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Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis or Artemision (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον; Turkish: Artemis Tapınağı), also known as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, localised form of the goddess Artemis (equated with the Roman goddess Diana). It was located in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey). It is believed to have been ruined or destroyed by AD 401. Only foundations and fragments of the last temple remain at the site.
The earliest version of the temple (a Bronze Age temenos) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the Amazons. In the 7th century BCE, it was destroyed by a flood.
Its reconstruction, in more grandiose form, began around 550 BCE, under Chersiphron, the Cretan architect, and his son Metagenes. The project was funded by Croesus of Lydia, and took 10 years to complete. This version of the temple was destroyed in 356 BCE by an arsonist, commonly thought to have been a notoriety-seeker named Herostratus.
The next, greatest, and last form of the temple, funded by the Ephesians themselves, is described in Antipater of Sidon's list of the world's Seven Wonders:
I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand".
The Temple of Artemis (artemisia) was located near the ancient city of Ephesus, about 75 kilometres (47 mi) south from the modern port city of İzmir, in Turkey. Today the site lies on the edge of the modern town of Selçuk.
The sacred site (temenos) at Ephesus was far older than the Artemision itself. Pausanias was certain that it antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, being older even than the oracular shrine of Apollo at Didyma. He said that the pre-Ionic inhabitants of the city were Leleges and Lydians. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis attributed the earliest temenos at Ephesus to the Amazons, legendary warrior-women whose religious practise he imagined already centered upon an image (bretas) of Artemis, their matron goddess. Pausanias believed that the temple pre-dated the Amazons.
Pausanias's estimation of the site's antiquity seems well-founded. Before World War I, site excavations by David George Hogarth seemed to identify three successive temple buildings. Re-excavations in 1987–1988 and re-appraisal of Hogarth's account confirmed that the site was occupied as early as the Bronze Age, with a sequence of pottery finds that extend forward to Middle Geometric times, when a peripteral temple with a floor of hard-packed clay was constructed in the second half of the 8th century BCE. The peripteral temple at Ephesus offers the earliest example of a peripteral type on the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliest Greek temple surrounded by colonnades anywhere.
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Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis or Artemision (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον; Turkish: Artemis Tapınağı), also known as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, localised form of the goddess Artemis (equated with the Roman goddess Diana). It was located in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey). It is believed to have been ruined or destroyed by AD 401. Only foundations and fragments of the last temple remain at the site.
The earliest version of the temple (a Bronze Age temenos) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the Amazons. In the 7th century BCE, it was destroyed by a flood.
Its reconstruction, in more grandiose form, began around 550 BCE, under Chersiphron, the Cretan architect, and his son Metagenes. The project was funded by Croesus of Lydia, and took 10 years to complete. This version of the temple was destroyed in 356 BCE by an arsonist, commonly thought to have been a notoriety-seeker named Herostratus.
The next, greatest, and last form of the temple, funded by the Ephesians themselves, is described in Antipater of Sidon's list of the world's Seven Wonders:
I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand".
The Temple of Artemis (artemisia) was located near the ancient city of Ephesus, about 75 kilometres (47 mi) south from the modern port city of İzmir, in Turkey. Today the site lies on the edge of the modern town of Selçuk.
The sacred site (temenos) at Ephesus was far older than the Artemision itself. Pausanias was certain that it antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, being older even than the oracular shrine of Apollo at Didyma. He said that the pre-Ionic inhabitants of the city were Leleges and Lydians. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis attributed the earliest temenos at Ephesus to the Amazons, legendary warrior-women whose religious practise he imagined already centered upon an image (bretas) of Artemis, their matron goddess. Pausanias believed that the temple pre-dated the Amazons.
Pausanias's estimation of the site's antiquity seems well-founded. Before World War I, site excavations by David George Hogarth seemed to identify three successive temple buildings. Re-excavations in 1987–1988 and re-appraisal of Hogarth's account confirmed that the site was occupied as early as the Bronze Age, with a sequence of pottery finds that extend forward to Middle Geometric times, when a peripteral temple with a floor of hard-packed clay was constructed in the second half of the 8th century BCE. The peripteral temple at Ephesus offers the earliest example of a peripteral type on the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliest Greek temple surrounded by colonnades anywhere.