<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section is empty . You can help by adding to it . (February 2016) </Td> </Tr> <P> The building was originally approached by a flight of steps . Later construction raised the level of the ground leading to the portico, eliminating these steps . </P> <P> The pediment was decorated with relief sculpture, probably of gilded bronze . Holes marking the location of clamps that held the sculpture suggest that its design was likely an eagle within a wreath; ribbons extended from the wreath into the corners of the pediment . </P> <P> Mark Wilson Jones has attempted to explain the design adjustments carried out in relating the porch to the dome, arguing that the Pantheon's porch was originally designed for monolithic granite columns with shafts 50 Roman feet tall (weighing about 100 tons) and capitals 10 Roman feet tall in the Corinthian style . The taller porch would have hidden the second pediment visible on the intermediate block . Instead, after the intended columns failed to arrive, the builders made many awkward adjustments in order to use shafts 40 Roman feet tall and capitals eight Roman feet tall . This substitution was probably a result of logistical difficulties at some stage in the construction . Alternatively, it has also been argued that the scale of the portico related to the urban design of the space in front of the temple . The grey granite columns that were actually used in the Pantheon's pronaos were quarried in Egypt at Mons Claudianus in the eastern mountains . Each was 39 feet (11.9 m) tall, 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter, and 60 tons in weight . These were dragged more than 100 km (62 miles) from the quarry to the river on wooden sledges . They were floated by barge down the Nile River when the water level was high during the spring floods, and then transferred to vessels to cross the Mediterranean Sea to the Roman port of Ostia . There, they were transferred back onto barges and pulled up the Tiber River to Rome . After being unloaded near the Mausoleum of Augustus, the site of the Pantheon was still about 700 metres away . Thus, it was necessary to either drag them or to move them on rollers to the construction site . </P>

What does the writing on the front of the pantheon mean