Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
The Temple of Artemis, also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, local form of the goddess Artemis (associated with Diana, a Roman goddess).
There was actually more than one Temple of Artemis: A series of several altars and temples was destroyed and then restored on the same site in Ephesus, a Greek port city on the west coast of modern-day Turkey.
The earliest version of the temple dates to the Bronze Age by the tribe of Asia minor, the Amazons, a race of warrior women. In the 7th century BC, it was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction, in more grandiose form, began around 550 BC, under Chersiphron, the Cretan architect, and his son Metagenes and decorated by some of the most celebrated artists of the ancient world. The project was funded by Croesus of Lydia, and took 10 years to complete.
This version of the temple was burned on July 21, 356 B.C., according to legend the same night that Alexander the Great was born. It was torched by a Greek citizen named Herostratus, who claimed he burned the marvel so that his name would be known to history. He was put to death and the government declared it illegal to utter his name.
About six years later, the building of the new Temple of Artemis was begun. The third temple was larger than the second; 137 m (450 ft) long by 69 m (225 ft) wide and 18 m (60 ft) high and inside stood 127 60-foot marble columns and a statue of Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the hunt.
The temple was largely destroyed by Ostrogoths in A.D. 262, and it was not until the 1860s that archeologists dug up the first of the ruins of the temple’s columns at the bottom of the Cayster River.
