of the payment was made by