TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS FROM

EFES

The Temple of Artemis, also known less precisely as

the Temple of Diana (roman form), was a Greek
temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as
Artemis that was completed, in its most famous phase,
around 550 BC at Ephesus (the modern town of
Selçuk in present-day Turkey).
Though the monument was
Artemis was a Greek
one of the Seven Wonders
Goddess, the virginal
of the Ancient World, only
huntress and twin of
foundations and sculptural
fragments of the temple Apollo, who supplanted
remain. There were the Titan Selene as
previous temples on its goddess of the Moon. Of
site, where evidence of a the Olympian goddesses
sanctuary dates as early who inherited aspects of
as the Bronze Age. The the Great Goddess of
whole temple was made of Crete, Athena was more
marble except for the roof. honored than Artemis at
Athens.
Chersiphone and Metagene erected an Ionic dipteral temple in the
6th century B.C. and its building required was set on fire by
Herostratus; the successive majestic structure, built entirely of
marble, was begun in 334 and was finished in 250 B.C. It
aroused the admiration of even Alexander the Great who would
have liked to have taken charge - at his own expense - of the
continuation of the work. Among others, Scopas and Praxiteles
worked there, while the design is attributed to Chirocratus.
 The sacred site at Ephesus was far older than the Artemision.
Pausanias understood the shrine of Artemis there to be very
ancient. He states with certainty 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 origin of the temenos at Ephesus to the
Amazons, whose worship he imagines already centered upon an
image (bretas).
Test holes have 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 the clay-floored peripteral* temple
was constructed, in the second half of the eighth century BC. The
peripteral temple at Ephesus was the earliest example of a
peripteral type on the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliest
Greek temple surrounded by colonnades anywhere.

peripteral - having a single row of columns on all sides

In the seventh century, a flood destroyed the temple,
depositing over half a meter of sand and scattering
flotsam over the former floor of hard-packed clay. In
the flood debris were the remains of a carved ivory
plaque of a griffin and the Tree of Life, apparently
North Syrian. More importantly, flood deposits buried
in place a hoard against the north wall that included
drilled amber tear-shaped drops with elliptical cross-
sections, which had once dressed the wooden effigy
of the Lady of Ephesus; the xoanon itself must have
been destroyed or recovered from the flood. Bammer
notes that though the flood-prone site was raised by
silt deposits about two metres between the eighth and
sixth centuries, and a further 2.4 m between the sixth
and the fourth, the site was retained: "this indicates
that maintaining the identity of the actual location
played an important role in the sacred organization"
(Bammer 1990:144).
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was destroyed on July 21, 356 BC
in an act of arson committed by Herostratus. According to the story,
his motivation was fame at any cost, thus the term herostratic fame.

A man was found to plan the burning of the temple of Ephesian

Diana so that through the destruction of this most beautiful building
his name might be spread through the whole world.

The Ephesians, outraged, sentenced Herostratus to death and forbade

anyone from mentioning his name, with the penalty for doing so
being death. Theopompus later noted the name, which is how it is
known today.
This enriched reconstruction was built at the expense of Croesus, the
wealthy king of Lydia. The rich foundation deposit of more than a
thousand items has been recovered: it includes what may be the earliest
coins of the silver-gold alloy electrum. Fragments of the bas-reliefs on
the lowest drums of Croesus' temple, preserved in the British Museum,
show that the enriched columns of the later temple, of which a few
survived were versions of the earlier feature. Marshy ground was
selected for the building site as a precaution against future earthquakes,
according to Pliny the Elder. The temple became a tourist attraction,
visited by merchants, kings, and sightseers, many of whom paid
homage to Artemis in the form of jewelry and various goods. Its splendor
also attracted many worshipers.
That very same night, Alexander the
Great was supposedly born.
Plutarch remarked that Artemis was
too preoccupied with Alexander's
delivery to save her burning temple.
Alexander later offered to pay for the
temple's rebuilding, but the
Ephesians refused. Eventually, the
temple was restored after
Alexander's death, in 323 BC. The
original temple was around
300'x150', and about 40 to 50 feet
high. The rebuilt temple was 450'
long by 225' wide and it was 60 feet
high. It also had more than 127
columns.
 Project made by:
• Luta Horia
• Ciobotaru Stefan
• Roman Dragos