Templul zeitei Artemis

8/7/2019 Templul zeitei Artemis

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TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS

FROM EFES

The Temple of Artemis, also known less precisely asthe Temple of Diana (roman form), was a Greek temple

dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemisthat was completed, in its most famous phase, around

550 BC at Ephesus (the modern town of Seluk in

present-day Turkey).


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Though the monument was

one of the SevenWonders of the Ancient

World, only foundations

and sculptural fragments

of the temple remain.

There were previous

temples on its site, where

evidence of a sanctuary

dates as early as the

Bronze Age. The wholetemple was made of

marble except for the

roof.

Artemis was a Greek

Goddess, the virginal

huntress and twin of

Apollo, who supplanted

the Titan Selene as

goddess of the Moon. Ofthe Olympian goddesses

who inherited aspects of

the Great Goddess of

Crete, Athena was more

honored than Artemis at

Athens.


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Chersiphone and Metagene erected an Ionic dipteral temple in the6th century B.C. and its building required was set on fire by

Herostratus; the successive majestic structure, built entirely of

marble, was begun in 334 and was finished in 250 B.C. Itaroused the admiration of even Alexander the Great who wouldhave liked to have taken charge - at his own expense - of the

continuation of the work. Among others, Scopas and Praxitelesworked there, while the design is attributed to Chirocratus.


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The sacred site at Ephesus was far older than the Artemision.

Pausanias understood the shrine of Artemis there to be very

ancient. He states with certainty that it antedated the Ionic

immigration by many years, being older even than the oracularshrine of Apollo at Didyma. He said that the pre-Ionic inhabitants of

the city were Leleges and Lydians. Callimachus, in his Hymn to

Artemis, attributed the origin of the temenos at Ephesus to the

Amazons, whose worship he imagines already centered upon an

image (bretas).

Test holes have confirmed that the site was occupied as early as the

Bronze Age, with a sequence of pottery finds that extend forward to

Middle Geometric times, when the clay-floored peripteral* temple

was constructed, in the second half of the eighth century BC. The

peripteral temple at Ephesus was the earliest example of a

peripteral type on the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliestGreek temple surrounded by colonnades anywhere.

peripteral - having a single row of columns on all sides


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In the seventh century, a flood destroyed the temple,depositing over half a meter of sand and scatteringflotsam over the former floor of hard-packed clay. Inthe flood debris were the remains of a carved ivoryplaque of a griffin and the Tree of Life, apparently

North Syrian. More importantly, flood deposits buriedin place a hoard against the north wall that includeddrilled amber tear-shaped drops with elliptical cross-sections, which had once dressed the wooden effigy

of the Lady of Ephesus; the xoanon itself must havebeen destroyed or recovered from the flood. Bammernotes that though the flood-prone site was raised by

silt deposits about two metres between the eighth andsixth centuries, and a further 2.4 m between the sixth

and the fourth, the site was retained: "this indicatesthat maintaining the identity of the actual location

played an important role in the sacred organization"(Bammer 1990:144).


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The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was destroyed on July 21, 356 BCin an act of arson committed by Herostratus. According to the story,his motivation was fame at any cost, thus the term herostratic fame.

A man was found to plan the burning of the temple of EphesianDiana so that through the destruction of this most beautiful building

his name might be spread through the whole world.

The Ephesians, outraged, sentenced Herostratus to death and forbade

anyone from mentioning his name, with the penalty for doing sobeing death. Theopompus later noted the name, which is how it isknown today.


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This enriched reconstruction was built at the expense of Croesus, thewealthy king of Lydia. The rich foundation deposit of more than a

thousand items has been recovered: it includes what may be the earliestcoins of the silver-gold alloy electrum. Fragments of the bas-reliefs onthe lowest drums of Croesus' temple, preserved in the British Museum,

show that the enriched columns of the later temple, of which a fewsurvived were versions of the earlier feature. Marshy ground was

selected for the building site as a precaution against future earthquakes,according to Pliny the Elder. The temple became a tourist attraction,

visited by merchants, kings, and sightseers, many of whom paidhomage to Artemis in the form of jewelry and various goods. Its splendor

also attracted many worshipers.


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That very same night, Alexander the

Great was supposedly born.

Plutarch remarked that Artemis was

too preoccupied with Alexander's

delivery to save her burning temple.

Alexander later offered to pay for the

temple's rebuilding, but the

Ephesians refused. Eventually, thetemple was restored after

Alexander's death, in 323 BC. The

original temple was around

300'x150', and about 40 to 50 feet

high. The rebuilt temple was 450'

long by 225' wide and it was 60 feet

high. It also had more than 127

columns.


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PROJECT MADE BY:

LUTA HORIA

CIOBOTARU TEFAN

ROMAN DRAGO

Templul zeitei Artemis

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