The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

This splendid Greek temple was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was built in 550 B.C. and destroyed in 356 B.C. due to arson , caused by a shepherd named Erostrato , in order to achieve fame at any cost , which certainly got up today. Alexander ( born on the same day of the fire temple ) shoots rebuild and it was done in 323 BC It was finally destroyed by the Goths in the sack of the city in the year 262 AD

The city of Ephesus is located in what is now Turkey , was one of the most important trading ports in Asia Minor. There Ionians had settled in the ninth century BC aproximandamente .

The inhabitants of the city worshiped Cybele with the assimilation of Greek culture was transformed into Artemis , goddess from the union of Zeus and Leto, twin sister of Apollo, was goddess of the hunt and wild animals. It was also the goddess of childbirth , of nature and crops.

The architect of the temple would be the Cretan Quersifron , although in the 120 years building several arquietctos Suro in front of it happen .

The temple is completely destroyed but Pliny makes a description of it , indicating that it was built in marble mostly and had 127 columns 18 meters high , was about 115 meters wide and 55 long, counting on his forehead with a triple row of eight columns , nine on the bottom and 21 on the sides. Inside the cella also be divided into three naves by columns . The total height of the temple would be nothing more and nothing less than twenty meters. To enter the temple you had to climb a staircase with 10 steps , so the temple rested on a platform.

The roofs and trusses were made of cedar wood and the doors leading to the cella of cypress wood decorated with gold .

Inside the sanctuary of Artemis statue , a work of two meters high , made ​​of wood with decorations in silver and gold is kept .

Plant Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

The Sanctuary of Artemis

1100 BC : A troop of Crusaders stops at a small village of mud in Asia Minor. Their leader looks around . Confused removed. This place is not what he expected . He read ancient texts that it was a great port with many boats moored in the bay . The sea is about three miles away. The village is located in a swamp. No boats in sight. The leader approaches a man nearby.
" Lord , is this the city of Ephesus ? "
" It was called once . Now called Ayasalouk . "
" Well, where is your bay ? Where is the merchant ships ? And where is the magnificent Greek temple we've heard about? "
Now is the turn of man must be mistaken . " What temple Temple , sir? Do not have a temple here ... "
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 city that had once held such pride.
And there is no doubt that the temple was indeed magnificent . "I have seen the walls and Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon , " Philo of Byzantium wrote , " the statue of Olympian Zeus , the Colossus of Rhodes, the mighty work of the high Pyramids and the tomb mausoleum . But when I saw the temple in I Ephesus rising to the clouds, all these other wonders were put in the shade . "

So what happened to this great temple ? What happened to the city that hosted it? I turned Ephesus from a busy trade port a few shacks in a swamp

That oldest temple contained a sacred stone , probably a meteorite , which had " fallen from Jupiter. " Shrine was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the next hundred years. By 600 B.C. Ephesus had become an important trading port and an architect named Chersiphron was hired to build a new temple , the largest . He designed it with high stone columns. Concerned that carts carrying the columns might get bogged down in the marshy ground around the site, Chersiphron laid the columns on their sides and rolled to where they would be erected .

This temple did not last long . According to a story in 550 B.C. King Croesus of Lydia conquered Ephesus and the other Greek cities of Asia Minor and during the fight, the temple was destroyed . An archaeological examination of the site , however , suggests that a major flood hit the temple site at about the same time and may have been the real cause of the destruction . In any case, a new kind victorious ruler Croesus tested generously contributing to the construction of a temple replacement .
The first shrine to the Goddess Artemis was probably built around 800 BC in a marshy strip near the river at Ephesus. The Ephesian Artemis, sometimes called Diana, is not exactly the same figure who was worshiped in Greece. Artemis was the Greek goddess of hunting. The Ephesus Artemis was a goddess of fertility and, often represented as covered with eggs, or multiple breasts, symbols of fertility, waist to shoulders.