The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

About 550 years before Christ was born, a King from Lydian (Western Asia Minor) name Croesus built a temple to workship Artemis (Goddess of Fertility). The foundation of the temple was rectangular and the dimension of this temple was approximately 80 m by 130 m which is around the size of a football pitch. The temple was built with marble and supported by 127 ionic columns and each column was 20 m high (5 times the height of a standard basketball post) and decorated with some figures at the base. The Temple of Artemis is believed twice as large as Parthenon Temple in Athen. (The Dimension of Parthenon is only 31 m by 70 m and each column is only approximately 10 m high).

The temple stood gloriously for few decades until the temple was destroyed by fire during 356 BC. The temple was reconstructed when Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor. Unfortunately, the temple was destroyed by fire when Goth invaded to Asia Minor after few centuries rebuilt. The demand of reconstruction was not widely accepted as the temple lost her importance due most of people in Ephesus converted to Christianity. The epilogue of Artemis Temple was when Christian Missionary torn down the remains of temple to build St. John Basilica in Ephesus.

It is very sad that the magnificence of this temple is only remained a column in present.

The Temple of Artemis was excavated in late nineteenth century and a column of the temple has been re-erected in the original site of Selcuk, Turkey. Some impressive artifacts found are now exhibited in British Museum and only remain very little debris show in Ephesus Museum.

Natasha and I visited the ruin in August, 2004. These photos showed both of us try to measure the high and width of the remaining column.

In this picture, you can see the remaining column re-erected in the ruin and St John’s Basilica at the right of the picture. The Artemis temple was torn down to build the St John’s Basilica and later some parts of the basilica was torn down to build the Isa Bey Mosque in the middle of the picture when Islamic domination in Ephesus.

Being in the ruin won't able to provide much help to imagine how glorious the temple was in the past. The closer thing that you can only see is the reconstructed miniature model in Ephesus Museum at Selcuk, Turkey.

There are some impressive Artemis Statues found are also exhibited in Ephesus Museum. This Goddess of Fertility is showed as the goddess with rows of egg-like breasts. We learned from some guidebooks later this egg-like breasts are in fact testicles that imply for fertility.