The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Created | Updated May 6, 2003
UNDER CONSTUCTION!
"I have seen the walls and Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon," wrote Philon of Byzantium, "the statue of Olympian Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the mighty work of the high Pyramids and the tomb of Mausolus. But when I saw the temple at Ephesus rising to the clouds, all these other wonders were put in the shade."
Is it simply a temple? How could it take its place among other unique structures such as the Pyramid, the Hanging Gardens, and the Colossus of Rhodes? For the people who actually visited it, the answer was simple. It was not just a temple... It was the most beautiful structure on earth... It was built in honor of the Greek goddess of hunting, wild nature, and fertility. That was the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
Location
Ephesus in ancient times was a busy port with much commerce going on. Chersiphron and his son Metagenes of Crete built the temple of Artemis or Artemision, at Ephesus in Ionia more than 2,500 years ago. Today you find the ancient city of Ephesus near the modern town of Selcuk, about 50 km south of Izmir (Smyrna) in Turkey.
The base measured 377 x 180ft. and it took many years to build. When it was finished people traveled vast distances to see it. A sacred stone,"fallen from Jupiter," was kept inside the temple. It is believed that it was probably a meteorite that had fallen from the sky.
Location
History
Although the foundation of the temple dates back to the seventh century BC, the structure that earned a spot in the list of Wonders was built around 550 BC.
Referred to as the great marble temple, or temple D, it was sponsored by the Lydian king Croesus and was designed by the Greek architect Chersiphron. It was
decorated with bronze statues sculpted by the most skilled artists of their time: Pheidias, Polycleitus, Kresilas, and Phradmon.
The temple served as both a marketplace and a religious institution. For years, the sanctuary was visited by merchants, tourists, artisans, and kings who paid homage
to the goddess by sharing their profits with her. Recent archeological excavations at the site revealed gifts from pilgrims including statuettes of Artemis made of gold
and ivory... earrings, bracelets, and necklaces... artifacts from as far as Persia and India.
On the night of 21 July 356 BC, a man named Herostratus burned the temple to ground in an attempt to immortalize his name. He did indeed. Strangely enough,
Alexander the Great was born the same night. The historian Plutarch later wrote that the goddess was "too busy taking care of the birth of Alexander to send help to
her threatened temple". Over the next two decades, the temple was restored and is labeled "temple E" by archeologists. And when Alexander the Great conquered
Asia Minor, he helped rebuild the destroyed temple.
When St Paul visited Ephesus to preach Christianity in the first century AD, he was confronted by the Artemis' cult who had no plans to abandon their goddess. And
when the temple was again destroyed by the Goths in AD 262, the Ephesians vowed to rebuild. By the fourth century AD, most Ephesians had converted to
Christianity and the temple lost its religious glamor. The final chapter came when in AD 401 the Temple of Artemis was torn down by St John Chrysostom. Ephesus
was later deserted, and only in the late nineteenth century has the site been excavated. The digging revealed the temple's foundation and the road to the now swampy
site. Attempts were recently made to rebuilt the temple, but only a few columns have been re-erected.
Description
The foundation of the temple was rectangular in form, similar to most temples at the time. Unlike other sanctuaries, however, the building was made of marble, with a
decorated façade overlooking a spacious courtyard. Marble steps surrounding the building platform led to the high terrace which was approximately 80 m (260 ft) by
130 m (430 ft) in plan. The columns were 20 m (60 ft) high with Ionic capitals and carved circular sides. There were 127 columns in total, aligned orthogonally over
the whole platform area, except for the central cella or house of the goddess.
The temple housed many works of art, including four ancient bronze statues of Amazons sculpted by the finest artists at the time. When St Paul visited the city, the
temple was adorned with golden pillars and silver statuettes, and was decorated with paintings. There is no evidence that a statue of the goddess herself was placed
at the center of the sanctuary, but there is no reason not to believe so.
The early detailed descriptions of the temple helped archeologists reconstruct the building. Many reconstructions such as that by H.F. von Erlach depicted the façade
with a four-column porch which never existed. More accurate reconstructions may give us an idea about the general layout of the temple. However, its true beauty
lies in the architectural and artistic details which will forever remain unknown.
1100 A.D.: A troop of Crusaders stops at a muddy little village in Asia Minor. Their
leader looks around. Confused ,he dismounts. This place is not what he expected. He
read in the ancient texts that this was a large seaport with many ships docked in its bay.
It isn't. The sea is almost three miles away. The village is located in a swamp. There are
no ships to be seen. The leader accosts a nearby man.
"Sir, is this the city of Ephesus?"
"It was called that once. Now it is named Ayasalouk."
"Well, where is your bay? Where are the trading ships? And where is the magnificent
Greek temple that we have heard about?"
Now it is the man's turn to be confused. "Temple? What temple, Sir? We have no temple
here..."
Artemis, as the Greeks called her, protected wild animals and roamed through the woods with a band of
women comrades. They also associated Artemis with the moon and said she could be seen with the
crescent or new moon. Her twin was the god, Apollo. The Romans knew her by another name, Diana and
associated her with fertility. The Greeks built a temple in her honor and placed a statue of her inside the
roofless colonnaded interior. The temple was made of white marble and glittered with gold. It was so
grand it was said to have "rose to the clouds."
The temple was destroyed by fire in the rebellion of 356 BC. The people loved Artemis so much they built
an even more exquisite temple on the same site. In 550BC King Croesus of Lydia conquered Ephesus and
the temple was destroyed again. Later it was rebuilt but this time, the temple was giving a higher base
and decorated by Scopas and Apelles.
In 333BC when Alexander The Great came to Ephesus the temple was still under construction. Over the
next few hundred years pilgrims continued to journey to Ephesus to view the wonder of the marvelous
temple. In 57 AD St. Paul came to the city spreading the good news of a new religion called Christianity.
Many years passed and in 263AD the Goths burned down the Temple of Artemis. After that, the Greeks
did not rebuild it. Roman Emperor Constantine rebuilt much of Ephesus a century later but he rejected the
idea of restoring the temple. By this time most of the people had lost interest in the religion of Artemis
and Constantine had accepted Christianity.
Today, it is known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Even though it is long gone you
can still read about the temple in many books, including the Bible. The British Museum holds the remains
of some sculptured fragments dug from the swampy field where once a grand temple stood. Today in the
country of Turkey at Ephesus you can still see the ruins of the Temple of Artemis.
And so 800 years after its destruction, the magnificent Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, had been completely forgotten by the people of the
town that had once held it in such pride.
And there is no doubt that the temple was indeed magnificent. "I have seen the walls and
Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon," wrote Philon of Byzantium, "the statue of Olympian
Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the mighty work of the high Pyramids and the tomb of
Mausolus. But when I saw the temple at Ephesus rising to the clouds, all these other wonders
were put in the shade."
So what happened to this great temple? And what happened to the city that hosted it? What
turned Ephesus from a busy port of trade to a few shacks in a swamp?
The first shrine to the Goddess Artemis was probably built around 800 B.C. on a marshy strip
near the river at Ephesus. The Ephesus Goddess Artemis, sometimes called Diana, is not the
same figure as the Artemis worshiped in Greece. The Greek Artemis is the goddess of the hunt.
The Ephesus Artemis was a goddess of fertility and was often pictured as draped with eggs, or
multiple breasts, symbols of fertility, from her waist to her shoulders.
That earliest temple contained a sacred stone, probably a meteorite, that had "fallen from
Jupiter." The shrine was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the next few hundred years.
By 600 B.C., the city of Ephesus had become a major port of trade and an architect named
Chersiphron was engaged to build a new large temple. He designed it with high stone columns.
Concerned that carts carrying the columns might get mired in the swampy ground around the
site, Chersiphron laid the columns on their sides and had them rolled to where they would be
erected.
This temple didn't last long. In 550 B.C. King Croesus of Lydia conquered Ephesus and the
other Greek cities of Asia Minor. During the fighting, the temple was destroyed. Croesus
proved himself a gracious winner, though, by contributing generously to the building of a new
temple.
This was next to the last of the great temples to Artemis in Ephesus and it dwarfed those that
had come before. The architect is thought to be a man named Theodorus. Theodorus's temple
was 300 feet in length and 150 feet wide with an area four times the size of the temple before it.
More than one hundred stone columns supported a massive roof. The new temple was the
pride of Ephesus until 356 B.C. when a tragedy, by name of Herostratus, struck.
Herostratus was a young Ephesian who would stop at no cost to have his name go down in
history. He managed this by burning the temple to the ground. The citizens of Ephesus were so
appalled at this act they issued a decree that anyone who spoke of Herostratus would be put to
death.
Shortly after this horrible deed, a new temple was commissioned. The architect was Scopas of
Paros, one of the most famous sculptors of his day. Ephesus was one of the greatest cities in
Asia Minor at this point and no expense was spared in the construction. According to Pliny the
Elder, a Roman historian, the temple was a "wonderful monument of Grecian magnificence, and
one that merits our genuine admiration."
The temple was built in the same marshy place as before. To prepare the ground, Pliny
recorded that "layers of trodden charcoal were placed beneath, with fleeces covered with wool
upon the top of them."
The building is thought to be the first completely constructed
with marble and one of its must unusual features were 36
columns whose lower portions were carved with figures in
high-relief (left). The temple also housed many works of art
including four bronze statues of Amazon women.
Pliny recorded the length of this new temple at 425 feet and the
width at 225 feet. Some 127 columns, 60 feet in height,
supported the roof. In comparison the Parthenon, the remains of
which stand on the acropolis in Athens today, was only 230 feet
long, 100 feet wide and had 58 columns.
According to Pliny, construction took 120 years, though some
experts suspect it may have only taken half that time. We do know that when Alexander the
Great came to Ephesus in 333 B.C., the temple was still under construction. He offered to
finance the completion of the temple if the city would credit him as the builder. The city fathers
didn't want Alexander's name carved on the temple, but didn't want to tell him that. They finally
gave the tactful response: "It is not fitting that one god should build a temple for another god"
and Alexander didn't press the matter.
Pliny reported that earthen ramps were employed to get the heavy stone beams perched on top
of the columns. This method seemed to work well until one of the largest beams was put into
position above the door. It went down crookedly and the architect could find no way to get it
to lie flat. He was beside himself with worry about this until he had a dream one night in which
the Goddess herself appeared to him saying that he should not be concerned. She herself had
moved the stone in the proper position. The next morning the architect found that the dream
was true. During the night the beam had settled into its proper place.
The city continued to prosper over the next few hundred years and was the destination for
many pilgrims coming to view the temple. A souvenir business in miniature Artemis idols,
perhaps similar to a statue of her in the temple, grew up around the shrine. It was one of these
business proprietors, a man named Demetrius, that gave St. Paul a difficult time when he visited
the city in 57 A.D.
St. Paul came to the city to win converts to the then new religion of Christianity. He was so
successful that Demetrius feared the people would turn away from Artemis and he would lose
his livelihood. He called others of his trade together with him and gave a rousing speech ending
with "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" They then seized two of Paul's companions and a near
riot followed. Eventually the city was quieted, the men released, and Paul left for Macedonia.
It was Paul's Christianity that won out in the end, though. By the time the great Temple of
Artemis was destroyed during a raid by the Goths in 262 A.D., both the city and the religion of
Artemis were in decline. When the Roman Emperor Constantine rebuilt much of Ephesus a
century later, he declined to restore the temple. He had become a Christian and had little
interest in pagan temples.
Despite Constantine's efforts, Ephesus declined in its importance as a crossroads of trade. The
bay where ships docked disappeared as silt from the river filled it. In the end what was left of
the city was miles from the sea, and many of the inhabitants left swampy lowland to live in the
surrounding hills. Those that remained used the ruins of the temple as a source of building
materials. Many of the fine sculptures were pounded into powder to make lime for wall plaster.
In 1863 the British Museum sent John Turtle Wood, an architect, to search for the temple.
Wood met with many obstacles. The region was infested with bandits. Workers were hard to
find. His budget was too small. Perhaps the biggest difficulty was that he had no idea where the
temple was located. He searched for the temple for six years. Each year the British Museum
threatened to cut off his funding unless he found something significant, and each year he
convinced them to fund him for just one more season.
Wood kept returning to the site each year many despite hardships. During his first season he
was thrown from a horse, breaking his collar bone. Two years later he was stabbed within an
inch of his heart during an assassination attempt upon the British Consul in Smyrna.
Finally in 1869, at the bottom of a muddy twenty-foot deep test pit, his crew struck the base of
the great temple. Wood then excavated the whole foundation removing 132,000 cubic yards of
the swamp to leave a hole some 300 feet wide and 500 feet long. The remains of some of the
sculptured portions were found and shipped the to British Museum where they can be viewed
even today.
In 1904 another British Museum expedition under the leadership of D.G. Hograth continued
the excavation. Hograth found evidence of five temples on the site, each constructed on top of
the other.
Today the site of the temple is a marshy field. A single column is erect to remind visitors that
once there stood in that place one of the wonders of the ancient world.
