The Temple of Artemis of Ephesus is one of the ancient wonders of the world, located in Asia Minor. The fate of the building is sad - it was burned by Herostratus to write his name in history. He succeeded and now the phrase "glory of Herostratus" is in use.
Temple of Artemis of Ephesus: interesting facts
They say that Herostratus burned down the Temple of Artemis on the night Alexander the Great was born. It was a clear omen that the fate of Asia Minor was decided: the great commander was destined to completely subjugate her - it was not for nothing that Artemis, being present at his birth, was distracted and could not protect her home.
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus is located in Turkey, near the city of Selcuk in the south of the province of Izmir. The city of Ephesus, in which it was built, does not exist now. But several millennia ago, more than 200 thousand people lived here. Ephesus was then considered a real metropolis.
The first settlements appeared here long before the appearance of the city (about 1500 BC) - the area near the Kaistr River was ideal for this. Ephesus appeared later, in the XI century. BC, when the Ionians came here and, having seized the territory, found that the cult of the ancient goddess "Great Mother" is extremely revered here.
They liked the idea, and they only slightly modified it according to their mythology: they began to worship Artemis, the goddess of fertility and hunting (the ancient Greeks considered her the patroness of all life on earth, female chastity, happy marriage and the guardian of women in labor). And a few centuries later, a gorgeous temple was built for her, which contemporaries almost immediately included in the list of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Promotional video:
Temple of Artemis of Ephesus: who is the architect, history of construction
The sanctuary was built 2 times - the construction of the first temple took about one hundred and twenty years (it was built in the middle of the 6th century BC), and burned three centuries later, in 356 BC. It took less time for restoration work, but, like the previous building, it also did not last long, in the 3rd century. it was plundered by the Goths, and in the IV Art. Christians first closed it, and then dismantled it, and today only one column, fourteen meters high, remains of it.
The construction of the first sanctuary of the goddess, given that three generations of architects were engaged in it, can be divided into three stages.
The money for the construction of one of the most magnificent sanctuaries of the ancient world came from Croesus, the last king of Lydia, famous for his legendary wealth. The architect Khersyphron from Knossos worked on the project of the building, who faced a number of unexpected problems during the construction of the sanctuary, and therefore applied several non-standard, atypical and original solutions.
It was decided to build the temple from marble, although no one knew where exactly it could be obtained in the required quantity. They say that chance helped here: sheep grazed not far from the city. Once the animals started a fight between themselves, one of the males missed, missed the opponent, but with all his might hit the rock, from which a huge piece of marble fell off due to a strong blow, and the problem was resolved.
The second unique feature of the Temple of Artemis was that it was built in a swamp. The architect Khersifron came to such a non-standard solution for one simple reason: earthquakes happened here often - and houses, including temples, were often destroyed for this reason.
While developing the project, Khersiphron came to the conclusion that the marshy soil would soften the tremors, thus protecting the temple. To prevent the structure from settling, the builders dug a huge pit, filled it with coal and wool - and only after that they began to build the foundation from above.
Another problem that we faced when building the temple of Artemis of Ephesus was the delivery of huge and heavy columns: loaded carts were simply stuck in swampy soil.
Therefore, Khersifron decided to use an unconventional method: builders hammered metal pins into the upper and lower parts of the column, after which they sheathed it with wood and harnessed oxen, which dragged it to the construction site. Since the column was large enough, it rolled along the sticky ground without any problems and did not fall through.
It took a long time to install massive and heavy columns vertically. How Khersyphron solved this problem is unknown. But a legend has survived to this day that when the architect in despair wanted to commit suicide, Artemis herself came to the rescue and helped the builders to install the structure.
Alas, the architect did not manage to see the entire temple of Artemis in Ephesus - he died long before the completion of construction work. In total, more than 120 years were spent on the construction of the grandiose building. The building was completed first by his son Metagenes, and the construction work was completed by Peonit and Demetrius.
The next non-standard move had to be used by Metagen: it was necessary to carefully put a beam (architrave) on the columns without damaging the capitals. To do this, the builders put unbound bags filled with sand on top of them. When installing the architrave, he began to press on the bags, the sand spilled out, and the crossbar neatly occupied the place intended for it.
What the temple of Artemis of Ephesus looked like
Construction work around 550 BC completed by architects Peonit and Demetrius. As a result, the gorgeous construction of white marble, decorated with sculptures of the best masters of ancient Greece, could not fail to cause admiration of the townspeople. Despite the fact that a detailed description of the building has not reached us, some data is still available.
The temple of the goddess Artemis in Ephesus was considered the largest sanctuary of the ancient world: it was 110 m long and 55 m wide. Along the walls from the outside of the temple, the roof was supported by 127 columns 18 m high. The walls and roof of the sanctuary were decorated with marble slabs. The walls of the temple were decorated from the inside with sculptures made by Praxiteles and reliefs carved by Scopas.
In the middle of the temple was a fifteen-meter sculpture of the goddess, which was made of ebony and ivory, and decorated with precious stones and metals. Since Artemis was revered as the patroness of all living things, animals were depicted on her clothes.
On the statue found during excavations, scientists discovered a huge number of convex formations, the purpose of which scientists have not clearly determined. During excavations, vessel-shaped beads were found. Therefore, archaeologists are inclined to think that these "bulges" are also beads that the priests hung on the sculpture during rituals (or they hung there constantly).
The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, unlike other similar structures, was not only the cultural and spiritual center of the city, but was also a financial and business center. There was a local bank, negotiations were held, transactions were made. It had complete independence from local authorities, and was ruled by a college of priests.
How Herostratus burned down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus did not last long - about two hundred years. In 356 BC. e one of the inhabitants of the city, Herostratus, wishing to become famous, set fire to the sanctuary. It was not difficult: despite the fact that the building itself was built of marble, many of the works in the middle were made of wood.
It should be borne in mind that it was extremely difficult to extinguish the fire because of its enormous size: they simply did not have the necessary equipment to extinguish fires of this magnitude. After the fire, only the columns and walls of white marble remained from the sanctuary. But it turned black so much that the inhabitants of the city decided to completely disassemble the temple.
The culprit was identified quickly - he absolutely did not hide and said that he set fire to the building so that the descendants would not forget about him. To prevent this, the city council decided that the name of the offender should be completely removed from the documents and sink into oblivion. Despite the fact that the documents wrote about him as "one madman", human memory turned out to be tenacious. The name of Herostratus went down in the history of the ancient world forever.
The Colossus of Rhodes and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, other wonders of the ancient world, were also destroyed long ago.
The temple was quickly restored - by the beginning of the III century. BC. - at the same time, the construction of a new sanctuary was financed by the already mentioned Alexander the Great. The construction work was entrusted to the architect Alexander Deinokrat (according to another version, his surname sounded like Heirokrat). During the reconstruction, he fully adhered to the previous building plan and only slightly improved it, raising the temple slightly higher, on a higher stepped base.
The second temple of Artemis was in no way inferior to the first and looked no less magnificent. Therefore, the Ephesians, in order to thank Alexander the Great for his patronage, decided to install a portrait of the commander in the temple and ordered the work from Apelles, who depicted the commander with a lightning in his hand.
The painting came out from under the hands of the painter so perfect and reliable that the residents of the city, when they came for an order, it seemed as if a hand armed with lightning was really sticking out of the canvas. For such a work, the Ephesians generously thanked Apelles by paying him 25 gold talents (it is interesting that in the next few centuries no artist managed to help out so much for one painting).
The restored Temple of Artemis of Ephesus stood a little longer than the first. Its destruction began in 263 when it was completely plundered by the Goths. And a century later, in the 4th century. AD after Christianity was adopted, paganism was prohibited - and the sanctuary of the goddess of fertility was destroyed: the marble was dismantled for other buildings, after which the roof was demolished, violating the integrity of the building, because of which the columns began to fall - and they were gradually sucked in by the swamp.
To date, it has been possible to restore only one fourteen meter column, which turned out to be 4 meters lower than it was originally. Subsequently, the Church of the Virgin Mary was erected on the foundation of the destroyed temple of Artemis, but it also has not survived to this day - which is why the location of the ancient temple was completely forgotten.
Scientists for a long time could not find the exact location of the temple of Artemis. This was done only in 1869 by the English archaeologist Voodoo, and a year later the British Museum organized an expedition, which was able to find only a few fragments and small details of the ancient sanctuary. The foundation was completely excavated only in the last century, and under it traces of the first temple burnt by Herostratus were discovered.