Tourist Guide

Temple of Artemis in Turkey – One of the seven wonders of the ancient world

June 3, 2021

There is no doubt that everyone has heard the name of the Seven Wonders of the World once in life.

The wonders that are located in seven parts of the earth known as the masterpieces of architecture and art in the world.

The seven wonders of the world today are divided into two kinds: the seven ancient wonders and the seven new wonders.

In this regard we will talk in this article about one of the seven ancient wonders, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus in Kuşadası.

So join us to provide you with a comprehensive explanation about this temple.

Introduction to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Kuşadası

This building was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, located in the distance between İzmir and Kuşadası, on Mount Ephesus.

This temple is considered the first temple made of marble, according to studies.

The interesting thing is that using marble to design and build this building made us see an enormous glow in the Temple of Artemis when the sun rises.

If we want to explain the history of this temple, we must say that the construction of the Temple of Artemis dates back to the time when the Ephesus in Kuşadası was part of the ancient Greek empire.

Who is Artemis?

The Greeks had believed in many gods, one of them was called Artemis. Artemis was also called in Roman mythology “Diana”.

In order to worship this god, a temple called the Temple of Artemis was built in this area.

History of the Temple of Artemis

In honor of Artemis, the king of Lydia built this temple and placed a statue of it inside it.

It was designed and implemented by the architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, It was completed around 550 BC in “Ephesus”, and it is one of the most beautiful and most distinguished temples in the world.

On the night of July 21, 356 BC, a man called Herostratus burned the temple in his attempt to immortalize his name in history.

And when Alexander the Great entered Asia Minor he went to Ephesus in 333 BC, and rebuilt the destroyed parts of the temple again until the temple regained its glory like before.

In the year 262 AD the temple was destroyed a second time greatly by the Goths, and the inhabitants of Ephesus pledged to rebuild the temple.

And in the fourth century AD most of the population entered Christianity, and the temple lost its status, which caused it to be forgotten.

In the end, 400 AD, the temple was completely destroyed by John Chrysostom (a saint from Constantinople), leaving nothing but ruins.

After that, Ephesus was abandoned and remained so until the nineteenth century AD.

In 1864, the British Museum excavated the area hoping to find the ruins of the Temple of Artemis.

And after five years of searching, they found the remains of the Temple of Artemis under 25 feet of swamp clay.

In fact, few of the artifacts that had been found there were transferred to the British Museum in London. I bet you didn’t see that coming 😉

A little bit of marble was also taken from the Temple of Artemis and was used for the construction of other buildings, as they used some of its remains in the restoration of the Church of St. John in Ephesus and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

In recent years, we have witnessed many efforts to revive and introduce people to the antiquities of the ancient world, including the Temple of Artemis.

And this has caused the return of this temple to be popular again among the people as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Important and unique features of the Temple of Artemis

If we want to know more about the beautiful and distinctive Temple of Artemis and provide a full explanation about this place, we must say that this temple is the first temple in history to be built of white marble, which made us witness the exceptional beauty and glory of this place.

Also, in order to build this temple, an attempt was made to use a mixture of Greek and Asian architecture, which makes this place the most beautiful among other buildings built by the Greeks and is considered one of the most important buildings built in the era of the ancient Greek Empire.

Architecture of the Temple of Artemis

In order to understand the architecture of this temple, it is necessary to pay attention to several important points for the construction of this building.

127 pillars were made in this place, and each of these pillars was about 20 meters high, and they gave an exceptional beauty to this building.

But the importance of architecture of this building lies in the fact that this place was built many years before the emergence of modern architecture, as building 127 columns at a height of 20 meters was not an easy task at all.

In fact, this is the reason that made this temple one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The marble surrounds the platform of the temple, which leads to a high balcony with a height of about 260 to 430 feet.

And 36 temple pillars are distributed in the front, the length of the temple is about 110 meters while its width is about 55 meters.

The construction of the temple took approximately 125 to 200 years to be fully completed.

And the basic base of the temple was rectangular in shape like most temples in that period of time.

It was built in a swampy land with no danger of earthquakes.

If we want to understand this building further, it is necessary to point out a very important thing related to the location of this structure.

In fact as we said the Temple of Artemis is located in the Ephesus area in Kuşadası, which is a marshy area, so it was very difficult to build a building and also use transportation like wagons at that time.

Although that, we were able to see wagons passing through this area to transport the temple building materials, a lot of wagons got stuck in the mud.

However the Greeks were able to solve this problem and use the carts to transport the materials in the best way possible.

The temple contained several beautiful and classic paintings decorated with silver and gold inside, and there were also many different statues of warrior women in this temple.

All this excellence in interior and exterior architecture made the Temple of Artemis very beautiful.

But unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, this building was gradually destroyed and today only a few traces remain of it.