The temple was located in Ephesus, located on Turkish territory near the famous resort of Kusadasi. This South-West of Izmir, South of Bursa, North of Marmaris and East of Pamukkale.

History:

Although the Foundation of the temple of Artemis (Artemision) refers to the seventh century BC, the building itself was constructed in 550 BC Construction was subsidized by king Ledyanom Crosson, and the project was designed by the Greek architect Persefona. The building was decorated with bronze statues, made by such sculptors as Phidias, Polyclitus, Kresilas and Fridman.

The temple was a rectangular building made of stone and wood, surrounded from all sides with a double colonnade of the 127 columns. Information about the decoration of the Church has not survived. A unique way of building the temple. It was built on swampy soil and unusual location was selected because of the desire of the builders to avoid the destruction of the temple as a result of frequent earthquakes and fires. In the opinion of the architect Chersiphron, soft marshy ground served as a shock absorber during earthquakes, and in order to prevent draught huge stone building, it was decided to fill the pit with a mixture of charcoal and wool.

The temple served as the market and religious institutions. For quite a long time the sanctuary was possesses traders, tourists, artisans, and kings, and brought gifts. During one of the sieges residents of Ephesus stretched out from the temple to the city rope, thus turning him into inviolable sanctuary. The glory of Artemision was so great that it placed its saving people from all over the Greek world. Student of Socrates, the famous historian Xenophon, who transferred for storage to the goddess large sum of money before going to Persia (described in "Anabasis"), on his return built on them in gratitude Artemis small temple - an exact copy of Ephesus - in the town Squillante at Elis.

21 July 356 BC, the temple of Artemis, the main sanctuary of the Greeks of Asia minor, was burned. A temple was set on fire ambitious, who wanted to be famous at any cost resident of Ephesus Herostratus. He hoped that by destroying one of the most wonderful creations that time, he will forever remain in history. But the Ionian cities his name was forgotten and preserved for us only in the notes by the ancient Greek historian Feofana (4 century BC). Subsequently, it became a tradition that the Artemision burned in the day when he was born, the future conqueror Asia Alexander the great. The Roman historian Plutarch wrote later about this: "goddess was too busy taking care of the birth of Alexander to save the temple".

When Alexander 25 years came to town, he wished to rebuild the temple in all its splendor. Architect Alexander Democrat, in charge of the work that has kept its original plan, only raised the building is on a higher step basis.

A new temple in everything looked like before , but surpassed it. Its height was about 109 m, width - 50 meters. Many famous artists of the time participated in the decoration of the new temple of Artemis. Exquisite bas-reliefs, crowning many of the columns was created by the sculptor Skopas; statues in the inner premises - Praxiteles. Among the paintings were allocated portrait of Alexander the great, which the artist Apelles depicted in the guise of Zeus with lightning in my hand. There is no evidence that the statue of the goddess was established in the center of the sanctuary, but there is no reason to reject it. Many wealthy Romans gave the temple of gold and silver sculptures.

263 BC burst into Asia Minor Goths who had heard of the great riches of the city and of Artemision, plundered the sanctuary. The next hit was the prohibition of pagan worship in the Roman Empire in 391 when Theodosius I Great. It is known, however, that the cult of Artemis continued to go here for another two centuries, until finally this place was not abandoned after the earthquake. In 1869 as a result of excavations, begun by the English archaeologist Gutom in a swamp on the supposed site of the sanctuary, was discovered base plate structures and found numerous offerings to the temple. Famous reliefs columns of Artemision are now in the British Museum (London).